Once In A Lifetime (Katy Perry/John Mayer Fanfic)

Chapter Seven: A Crestfallen Secret

JOHN'S POV

"Katy! You're such a sneak!" I laughed as Katy giggled cutely, hiding the pencil behind her back as we laid on the beautifully laid white carpeted floor of her living room. "Give it back."

"Not until you agree that you'll write down what you just said," She said, sassing me with a pout and a raised eyebrow as she leant away from me, probably assuming I was about to pounce on her to get my pencil back at any given moment as we continued to joke around like teenagers again.

"No," I said back, folding my arms and slumping my body, earning a somewhat amused glare from her side.

"Well then, I'm sorry but this pen just isn't going to find a way back to you," She laughed, raising one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows in my direction, her eyes sparkling with thought.

"Ugh, fine. You win," I chuckled, rolling my eyes playfully as she raised her fist triumphantly in the air jokingly. She moved somewhat so that she was now handing me my pencil back in the palm of her hand. I slowly placed it in my fingertips, leaning closer towards her, making her giggle cutely.

"Or do you really win?" I said sarcastically as I bought my face closer to hers, shooting her a cheeky look before restoring back to my original place on the floor. Katy covered her mouth as she softly laughed, making her look cuter than ever.

We'd spent the past four hours writing a song together for her film, which she'd decided to name Wide Awake. To be completely honest, I'd barely helped at all - only chiming in with musicality details and notes rather than the songwriting. She'd told me it was an upbeat pop song, but when I read her lyrics it made me feel a completely different way. These lyrics she'd written down weren't her usual style of song... This was a touching, sad ballad. It really made me wonder how she could compare herself as a happy, carefree spirit on the outside, yet feel another way on the inside. I'd gained a newfound respect for her, but I knew, of course, it really wasn't easy for her. I could see it, I would notice - but I never said anything. If she wanted to pretend to be happy, then that's her choice - maybe it's her way of dealing with things.

I guess I was there with her to sort of, I don't know, be company. She wasn't writing about a light topic; and I kept wondering how she could pour such raw truths from her heart without breaking down in front of me. I'd known her for years, but I never knew her strength. It was amazing - she, was amazing. I just wish she could see that for herself.

"What about if you move this, to before the second chorus? Then it would be 'Gravity hurts, you made it so sweet till I woke up on the concrete... Falling from cloud nine, crashing from the high, I'm letting go tonight.' Would that work?" I asked, my mind in full-on concentration mode as I tried to work out the lyric in my head, the same one we'd been struggling to make sense of for the past forty-five minutes, the two of us becoming so frustrated we started to goof off.

"You're a genius," She said, her beautiful ocean coloured eyes widening as a cute grin appeared on her face, before retracting her attention back to her notebook and scribbling down notes, crossing out lyrics and re-arranging phrases.

"Why thank you. You're not too bad yourself," I joked, making her shake her head amusingly, her soft, silky black hair covering her face as she did so before she tucked it behind her ear, giving me a smile before restoring back to what she was doing.

I sneakily watched her as she continued writing lyrics down in her notebook, noticing how she was biting her lip as she concentrated. I looked away as soon as she looked in my direction, which I could see in my pre-feral vision that she was raising her eyebrows, a smirk on her face. Caught, John. She knows. I pretended not to notice as I wrote down words that came down into my head into the piece of paper... But my head really wasn't with the songwriting today.