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"For now I'm gonna have you do the stock," Sarah says as Brendon follows her to the back of the building. There are boxes, both opened and unopened, all over the place. Brendon mentally sighs to himself. "and next week you can work the counter with Nathan. He can show the basics, like using the greeting customers and using the cash register."
Brendon nods and watches as Sarah picks up a box cutter and slices the tape on the top of the box, pulling the flaps open.
"All you have to do is stock shelves. There aren't many since it's a small store, so it's really not a lot of work." Sarah bends over and picks up the box, turning around and walking back out to the front of the store. Brendon follows. She stops in front of a shelf and sets the box on the floor. "You have to bring all the products in the back up to the front and then put the newer products behind them. This is something called FIFO. First in, first out."
Brendon tells himself it sounds easy enough and he's positive he won't mess anything up. He starts helping Sarah stock the shelves and both of them feel the awkward tension that's going on.
"So why'd you runaway from home?" Sarah asks suddenly. Brendon pauses for a moment. "If you don't mind me asking."
"Um," Brendon clears his throat and continues to pull forward the products that are already on the shelf. "I didn't really runaway. I met Ryan that day and lied to him about my age, so he brought me back to his house, I still have no idea why though. He was gonna take me home and I asked if I could stay. He let me stay and a couple weeks later he found out I was sixteen because of the news. So yeah. I had no intentions of actually running away that day. I've tried before, but I got caught and then my privileges to do anything practically stopped altogether."
"Why did you try running away the first time?" Brendon didn't like the questions he was being asked. They were personal to him and he didn't even know Sarah. Sure she's just trying to get to know her employee, but why does she need to know his whole life story. Brendon cleared his throat again and began to tell her why.
"I told my parents I'm gay and they told me I wasn't." He said. "I got laughed at and told that it was a phase. I'd grow out of it, just like I grew out of the phase where I wanted to be a cop, but this is nothing at all like being a cop, this is who I am and they didn't accept me. So I packed some stuff and left. But my dad came speeding down the street and forced me to get in the car with him and go back home. After that, I wasn't allowed to do anything aside from going to school."
Sarah hummed and put the last box on the shelf. She looked at Brendon with a friendly smile and nodded her head to the side.
"Let's get this finished up." She said, taking the now empty box with her.
Brendon went with her and tried not to think about his parents.
-
His head flew back as he laughed at the photo inside of the book he was holding. Ryan sat next to him, sitting sideways on the couch with his leg crossed over the other and an unamused expression on his face.
