I threw my shoe at him.

Hard.

He let out a surprised yelp and dropped what I failed to notice he was holding in his hand. I just about fainted when I saw what it was.

A piece of crispy bacon. That I definitely didn't fry.

He caught the shoe and stared at me in horror as I advanced on him quickly. My stern expression then faded into an innocent smile and I leaned on the counter top next to him.

"So, what's the school's 'bad boy' doing in my kitchen?" I asked mockingly. "With my crispy pig-I mean bacon."

John cleared his throat and stood up straighter, cautiously keeping my trainer on the floor. "Your mum let me in."

I scoffed at that. "What, and along with that she encouraged you to help yourself to our food?" I asked sarcastically, my smile dropping. His eyes darted around nervously, as if expecting something to distract me from the situation-

"John, I'm home!"

My mum entered the kitchen a few moments after her voice resounded through the house. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw me, and I went over to give her a hug. I hadn't seen my mum a lot in past few days, when she'd come home I'd be asleep and when I woke up she'd usually be gone. It was lonely but most of the time I had Hugo to distract my thoughts from wandering elsewhere.

"Hey Mum." I said fondly when she let me go. I took the two carrier bags from her hands and kept them in the corner near the four other plastic bags. Wait, four others?

"Thanks again John, for helping me carry the groceries back." My mum said, turning her attention to him with a grateful smile. He responded with a genuine smile and nod while I was looking between the two with a confused expression.

"Honey, walk John back, yeah?" My mum told me, shooing us out of the kitchen. Reluctantly I obeyed, opening the front door and stepping into the cool breeze.

We silently walked down the pavement, and it wasn't a comfortable silence, it was that type of silence that happened after someone farted, before everyone started shouting in protest.

Just like I was about to do.

"You know I have bug spray, right?" I told him seriously. He just looked at me, his expression unchanging.

"Uh, well done?" He replied uncertainly. I ignored him.

"Ever since an incident that happened in Australia, I figured that I should carry at least some form of a weapon." I carried on, tapping my jean pocket where the small can was.

John's eyebrows furrowed. "Incident?"

I ignored him again. "So whenever a pest annoys me," I gave him a pointed look. "It's easy to blind them with the spray!" I finished off cheerfully.

There was a pause as John looked at me, half-amused and half-creeped out.

"Why are you telling me this, may I ask?" He replied, smirking slightly.

"Just for future reference." I said sweetly, and we stopped outside his house. He was about to say something when we heard someone shout from above us.

Looking up, we discovered it was Maisie sticking her head out of a window and screaming John's name- wait, backtrack.

There's so much wrong with that sentence.

Abruptly, her witch-like shrieks subsided and she drew her head back in. John and I exchanged 'what-the-hell' looks and shrugged. I felt relived knowing he had no idea why Maisie was in his house either.

I was about to say something when his front door slammed upon, and Maisie decided to grace us with her presence. I huffed, frustrated because I'd been interrupted.

She looked quite frazzled, with her hair sticking up in different directions and when I looked closely, one of her eyebrows were higher than the other.

"John!" She exclaimed happily and threw her arms around his neck forcefully, causing him to stumble back. He awkwardly removed her arms and peered down at her with a slightly annoyed face.

"What were you doing in my room?" He asked gruffly, and her grin grew.

"Your mum let me in to wait for you-" She started and I interrupted, stepping forward.

"Seems like our mums keep on letting people we dislike into our houses without us knowing." I mused with a small smirk on my face.

Maisie looked at me as if just noticing I was there, whereas John laughed at my comment, then stopped and frowned.

"Wait-" John started and I giggled. Suppose he got my joke then.

"Sorry, what are you doing here?" Maisie cut in again, staring at me spitefully. I fought the urge to laugh at her uneven eyebrows.

"I don't associate with scum." I replied curtly, and her face morphed into a quite disturbing expression of loathing.

I faced John and winked playfully. "I'll talk to you later, yeah?" I said and with that strutted off, not glancing back once.

"That witch!" I heard Maisie seethe and John probably trying to stop her running after me; not that she would even catch up in time with her height.

I turned around with my bug spray in my hand. "What was that?" I shouted, and John's eyes widened at the sight of the can.

She just glared at me, quiet, and I carried on walking, nodding in satisfaction. All bark no bite.

I entered my house, heading straight to my room and sat down on my bed. Yes, it felt good to insult Maisie, but was it uncalled? I'm generally a very nice person, and try to not demolish people's reputation unless I absolutely have to.

Nah. My subconscious said. She had it coming, with the way she's been treating you lately.

"At least it doesn't compare to how Dave treated me." I thought out loud.

"Chloe, who are you talking to?" I heard my mum question from the kitchen. I just laughed. She should be used to me talking to myself now.

"Don't worry, Mum!" I shouted back and dramatically layed down on my bed in a starfish shape. Then I face-palmed myself, as I realised that me and my big mouth decided to mention Australia too much to John.

I sighed, but shrugged. After we made up, I suppose I'd have to tell him, after all, he was my first lov-crush.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I brought it out to surprisingly see a new text message.

I waited for his reply, already thinking of what I would say in return. I was so excited about talking to him, that I didn't even think of how he got my number.

Twenty minutes went by, no reply.

I busied myself with school work and watching pointless videos on YouTube, but I kept glancing over at my phone.

An hour went by... No reply.

Soon enough, it was already past nine o'clock and I was getting ready for bed, when my phone vibrated. I eagerly grabbed it, to see it was just a notification from another app.

"Ugh!" I screamed, but gently threw my phone on my bed. I hated how much he affected me, just because he wasn't replying.

Maybe his phone died? For the past three hours?

Or he could be doing school work- yeah no. This is John we're talking about.

I knew I probably went too far with what I said, but I was only joking. Okay, I was a bit serious, but he wouldn't know that through a phone!

I sighed and climbed into my bed dejectedly, facing away from where the innocent device lay.

Ping!

It took all my strength to not instantly grab my phone, as I knew it was a text message by the sound my phone made. I took it off silent an hour or so ago so I would know when he replied.

You took hours to reply, John? Well, I'll take a day. I thought to myself, and with that, went to sleep.

*****