Chapter 5

I wake up the next morning after the argument I had with my parents about staying out late and not giving them an explanation. I couldn’t tell them what I did, they wouldn’t let it drop.

I do my usual morning routine and walk downstairs to grab an apple. I walk straight past my Mum before she can say anything, get the apple and run back upstairs. I go through my Instagram and Twitter while I eat my apple, and when I’m done, I text Lois saying I’m on my way. We planned to meet at the shop every morning at 8am so we could walk to school together. I run downstairs and slam the door behind me. I hear my Mum shout my name but I completely ignore her and head down the street.

When I get to the shop, I see Lois, Jack and Conor waiting for me.

“Finally!” Lois shouts, pulling me in for a hug.

“Sorry, I um, left my blazer at home” I lie. It was the best excuse I could make but Lois didn’t believe me.

“Of course you did” she says, walking me towards Conor and Jack. Jack pulls in for a hug.

“Hey, are you alright?” he says into my hair.

“Yeah you?” I sigh, releasing from his hug.

“I’m good” he smiles. I look over at Conor who’s just stood next to Jack staring at me, with a blank expression on his face.

“Hi” I smile awkwardly at him and nod. He gives me a small smile but looks too deep in thought to do anything else. I noticed his lip was busted and I felt really bad for him. We walk slowly to school and Conor’s silent the whole time. Seriously, what is his problem?

When we get to school, I’m greeted by Ben, Mike, Alex, Olivia, Leila and Char, and then I make my way into registration with Conor and Alex.

The day goes pretty smoothly. We didn’t have science, thank god. Conor's been getting on my nerves all day, he hasn’t said one word. I walk home with Conor, Jack and Lois, and Jack won’t stop making us laugh. Even Conor’s laughing a bit which is nice. Conor and Lois are having their own little conversation leaving me and Jack out of the conversation.

“What happened last night?” Jack whispers so Conor and Lois couldn’t hear.

I don’t know what to say. If I tell him, Conor’s probably going to murder me but Jack needs to know what happened, he’s his brother...

“Jack, are we going?” Conor mumbles, interrupting mine and Jack’s ‘chat’. I realise we’re at the shop and this is where we all part ways.

“Um yeah, see you later Lucy” Jack smiles. I return the smile and turn to Lois while the boys walk away.

“Well it’s just us now” Lois laughs dryly.

“Great” I say sarcastically.

“Hey!” she gasps, nudging me in the stomach, making me laugh. “Do you know what happened to Conor’s lip? He wouldn’t tell me”

If Conor didn’t want her to know, then I have no right to tell her what happened, right?

“Um, n-no I’ve not a clue” I stutter. I’ve always been bad at lying. She raises her eyebrow at me.

“Ok...” she trails off.

I go on my laptop and Skype a few of my friends from Cheshire. I avoid telling them about what happened last night because they’ll probably think I’ve changed or whatever. They don’t need to know... I go on Twitter for a bit when my phone starts to vibrate.

“Hello?” I say, answering the phone without checking called ID.

“Hey Lucy, it’s Jack” he says with a cheery voice.

“Oh hey Jack”

“I’m just wondering if you want to meet me. I’m home alone and just sat here on my Xbox” he laughs.

“Yeah I’d love to”

I have nothing better to be doing.

“Great, I’ll meet you at the shop and you can come over for a bit?”

“Um, is Conor in?” I ask. I am not going round there if Conor’s in. Today was the most awkward experience I’ve ever had.

“No” he says, questioningly.

“Ok well I’ll meet you at the shop now”

“Ok, see you”

“Bye!” I say, ending the call.

I change into some skinny jeans, a tank top and an oversized jumper. I put on my usual white converse and head to the shop. When I get there, I see Jack waiting while he’s on his phone. He looks up and see’s me, puts his phone in his pocket and walks towards me.

“Hey!” he smiles, pulling me in for a hug.

When we arrive at Jack’s house, he opens the big door, bringing back memories from last night. I walk in and open my mouth literally drops to the floor. It is HUGE. I couldn’t see it clearly when I came here in the dark with Conor. He leads me up the huge staircase and opens the door to his room. It’s a big room, with walls painted blue. He sits on his double bed and sighs.

“There’s not really much to do, I thought we could just get some food and chill” he smiles.

I sit next to him, “Yeah sounds good”

After we’ve brought all the food he has upstairs, we dump it all on the floor and sit next to it. We look at his shelf full of films and decide on watching Paranormal Activity 4. Once we put the film on, we sit in the dark in front of the TV and immediately start eating all the popcorn, sweets and everything else we got.

We're about half way through the film when the doorbell rings, scaring the life out of us both. We're scared stiff at the film ok?..

“It’s probably Conor, locked out as usual” he laughs, walking out of the room to answer the door. I’m praying that it’s not Conor, he just makes things awkward. I pause the film and wait for Jack to come back. “Pizza” he laughs, walking back into the room.

Oh yeah, I forgot we ordered that... I play the film and we start digging into the pizza we bought. I eat about 2 slices before I can’t bring myself to eat anymore because of the amount of sweets I ate before. Jack eats the rest of the pizza to himself and I’m surprised he can actually manage it.

The film starts coming to an end and me and Jack are hiding behind the pillows and covers, shaking. The end of the film is always the worst. I clench the covers as tight as I can, knowing something's about to scare me in the film. Jack's already under the covers not watching the film, but I was still hiding half my face behind the pillow, wanting to know what happens next when suddenly-

“JACK!” Conor screams, running into his room and jumping on the bed, making me fall off. Me and Jack both scream the house down and I nearly start crying, but I quickly stand up and run over to the TV to turn it off. I switch on the light and see Conor sat on the bed staring at me. “What are you doing here?” he snaps.

“I was watching a film before you came in”

“Why are you with my brother?”

“He has a name” I snap, looking at Jack’s confused expression at the two of us arguing.

“I said, why are you with him?” he says getting louder and more angry. He steps off the bed and walks closer to me.

“He invited me” I gulp. His head snaps around to look at Jack.

“What the fuck?” he frowns at Jack.

“Conor she’s my friend” Jack defends himself.

“Is that why you were in bed with her?”

“We weren’t doing anything!” Jack shouts, defending himself.

“What were you doing then?”

“Um... H-hiding” Jack says, looking embarrassed. “What made you come running in here anyway?”

“Um, n-nothing” he stutters.

“Bullshit” Jack snaps.

“I saw a um” he coughs, “spider”. I look at Jack and just burst out laughing, making Conor blush and look at the floor. “Shut up, can you just get rid of it?”

We walk into Conor’s room, it looks similar to Jacks but it’s a bit bigger. Conor immediately jumps on his bed and points to the wall that’s centimetres behind me. I turn around and see a ginormous spide... tarantula stuck on the wall. I scream and jump onto Conor’s bed. Jack laughs a little and gets a piece of paper off Conor’s desk. He puts it on the wall and waits for the spider to climb on it. Once it’s on Jack runs towards the window.

“SOMEONE OPEN THE WINDOW” he shouts. I jump off the bed in sync with Conor and run towards the window, opening it as fast as possible. Jack throws the spider outside, with the piece of paper and shuts the window quickly.

I look at Conor, then down to our intertwined fingers. We awkwardly pull away at the same time and smile at Jack. He didn’t notice, thank god.

“I won’t be a second, I need the loo” Jack says, walking out of the room. I must remember to thank Jack for making this 10 times more awkward than it already is.

“You didn’t tell him about last night did you?” Conor asks as soon as Jack leaves the room.

“No why?”

“Good” he lets out a sigh of relief.

“Why?” I ask again. He always ignores people, always...

“I just don’t want him getting involved, he’ll probably do something”

“Oh right”

“Sorry” he sighs, looking to the floor.

“What for?”

“Being weird today, I didn’t know what to say after yesterday”

I laugh “It’s fine”

It’s not ‘fine’ but I’m not arguing about his apology.

“You lied” I mumble.

“About what?”

“You said you were fine, you’re not” I whisper, placing my hand on his cheek and gently rubbing my thumb across the cut on his lip. I can’t help myself. He’s so perfect. He looks into my eyes, making my knees go weak. I get lost into his sapphire blue eyes and I can’t pull away from his gaze. They’re beautiful. I’ve never looked into someone’s eyes the way I do with Conor. My mouth goes dry as he just stares into my eyes. I slowly pull his face towards mine. Our lips are millimetres apart when-

“Back” Jack smiles, walking into the room. I quickly let go of Conor’s face, turn around and smile at Jack.

“I-I think I need to go” I stutter, noticing it’s 8:30pm already... And I nearly kissed Conor...

“Ok, Conor can you walk her, I need to clean up the mess in the roo-“ Jack noticed the death glares me and Conor are giving him. “Um, or I could walk her? Come on, Lucy” he smiles.

I put on my shoes and walk out of the house with Jack, awkwardly saying bye to Conor.

“Thanks” I say.

“Look, what is going on with you and Conor?” he asks.

“Um, I-I don’t know” I stutter but he looks at me as if I need to carry on “Well, one minute he likes me, then the next he hates me. I just, I don’t know Jack” I try to explain. I can’t tell him about the fight, or that we almost kissed.

“I just hate how you we’re arguing before. I feel like I can’t hang around with you because of him” he sighs.

“Jack, don’t be stupid. I don’t know what Conor’s problem is with me and you but it doesn’t mean we have to stop hanging around with each other. I won’t say anything to him next time ok?” I smile, trying to make the situation sound better.

“Yeah I suppose”

“Well why don’t you come to mine next time? Tomorrow? Mum and Dad are always working late”

“Fine” he laughs.