The Weight of a Name
Chapter 1
What weight do you put in a name's meaning? Is it something that is supposed to describe you, who you're supposed to be, or who your parent wished you to be?
Amynta, defender, is her name. It has been since she was born- at least she was told it was.
Defender. Is that what she is suppose to be? She doesn't feel like one. The only person she would say she is a defender of, is herself.
The five year old holds her breath, small feet moving over even concrete the slightest bit faster.
"Hey!" A voice shouts and she takes off without a look back. She knows the man has given chase to her, after all, she just stole right off his stand. "Hey, someone stop that little girl!"
A hand snags the back of her hood, choking her in its sudden restraint, and her dinner falls the gross, dirty ground of the city.
She screams and writhes in the large hands that now hold her, trying her best to wriggle free as the cart owner comes jogging up, hands on his knees panting.
Baby, she had only made it a few yards.
The fat hotdog vender straightens up with a scowl in place and opens his mouth, to chide her maybe, or threaten to call the police, or maybe just to huff and puff some more. He doesn't get that far though, as she kicks backwards, hitting her captor in the shin and effectively making him release her.
Before she could make another mad dash for safety, fatty's thick sausage fingers close tightly around her upper arm. She does the most logical thing and screams at the top of her lungs. "MOMMY! STRANGER, STRANGER!"
That gets some heads to turn, because even the five year old knows it's bad when a stranger grabs a child. Fatty jerks his hand away as if he'd been stung and several large dudes walk up to him in defense of the little girl.
However, she doesn't stay long enough to see the exchange as she takes off again down the dirt pack sidewalk, snatching up the fallen hotdog as she dodges through still standing New York traffic.
As she turns a corner, she slows to a walk, slightly out of breath.
She's used to running, running from bullies, running from angry store owners, and running from foster homes. This would be the second that she got the courage to escape from, her busted lip still throbbing with heat and dried blood.
She knows that an adult will eventually find her and take her back to the system, but for now she's free.
Not all her foster homes are bad, being so young gets a lot of people to want her, but that also means just as many people to send her back when something strange happened around her, or she unwittingly gets into trouble for just standing there.
The longest she's lasted in one house is six months, before a giant dog got in the house and rampaged around. She, of course, was blamed. No one believed her when she said it was as big as a car and turned into gold dust when the earth shook, collapsing the ceiling on it.
Then there were the bad ones that locked her in a tiny closet for being bad, which is torturous with her ADHD and now claustrophobia, or just used her as a little slave for cleaning, threatening her food if she didn't. And the really, really, bad ones that liked to hit her and throw her into walls so she hid up in her small room all day and night despite her restlessness and close, close, walls.
It was one of these that she ran away from for the first time, lasting about two weeks before a grown up caught her stealing from a convenient store and called the cops. She was back in the foster system with in four hours and a new home in five days.
The worst home, she'd have to say, was that one man who...touched her in places she didn't like. It made her feel dirty even though she didn't quite know why.
Stopping at a different hotdog stand, she drowns her meal in ketchup and wolfs it down, dripping red goop onto the ground and around her face and fingers.
She licks them clean before smearing the residue on her well worn jeans.
Not many people pay her any mind as she joins the mass of walking people, keeping close to the edges so as not to be overwhelmed by the swarm.
As night falls, she slips into an ally where she climbs a fire escape to settle in for rest. The city is still as bright as it is during the day, but the familiarity of it has her easily slipping into sleep.
...
Amynta lasted longer this time. A few months, two, maybe three. She was caught in some place they called North Carolina. It wasn't her fault she was caught; she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when a store got robbed and held hostage. Before she could slip out, a police officer had her wrist and she was taken to the police station because her parent was nowhere in sight.
Her social worked seemed genially relieved that she was found, but Minta didn't much trust adults now. They don't believe her when she tells them of the monsters that follow her, like the man with one eye or the sales woman who had green scaly skin and a reptilian tale hiding under her dress.
She thinks she's six now. It's hard to tell when she's living on the streets, but she's staying in North Carolina and going into first grade.
The teachers say that she has dyslexi-something and that it is perfectly normal. They say that she shouldn't be ashamed of it, and she isn't, but she thinks she's supposed to be because of the big deal that they're making of it.
They give her special classes and extra tutors, and she's living with a nice foster family, but she hates it.
They tell her to do this and don't do that and try harder, even though she's trying as hard as she can until her head throbs, and they tell her that she's rude, but she misses the freedom of going where she wants when she wants.
She doesn't like the bullying and old people looking down on her just because she's young, and she doesn't like the fake-ness of it all.
Cause she can tell that it's all fake. Even though she's very young and doesn't understand much, she understands that the smiles are fake and the scowls are real.
She understands that either her parents are dead, or don't want her, and she knows for certain that her foster families don't want her. That's why she doesn't trust grown ups, because they lie and call her a liar.
And it makes her so angry. To not be believed, to not be loved, to be trapped, to be looked down on. It makes her so angry that she can swear that the earth under her feet sympathizes with her, groaning and shaking under her feet.
She doesn't believe every person is bad though. She's not bad, at least she doesn't think she is, and she's sure that she can't be the only one.
There have to be others like her.
Others that see the monsters, others that aren't wanted, others that want to be wanted. Others that want to understand.
Because she wants to understand. Why she is alone. Why she's hurt all the time. Why no one wants her. Why her name means Defender. What she is supposed to be the defender of.
A/N: Hey guys, so this is my first full PJ story so I hope you like it. Let me know what you think. Review!
~Silver