Melanie couldn't remember the last time someone had called her by name.
She tends to cry out loud. She's been crying since she was born, or so they say, hence why everyone calls her Crybaby.
Crybaby. Crybaby. Crybaby.
They chant at school.
"You're such a crybaby! Always crying!" Her mother likes to say, "since you were born! The only thing you're good at!"
She didn't want them to see how much it hurt her. So she embraced it. And laughed through her tears.
But deep down she felt as she was losing her identity to crybaby. Melanie was almost gone. She was fading and fading. Sometimes she had a hard time remembering crybaby wasn't her actual name. But she wouldn't let herself forget about Melanie. So she wrote it - filling book after book of her handwriting reading "My name's Melanie. I'm Melanie" in a naïve attempt of keeping Melanie alive.
Every time she cried, she would get screamed at. Why are you crying?! Stop crying! But the harsh words would only make her cry more.
She would try to explain herself, but before she could even start the tears would come out flowing as a river. She couldn't help herself. And she tried to convince herself the problem was the people around her, not her.
People said she had no brains, that she took everything too harsh, she was too sensitive, dumb even... Everyone except Johnny. The beautiful boy with big blue eyes and golden hair.
One day, he found her crying sat on the floor behind a trash can on the corner of the playground with her arms around her knees that were pulled against her chest. She looked up at him, sniffing, eyes red and puffy, big fat tears coming down her cheeks. She waited. She waited for a joke, an insult, a laugh... Anything except what actually happened. Johnny kneeled on the floor in front of her, and wiped the tears away with the gentle touch of his hand.
"It's okay to cry. I think your heart's too big for your body, so it doesn't fit inside of you" he said in the kindest voice she's ever heard, "that's why you cry so much. But, please, try not to. I don't like how they treat you" he said standing up, offering his hand to help her up. "Besides, you look prettier when you're not crying" he wanted to say when you smile but he realized he had never seen her smile. Not for real. Only pretending.
Since that day she made an effort not to cry at school so he would still think of her as pretty. No one has ever called her pretty. She wanted him to like her. She wanted a friend. She thought Johnny was her first and probably last chance of it. So she trained herself to wait until she was home, tucked in her bed in the pitch black darkness of her room to let the tears fall down her cheeks.
It wasn't particularly hard to cry at home.
Sometimes she wondered which was worse - school or home. But deep down, she already knew the answer.
