”Will you promise to call me as soon as you land?” he asked me with the raspiest voice I think I’d ever heard coming from his sweet lips. He was standing at the door in sweatpants and one of his hundreds of white t-shirts, his hair was messy and he had the darkest circles trailed around his beautiful eyes. He looked like hell. The most perfect hell.

“Yes,” I said back to him, but I didn’t have any will power or energy left to smile, my head was pounding from last night’s intense happenings and my stomach turned over and over again every single time I would move the slightest bit. Putting on my coat was one hell of a struggle.
Niall was waiting for me at the door, standing next to my big black suitcase and rubbing his tired eyes. He looked so cute.

“Come here,” he said before pulling me closer and in to his chest. “Say hello to your family.”

“You too,” I replied with a sigh, wrapped in his arms seemed to be the only thing that stopped me from vomiting all over the floor. “I’m really looking forward to meet them soon.”

I pulled back to kiss him before we would head down to the others. His soft lips made my knees go even weaker than before, it was pretty insane how something as simple could have such an intense effect on me.

“Here, let me take that one, it’s heavy,” he mumbled when I was about to throw myself out of the window when I couldn’t find the strength to lift all of my shit. Silent relief rushed over me and I didn’t object one bit but instead just started walking down the stairs towards the parking lot behind the building, where Liam’s car would be waiting for me.


“Well, you look rather fabulous,” Harry immediately exclaimed with big eyes when he saw me.

“Thanks girl,” I said with absolutely no emotion, I just didn’t have any energy left to even smile.

Of course that bastard would be standing there wearing black skinny jeans and a black loose sweater, looking incredibly amazing, only hours of sleep after a party. His bright laugh didn’t make him look less perfect and right next to him was his stunning looking girlfriend in her tight denim jeans, a plain white t-shirt and a leather jacket. Lidding up a cigarette made her and Harry look like the most trendsetting rock and roll couple ever.

“Please tell me you have another one of those,” I begged her referring to the white packet of Marlboro Lights in her hand.

“Sure,” she smiled handing me one and a lighter.

“How the fuck do you manage to look so rested?!” I asked before I got to think about it.

“I don’t get hangovers,” she simply answered.

“Well, lucky you. I think I’m about to throw up,” I said exhaling the smoke. The burn in my lungs somehow felt calming and soothing in my very critical state.

“You look quite pale,” Em said peeping out from behind the big black car, where Liam and Niall were shoving in our three suitcases. She was wearing black skinny jeans, a white short sweatshirt, some black leather boots, a dark grey coat and a light grey beanie controlling her hopefully unruly hair underneath.

“Please tell me you’re feeling like hell, please,” I said back to her.

“I’m fine, I didn’t get too drunk,” she answered rubbing my back as the dear and caring friend she was.



It wasn’t until we were standing in line for the check-in at the airport that I started to feel just the slightest bit better, I assume it had something to do with that Liam had to pull over in the emergency lane at the highway, so that I could throw up the remaining of stomach bile that I had left in me.
We were getting mobbed by girls and paparazzi’s as soon as we arrived at Heathrow and if it hadn’t been for Liam’s wide shoulders and three other bodyguards, we would probably have been suffocated by the huge pressure, especially Em, who was walking closest to him, holding his hand.

The fact that Aida and I got out of the mass of people pretty quickly sent a sting through my stomach. I mean, I knew it was pretty obvious that us girls only got this huge amount of attention because of One Direction, but hadn’t been able to let go of the hope that by now people would finally begin to also find interest in us and our music and not only as the boys’ girlfriends that they would ask the same lame questions over and over again, about whether or not we would spend time together during Christmas, what we thought of their performance last night or if we could tell anything about their next album that was coming up in two months. All about them. And even though I was so proud of them, honored to be a friend of theirs and more than thrilled to be praising them, I still found it provoking. And according to Aida’s silent tongue, I assume she was feeling the same way.

I was relieved and glad that I’d worn my big bordeaux patterned sweater that reached down to the middle of my thighs and a pair of woolen stockings when we finally got to sit down in the plane and get a bit more comfortable. My hair was hanging loose and messy on my shoulders, I hadn’t bothered trying to do anything about it and the makeup from yesterday was still on my face.
I wasn’t feeling as sick anymore though, mainly just incredibly tired. I don’t remember anything from the journey other than Aida was shaking me awake when we were about to land in Copenhagen.

“Wow,” Em then suddenly said looking out the small window that she was sitting at. “We’re in Denmark.”

I smiled at the thought of going home. It would be so great to have a couple of days off, exactly what all of us needed, before we would head back to attend to a wedding right before packing our schedules up again with gigs, rehearsing and vocal training.




I don’t know what I had expected, but it definitely wasn’t all the people waiting for us at Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen. It was insane. Really fucking insane. But I enjoyed every second of it, cause this time it was different. Cause for once there were actually journalists asking about things like if we’d gotten a record deal yet or if we would like to attend at different radio and even TV shows.
We were all blushing heavily from all this positive attention that we were getting from our home country and we answered as many questions as possible and gave out our emails to loads of people, but even though this welcome was more than any of us could ever ask for, we were all still completely exhausted and anxious to get home and see our families.


Aida’s parents would pick us up, they waited patiently at the end of the small row of people and cameras that airport security luckily got under control within a few minutes.

To see Aida practically throw herself in to their arms was so touching. Knowing what the relationship between them had had to go through during the past couple of months, just made it all more beautiful.
The second she felt the embrace of her parents, her shoulders immediately started to shake. Which was completely understandable. When thinking of all the struggles that she and us had been forced to get through – and now also hiding from a public watching us the entire time – the relief was so clear to everybody, even the ones that might not know what was going on in their heads. She was able to properly let out the frustration and sadness that had been haunting her for so long, she could finally breathe in the scent of real security that could never be received from anybody else than your own mum and dad.
The sight of the three of them almost made me tear up as well and I was suddenly looking, if possible, even more forward to seeing my mum, who was now only a couple of hours away from me.

I noticed the bandana on the head of her mother, but there were still picks of her dark thick hair peeking out under the fabric a few places. She wasn’t completely balled from the chemotherapy yet, but I still couldn’t help but getting almost terrified by the huge transformation, since the last time I’d seen her; She was a lot skinnier, her skin was permanently pale and there was just something about the energy around her. She seemed so… tired. Exhausted, really. It was obvious that even a mum like her could get knocked over by something as evil and unforgiving as cancer.
But somehow her arms were still strong and powerful, according to the tight and long hug that I got from her after Aida.

“It’s so good to have you back,” she said, still sniffling from seeing her own daughter, and placed a kiss on my hair.
It always took me by surprise how welcoming and loving Aida’s parents had always been acting towards Em and I, they almost treated us as their own.


“Looking forward to get home?” her dad asked Em and I, when we both sighed at the exact same time, as we plopped down in the back seat of their car a while later, after struggling our way through more people than I would have ever expected.

“Very much,” Em chuckled along with the rest of us at the humorous coincidence.

Since I’d already gotten a few hours of sleep on the plane, I wasn’t able to rest properly in the one and a half hour long car ride, which therefor seemed a thousand times longer than normal, even though Aida’s parents kept the conversation going the entire way with tons of questions about our new life, even though they’d been talking to their daughter over Skype many times.

By the time we finally pulled off the highway and headed towards my house first, my throat was sore from doing so much talking and my voice had gotten even raspier than before. I was once again starting to feel incredibly wiped out, I knew that I would crash as soon as I’d said hello to my family waiting for me at home.

I remembered the concern that had been growing inside of me for the past couple of weeks, since my brother had told me about the people outside our house, bothering him and the rest of my family, but it didn’t even compare to the horror that I felt when we arrived there. Cause it really was horrifying.


“Uhm… girls, I suggest you stay in here, I will get Maja’s stuff out of the trunk,” her dad told us and we just nodded, not knowing how to react to this kind of scenarios. I mean, having girls following you everywhere you went in London was one thing, that city was huge and it wasn’t exactly impossible to get some peace, but this… This was home. This was the house that I’d been living in for so long, in a place where practically nobody would stop by, other than the two close friends that I’d been so fucking lucky to get, and now the driveway was completely filled with people. What was going on with this whole “dating-a-famous-boy band-member”-thing? What was happening to our lives?!

After having said goodbye to the girls and Aida’s mum, wishing all of them a merry Christmas, I literally had to push the door of the car open. Now the flatter and fabulousness had begun to drift off and instead I was starting to get a bit annoyed with the pushy behavior that apparently all of the girls had.

“Guys, guys! Please take it easy,” I tried to calm them down, cause even though there weren’t nearly as many people that I wasn’t able to push my way past them, I still found those twenty girls’ energy a bit too much for me to handle at that point.

“No, we just want a picture,” one of them, a girl with blonde curly hair, around the age of 14 or 15, begged me.

“Okay then,” I said and smiled in to her iPhone. And then the next one. And the next one. And the next one. Each time I’d finished one they went on to pointing their cameras at the car to get a picture of Aida and Em waiting patiently behind the car window.

“Thank you so much,” I said turning towards Aida’s dad once he handed me my suitcase and giving me one last hug. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you,” he replied with a smirk, and I suddenly realized that he didn’t celebrate it, since it was a Christian tradition.

Laughing at my own foolishness was soon replaced by the amazing relief of seeing my mum and my youngest brother, Lars, stand and wait for me at the front door.

“All right girls, enough. You need to go home now,” I commanded at the girls that were still pushing close to me. I tried to sound sweet and understanding, but yet very firm and determined in my voice. Like a parent. And it seemed to work, since they backed off a bit, just enough for me to pass them and get to my smiling family.

Lars ran towards me and jumped up in to my arms like in a fucking Kinder Chocolate advertiser or something.

“Maja!” he squealed, causing a ring to my ear, but I gladly lifted him up to hug the little beast even tighter.

“I’ve missed you so much, you little tiger,” I told him and pouted my lips for him to kiss them.

Normally he would have gotten to an age where he would think that I was gross, but this time I almost got all surprised when he actually kissed me before jumping down to the ground again.

“Mum…” I sighed when I approached her further the same way that she did towards me. What a strange feeling it was to feel her arms wrap around me. I had often needed that before, when I was living at home, but even more since I’d left it all to go to London. It seemed so foreign to be thinking that I could ever leave her, she was the only thing that could make every bad thing in the world better. The world was a better place with her around.

I had been going through the toughest time of my life, even tougher than the times where my bulimia would be at its highest, but I hadn’t been able to have my own mum hug me. You’d think I would get tougher this way, very effectively, but all those facades and guards would always crumble the second she would say something as loving and caring as:

“Welcome home, dear. We’ve missed you.”


I immediately started sobbing, not capable of getting my mind wrapped around the fact that I had so many people watching us from all directions.

“I… I-I’ve missed you too!” I cried.

“Ssh, don’t cry,” she said. “Come on, let’s go inside and celebrate some Christmas.” She picked up the suitcase that I’d let go of without thinking and took my hand in her other. Lars put one of his in my other as we walked up the stairs to the front door that I entered, while taking a breath in of the familiar scent in the hallway, now mixed with the smell of freshly baked cookies.

I was finally home.

Notes