But You Can Call Me Gotham (#JustWriteIt #FreshStart) [COMPLETED]

Description & Chapter 1: Them and Simon

"You're different from the others."

"What gives you that impression?"

"I feel comfortable around you."

"Does that make me your friend?"

"You may be special, but you can call me Gotham."
--
She's a shady little girl, full of surprises. No one knows her real name. But she lets them call her Gotham.

"I can do things."

"Like what?"

She stalled. How could she have done this? How could she have lost focus? "I've said too much."

"No, you can trust me."

"Did you ever hear that curiosity killed the cat?"
--
She's a troubled little girl, full of hurt. No one knows what she feels inside. But someone is sucking her into a deep pit, and she doesn't know if she can get out.
--
"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"This."
--

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Dedicated to my L.A. Teacher, Ms. Paiva, who always knew which character to give me and always encouraged my long short-stories.

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It's amazing how people get judged on their looks.

Gotham is small, almost 10 years of age. Her thin hair is a crown of autumn leaves, a mixture of reds and golds and browns. Her body is thin, her eyes innocent, but watching.

Oh yes, watching. She watches the people walk past her house through her bedroom window. The people who watch her as she passes theirs. The people who think of her as a young, naive, innocent, narrow-minded child.

But what they don't know can hurt them.

Her room is empty save for a metal-framed bed and a nearly bare closet. She had no toys, books, or belongings but a pair of clothes.

She was orphaned.

But they didn't know that, and this fact in particular didn't hurt them. In fact, it saved them from needing to pity her, and she felt somewhat at peace with that information.

She didn't want pity.

Pity was for the weakest of the weak, and she was not weak. She survived all on her own and she felt stronger than those people walking in pairs down the sidewalk, sometimes with with little tag-along clinging to their arms, swinging between them gaily and full of life.

Gotham used to have life in her. 'Til her parents died. She used to have fun.

She felt hungry. But did she deserve food right now? There were people who couldn't get food. Did she deserve to be an exception?

She decided not. Not today.

So she walked down to the door and left her bare house, with no coat or hat, even though it was a chilly day. She was headed for the park. It was a place she could be alone, the place she liked to watch people. They would be walking their dogs or watching their children play on the metal contraptions surrounded by little rocks that somehow always find themselves in your shoe, unwanted, quite like Gotham.

As she walks by the people she feels them narrow their eyes, to properly judge her. She is not a role model for their children. She is always alone. She is quiet and unsmiling, and they don't want their kids to be like her.

Sometimes there will be people who don't immediately shelter their kids from her when she walks by them, people who don't narrow their eyes at her, watching her, judging her, disliking her. She calls them The Others. Those people, though, eventually become like them, after a few days, because they get a hold on The Others and tell them that she is not someone to care about. Not someone to be interested in, but someone to judge on appearance.

She cared. Just a bit. But she didn't want to show it.

Finally, she came up to a tall tree. She didn't care to learn its name, but she liked to sit in it and watch the people walk along by. Except this time, there was already someone in it.

****

It's amazing how people expect to be judged.

Gotham looked up at the boy blankly. She wasn't used to this. It was different, and she didn't particularly like it.

The boy stared back. Gotham noticed his eyes were a light brown and the way he sat frozen in the tree as he stared at her. She noticed his platinum hair was cut short; all that remained were stubs. He had no double-chin like so many other kids. Neither did Gotham, but that was for a different reason.

"Hi," the boy said.

He had a young voice, she noticed, and she tilted her head to one side in curiosity.

He tried again. "Hi." He said it as if Gotham hadn't noticed, or understood what he had said.

Gotham just continued to stare. He was in her spot. Didn't he know they had spots? He wasn't in his spot.

Gotham didn't talk much, but she decided to give it a try. "You're in my tree." Her voice was crotchety and weak, but she got her point across. The boy scrambled out of the tree, scraping his arm in the process. Though Gotham didn't really care.

"Sorry," the boy said. He either didn't notice the scrape or didn't want to bring attention to it.

As Gotham climbed up the tree, gripping each of the branches like a cat, she said, "You know you're bleeding." It wasn't a question, just more of a statement of fact. She sat quite a bit above where he had been, and he craned his neck to see her, though her boney, pale, and small face was partially covered by golden leaves.

"Do you come here often?" he yelled up at her in question.

"Every day," she replied, though she wondered why he wanted to know. Even The Others don't get this close to her. They all know where she goes and where she stays away. Why not him?

"Simon?" Gotham could see a man walking their way. "There you are. I've been looking for you everywhere. It's time to go now. Pick up your things."

"Okay, Dad." Simon then ran off, towards them, leaving Gotham on her own, high in the tree.

She watched as the people walked their dogs, caught their runaway children, and cleaned up after a day of play. When she was alone, save for the older people walking in pairs of male and female, Simon came to her mind. He was an odd boy. Different, somehow, like no one had taught him the rules. It unsettled her, a bit, to know that there might be a change coming her way. She didn't like change very much, but she supposed there was nothing she could to about it. Things came and went, and she hoped that Simon was one of the many things that went.

They all began to disappear from the park, as it got colder, and just as a layer of fog began to cover the ground, all murky, leaving Gotham to herself.