•did you get enough love, my little dove?•

~safe for now~ chapter one

August's POV

"I swear to god August, if you break another one of my glasses you're fired!" I jumped when my boss, Mr. McAvoy, yelled from the kitchen as I broke my third glass of the night.

"I-I'm s-so s-s-sorry, s-sir. I s-s-swear, it w-wont h-happen a-again." I told his through a sniffle, trying not to break into tears as I went back to washing the dishes. I'm not trying to break the glasses, it's just that I haven't slept since yesterday afternoon and it's already almost midnight. When I get tired my body just stops working right.

Ever since school started a few months ago my schedule's been kind of crazy. It turns out, fourteen is still too young to get a job but with a little begging and reasoning I got a bar downtown to hire me as a dish washer at night and a supermarket to let me stock shelves in the morning before school. In order for them to hire me, I had to agree to work for a smaller rate than regular employees but it's still money and I need as much of it as I can get right now.

Mom got a new boyfriend right after school started and she quite her job again. Her boyfriend, Mark, hangs out at the house all the time but he never pays for anything. Since mom doesn't have a job I need to pick up the slack. If I don't we could lose the house.

To get to my supermarket job on time, I need to leave the house around two in the morning. I work for four and a half hours and then I have to go to school. After school I usually have a few hours to spend at home to sleep and then I have to leave to come and start my shift at the bar. I don't get off until one in morning, that leaves just enough time to go home, change, and leave all over again.

On the weekends I work longer shifts at both jobs and it pretty much takes up all of my time.

Yesterday mom and Mark were home when I came back from school. I tried to be quiet when I came inside so I could avoid them but they were near the front door when I entered. They told me that I had to go to the store and buy them more beer because they were too drunk to drive. I tried to say that I couldn't but that just made Mark mad. The afternoon ended with me having to steal beer from a gas station because I was too young to buy it and some fresh bruises being littered across my body.

It's the first time Mark has ever really touched me like that. Don't get me wrong, he's yelled at me when mom wasn't around but he's never put his hands on me. I don't like Mark, he's a drunk and he makes mom act weird around me, more weird than usual. He's the only reason why I'm glad I work so much, I rarely have to see him with my busy schedule. But when I do see him, it never ends very well.

"I'm docking the broken glasses from your pay and I expect you to stay late tonight so you can finish the dishes you weren't washing while you were cleaning up broken glass." Mr. McAvoy gritted the words out before turning and leaving the kitchen area. I breathed a sigh of relief when he was finally gone and went back to my work.

Mr. McAvoy scares me too sometimes but that's not much of a surprise, a lot of people scare. My mom scares me, Mark scares me, kids at school scare me. The only person that doesn't seem to scare me is Mr. Brooks.

Ever since the first day of school when Mr. Brooks asked me if I was alright, he's been one of the most special people in my life. He's my math teacher so I see him for one and a half hours everyday. I thought I would hate math because I've always found it really hard to understand the subject and my teachers were never really patient with me in the past but Mr. Brooks makes everything easier.