If I Were Allowed To Love You

Two

Stares were common whenever Melissa showed up for school, but it was never an annoyance. She was merely used to it like white noise. Driving up to school each day in her father's loud, rusty pickup truck was bound to cause people to stare. And the moment she stepped out in her gothic attire for the day, the stares were bound to escalate. Dressed that day in a long sleeve, ruffled blouse tucked into black shorts and heeled combat boots, she assumed the stares would be usual. Her makeup was always dark and heavy, shading her eyes to warn people to look away. If she was going to be known as the 'crazy knife girl,' she assumed she should look the part.

"Goodbye, sir. Have a good day at work," she stated as she shut the truck's door. He drove away loudly.

"I still don't understand why you call him sir," Theo stated as he slipped next to her. "It's not like he's your ruler."

"No, he's my father. I never liked calling him dad, and daddy is now sexual, and papa sounds way to old fashioned," she claimed.

"So you've decided to call him sir?"

"It works for us. Who am I hurting by calling him sir? It's a sign of respect if anything."

"At least we know that if you ever call a man 'sir,' that's your equivalent to 'daddy.'" He smirked. Melissa playfully threatened to pull out a knife, and he ran away inside the school building. "Don't kill me! I have so much to live for."

"Like what?" she deadpanned.

"I'll have you know I've almost perfected my new recipe of strawberry cheesecake. And you'll never get to try it if you kill me."

"What if I kill you after you write the recipe down?"

"Then I'll never write it down, so you'll never kill me."

"But then if you never write it down, you'll never remember it once you finally perfect the recipe."

He opened his mouth to retaliate before pouting and playfully shoving her shoulder. "No fair. I'm so close."

She laughed and slung her arm around his shoulders. "Oh, relax. I'll never use my gift to harm anyone."

"You say that now, but we all know what happens to your kind," Sabrina commented as they walked past her locker.

"Yeah, I kill you first," Melissa nonchalantly commented.

Before she knew about her family's gift, Melissa was teased constantly as a child for having a mother who liked knives. The other kids always teased her, calling her names like 'Knife Lover' and 'The Stabber' behind her back and to her face. It never got better once she told her peers that it was because her mother knew how to throw knives and never missed her aim. All the kids laughed at her and told her that there was no such thing as perfect aim. And not matter how much she fought the other kids on the issue, they never believed her.

It wasn't until one day in class that a wasp flew in from the window. The teacher and all the kids were scared of getting stung, but Melissa grabbed a pair of scissors from the plastic container at her table and threw it at the wasp. The scissors struck the wall, stabbing the wasp in the process. From that day on, no one ever teased her about not having perfect aim again, but the nicknames stuck around. Melissa never cared. It allowed people to know what she could do before they tried anything on her.

"Why does she have to be such a bitch?" Theo whispered.

"Because her life at home sucks and she's most likely getting neglected by her family, so she results to being obnoxious and causing students to complain so the school calls home and she can get some attention from her family, but they never give her the satisfaction," she stated. "Just lay off her. I only bully her back because she knows that I never will actually stab her, and it allows her to remember that being a bully is not going to get her the attention she wants from me, so I choose to ignore it. I bet that little comment just made her whole day because someone actually responded."