Everybody Needs Somebody

Chapter One

WARNING: Mentions of physical/sexual/mental abuse. Mentions of self harm. Possibly trigerring.

Please don't kill me for starting a new story! Read the description so you're less confused but yeah that's all for now :) also you DON'T have to read A Broken World to understand this!

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Bzz. Just keep ignore it and it’ll go away. Bzz. If you wake up you’re just gonna have to face reality. Bzz. Why isn’t it stopping? Zayn Malik then jumps out of bed, quickly realizing that the buzzing wasn’t a phone call but rather an important alarm he had set. His alarm for the first day of school. 6:00 AM. Far too early for Zayn’s liking, but the boy knows he needs to be out of the house by the latest 6:25 if he wants to start off his morning unscathed. So quickly Zayn searches through his room for the cleanest set of clothes he can find- settling for a pair of khakis, a maroon shirt, and a jean jacket he had gotten from the Goodwill not too long ago- before making his way down the creaky stairs and out the front door, well not before grabbing his backpack.

6:15. That’s probably a record for him. Well except for the fact that he hasn’t brushed his teeth or washed his face yet, but this is part of his routine. Zayn walks about ten blocks until he is in front of the small coffee shop he had grown accustomed to being in. Cup of Joe. At the beginning of summer, Zayn had gotten a job at the place and since then it has become a second home for him. Actually it’s become better than his home. Since he was still underage to work legally, the owner of the shop couldn’t pay him as much the rest of the employees but Zayn didn’t mind. He would make twenty dollars a day but was also awarded with unlimited coffee and one free meal a day. To Zayn this was the best deal in town. So Zayn walks into the practically empty cafe, waves to the two workers and the owner who are currently behind the counter and makes his way into the employee bathroom. Zayn quickly brushes his teeth with the toothbrush he leaves there and fixes his hair up a bit before walking back out to help set up anything he can before he has to leave.

“Hey Joe, need me to do anything?” Zayn says to the thirty year old man who is grinding up a new batch of coffee beans.

“Can you just fill the milk dispensers for me? Other than that I think we’re all clear. Want me to make you a sandwich to take for school?” Joe, the owner of the cafe, replies to the boy with a small smile. Zayn has never spoken to the man about his situation at home, but after spending the whole summer with the kid it’s almost impossible not to put the pieces together. From the random bruises he’ll walk in with and say he fell when asked how they happened. To the way he flinches when someone walks up behind him to tap him on the shoulder. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

“Uh no thanks, I’m gonna save it for after school. You don’t mind me working today right?” Zayn ask with wide eyes, really hoping the man lets him.

“I really feel like you should take a day off but I can’t stop you from showing up. Now back to the topic of food, think of this as a congratulations for making it into high school present. I’m gonna make you a wrap and you can still have your other free meal later. Sound good?” Joe says while patting Zayn on the back, and Zayn just nods with a shy smile.

“Oh I can’t believe our baby is going to high school! He may be mature but he’s just a little baby,” Margie, a 25 year old recently graduated uni student who worked with Zayn over the summer, said. Margie then jumped over the counter and pulled Zayn in for a big hug while pinching one of his cheeks. “Look at the baby fat he has on his cheeks! He can’t be going into high school, I won’t allow it. I am going to force you to stay here so I can look after you and make sure no one hurts my baby.”
“Margie! I’ll be fine! The only difference from the Academy and the Prepatory are the classes and buildings. And even the buildings aren’t that different, I’ll be fine I promise,” Zayn replies to the girl while trying to break out of the hug, mainly he wanted out of the hug because people touching him scares him though he won’t admit it.