Man, did that help.

Just by putting words on everything that had been pressing on my mind for the last many weeks felt so incredibly relieving. When I thought about it, it seemed as though there had been no end to the stream of terrible things that had happened around and with us;


It all started with finding out about Niall and Sheila. I had spent the first few weeks feeling depressed, sad and lonely because of that and when he and I finally made up, I was accidentally run over by a car, to then be spending the next 10 days in a hospital. The only good thing that came out of that was that I met the bravest little girl, Cara. Who unfortunately died of anorexia a few weeks later after I’d left her in there.

On top of the heartbreak that followed that was Em’s rape. She had been drugged, raped and violated in the cruelest way and as her friend, I – and all the other people around her – had been affected and worried about her, more than I thought was possible. Or at least that was until Aida and I got to experience her rapists on our own bodies and minds. A terrible night spent at a terrible bar in Camden, surrounded by terrible people had been too much for me, I had been so close to breaking up with Niall, and if it hadn’t been for his great ability to see through my blindness and sorrow, I would have destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to me. Thanks to Niall I was still able to call myself his.

He had been the only, but nonetheless very bright, light shining through all this darkness. I honestly don’t think I would’ve survived all of this if it hadn’t been for him.


To have all these emotions; pain, sorrow, sadness, worry, anger, stress, self-hatred, insecurity stuffed into an already over packed schedule, filled with work, songwriting and the constant need to perform great at our gigs, had resulted in this being the toughest few months of my entire life and the biggest transformation from our quiet lives in the Danish countryside. London had hit us right in the face with this stream of eternal worries that had gotten enhanced by my insecure and self-destructive mind that grew bigger and more forceful every time I had seen a paparazzi photo of me with the girls or the boys, or receiving a nasty comment from one of the, apparently, many many haters that I had.

Bulimia and anti-depressant medicine was still a horrible part of my everyday life, despite my hopes of that a new start in a new place, with a new job, would be the push that I needed to get closer towards getting rid of that disgusting habit.
The fact that my family now also had gotten involved in this hell of nosey fans, made the guilt grow in my stomach as a heavy stone pulling me down more and more.


Just by listening to the soft voice of my dear mother for a few minutes, eased the pain of all those negative feelings in my body and mind and I literally couldn’t wait to sense her full support for a few days next week when I would get to see her.

Yes, going home for a Christmas break was exactly what I needed, and the girls as well.

They’d been going through the same kind of terror as I, the worries had been filling up their tired minds and the same amount of guilt and anger had had its time to grow inside their bodies for what felt like eternity by now.
At this point I thing we all felt – despite our lives in London – like little helpless girls in desperate need for someone to take care of us, just for a little while. Too much had happened in too short a space of time, Danes like us weren’t used to all that action at once.


Despite the action and hysteria following when dating a guy like Niall, he had become my sunshine through the thunderstorm. No matter what, I could always count on his bright eyes and gorgeous laugh, and that Friday morning wasn’t a failure when I received a snap chat from him while I was sitting in the tube on my way to work. He’d taken a picture of his tired morning face. He knew I loved the way his eyes were slightly puffed up in the morning, it made him look – if possible – even cuter than normal. That way his eyes were permanently smiling, even without his mouth moving an inch.


“Can’t wait till Christmas break,” he wrote. I smiled widely and foolishly down at my phone screen before snapping a picture of one of my own goofy faces, where I widened my eyes and sucked in my cheeks slightly, pretty much looking like a fish. The lady sitting across from me in the train frowned at my silly behavior, and I had to look down biting my lip in order not to start laughing.

“Me either!” I replied and immediately received his answer that was as close to an ugly face as Niall could get with the text:

“Gurl, u look damn fine.”

What a lovely way to start the day.



The rest of the day was spent working, packing my stuff to go home in the afternoon, and then playing a concert in the evening. The girls and I went to bed early to get a proper night of beauty sleep – God knows, I needed that – since we would have to get up a bit early Saturday morning to go and have breakfast at Zayn and Perrie’s place, they’d asked us all to join for a small Christmas get-together kind of thing before we would all go home for the next couple of days.
I was so excited about seeing all of them again, especially Niall, and not to mention our first red carpet event tonight, if you didn’t count the small red carpet that had been laid out in front of The Ledbury on Niall and I’s first real date.
I could tell that the girls, even Aida as well, were feeling really nervous about that as well.


Luckily Harry had spent the night at our place, so that we could bring all of our stuff to the boys’ building and this way, we wouldn’t have to travel that far by train to get to the airport tomorrow morning. Plus I was personally not capable of staying away from Niall’s ripped and sexy body, I would desperately be longing for him too much, so we’d decided to spend the night at their building.

Because of having to pay a plane ticket and Christmas gifts for my entire family, Niall and I had agreed on not giving any special gifts to each other, and luckily he hadn’t sounded like it was a problem for him, the last thing I needed was to feel guilty because of my lack of economical possibilities. Having to pay the rent, groceries and bills there weren’t much left as it was and December had turned out to be a bit hard on my budget.


Harry helped us stuff our suitcases in to his big car before heading towards Zayn and Perrie.



I was struggling to lift the heavy weight of all of my shit up the stairs when we arrived there almost thirty minutes later. I felt incredibly grateful that Niall’s apartment was on the first floor and not further up, like Harry’s. Even though he was the one carrying Aida’s stuff. By the time I reached Niall’s door my breathing had enhanced to a rapid speed, but I honestly wasn’t sure whether it was my early morning workout up the stairs or the fact that I would soon get to look in to his eyes again, after one long ass week without him.


The door suddenly flung open the second I mumbled: “Fucking shit fuck,” when I couldn’t get it up the last step, and I was met by the smile that I had been longing for, for what felt like forever.

“You need help with that, love?” he asked in the most gorgeous and seductive way, he looked so god damn handsome today as he stood there in his black skinny jeans, my favorite grey sweater and a pair of white All Stars. I loved the way his hair was still messy and undone after having air dried after he’d showered and the way his lips formed whenever he would say the word “love”.

“Hi Niall,” I sighed suddenly noticing how foolish and dorky I was acting when he started laughing at my pathetic frame and stepping forward to pull me in for a hug, since I somehow had been standing still just gushing at the sight of him. The way his strong arms pressed me by my shoulders tightly against him was such a relief, an even bigger one than when I spoke to my mum. I took a few seconds to only feel him embracing me before I wrapped my arms around his waist as well. I bored my nose in to his chest taking in his lovely fresh scent.

“I’ve missed you,” he breathed in to my hair before placing a kiss on my forehead. I lifted my face to look up at him and to allow him to kiss my lips as well.

The softness and tenderness caused every tiny hair on my body to stand up and the goose bumps to spread out all over it, as his one hand was wrapped around my waist and the other one on my neck tugging lightly at my hair to express the same kind of longing that he’d been feeling as well as I. I took a deep breath in his mouth, I couldn’t help it, it literally was so amazing to feel his touch again.

He lightly pulled me with him away from the doorway and inside his apartment. Without thinking about it I had started tugging at the fabric on his chest and letting my hands travel around his torso feeling his muscles tense underneath the sweater. We were both quickly breathing faster and vigorously pulling each other as close as possible, obviously frustrated with how much we wanted each other but knowing that this weren’t the right time, with a group of people waiting for us upstairs, we would have to wait.

“Fuck,” he breathed as he pulled away, literally pushing himself farer from me with his chest still going up and down. I smirked as he decided to walk back out in the hall to get my suitcase inside his apartment. “We need to get upstairs to the others.”

“I hate Christmas…” I mumbled making him chuckle.



The apartment two floors higher was smelling like heaven on Earth when we entered it a few moments later and I couldn’t help but laugh at Niall as he, almost looking completely intoxicated, pulled me by my hand straight towards the smell coming from the kitchen, where we were met by many people that I’d been looking forward to see as well. I did a round to hug Louis, Eleanor, Zayn, Perrie and Liam who had Em snuggled in underneath his arm around her shoulder, they hadn’t seen each other since last Saturday morning either, so I understood their need to be standing close to each other at that point.

“Merry Christmas!” Perrie smiled when she saw me, she was wearing the cutest red sweater with Rudolf on it, but somehow her dark blonde hair and perfect makeup made the whole look fabulous and not cute and childish like it would’ve appeared on me, for instance.

A few minutes later we all headed towards the dining room that was decorated in the most beautiful way with a huge center piece of a Christmas decoration in the middle of the table and several huge plates of food spread out all over it; pancakes, waffles, toast, English muffins, fruit, yoghurt, eggs and bacon and my stomach started to growl even more than before. We all sat down, me between Niall and Zayn, and immediately dug in. For now I pushed every thought about my weight and diet as far towards the back of my mind as possible and according to Aida’s full plate, she wasn’t going to judge me either.

“Mmmh, this is so good!” Em exclaimed with her mouth full from the other end of the wooden table where she sat next to Liam and Eleanor.

The constant sound of cheerful talking and friends laughing filled the room and made the atmosphere light and comfortable – just like any perfect Christmas would be.


After having eaten enough to make even all of us feel sick to our stomachs – except for Niall of course – we had headed towards the living room where most of us tried to recover from the heavy breakfast that we’d consumed.
As I looked around the apartment I couldn’t help but smile at how cute Zayn and Perrie were together. Their taste was evident in every piece of furniture and decoration, everything reflected their grungy, but yet still cozy and warm taste. The couches were big old leather ones in a beautiful dark brown color and the two armchairs that was made of the same material was really great to sit in, Niall and I were sitting in one of them closely next to each other with my legs spread on top of his.


“Uhm… guys?” Harry then suddenly spoke with a loud voice in order to block the rest of the speaking in the room. I looked up at him curiously to see him nod at the boys who all stood up to stand next to Harry and I was left in the huge armchair all by myself. Their actions were confusing, they all had proud smirks placed on their faces, and actually also Perrie and Eleanor, when Harry took a very long break before continuing.
What were Aida, Em and I missing out on?

“We know, you all said that you wouldn’t want any Christmas gifts, because of many reasons, and we fully understand that…”

What on Earth was he talking about? I glanced over at the girls to see that they were staring at Harry with the same confused, but yet crazily curious look on their faces.

“… But we decided to give you one anyway. Or actually, we don’t see it as a Christmas gift, more likely just like a… an investment. In The Rookies.”

My mind was one giant chaos, I desperately tried to quickly make it all fit inside my head to figure out what he meant, but without success.

He then just stared at us for a while with an insidious smirk on his face which made Em yell:

“Jesus Christ, just tell us what is going on!”

“Well…” Zayn then took over. “You see, we’ve always thought that you guys are great musicians and songwriters. And we really do believe that with the right training and practicing you could get huge. A seriously good band.”

Huh?

“So we decided to give you this, and we would have done that, Christmas or not,” Louis joined in. “Our gift you three incredible girls is a year of vocal coaching with our vocal coach, Helene Hørlyck. She’s an excellent teacher, we’ve learned so much from her and then she’s Danish like you guys. We know that you will find it way too much to give you, but nonetheless this is really something we wanted to do for you.”

Silence. For so long. So much silence.


“W…. w… w-what?” Aida stuttered with glossy eyes. This couldn’t be fucking true.

Notes