[ WP ] For the first time ever , a person is born with a genuine superpower . They proceed to live out their entire life without noticing or realizing it .

As all her friends compared stories of how they got various scars and scratches, Candice remained quiet. She had always been a careful girl, and she liked to think she had pretty quick reflexes. She did n't have any stories about falling down the stairs and breaking her leg, or of doors opening in her face and breaking her nose. She never needed surgery, so she did n't have a long rope of a scar on her back like Sarah Mueller. She never got hurt falling off the monkey bars, so she did n't have a mark where her ulna snapped and stabbed through her flesh, like on Jake Schwartz's arm. In fact, Candice did n't have any scars. She inspected her long, chocolate arms. There was n't so much as a scratch. 
 
 By the time she arrived at home that afternoon, Candice had already forgotten all about the lunchtime conversation about cuts and scars. She tossed her bag on the couch, kicked her Nike's into the corner, and flopped down into the lush comfort of the sofa. She flicked through the television channels, eventually deciding to watch *Family Feud*. In half an hour, her mom would be home from work, and she'd make smothered pork chops for dinner. Candice's mouth watered as she thought about it. She loved smothered pork chops. 
 
 
 `` The food's delicious, ma,'' Candice said as she shoved a spoonful of rice and gravy in her mouth. 
 Her mother was a heavyset woman, with deep set eyes plump lips. She excelled at two things in her life: cooking and fighting. She often Candice stories of all the various fights she'd been in when she was in high school. Sometimes she fought over boys, sometimes over pride, and sometimes just for fun. But she always told Candice that she should n't grow up to be a fighter like her mama. 
 
 
 `` You way too pretty to have people scratchin' at your face, baby'' she told her. `` You a girl that can be cute and a funny and make everyone else do the fightin' for you.'' 
 
 With those words, Candice was raised to be gentle and kind. She did n't fight, she mediated. Instead of playing soccer or running on the track team, she painted still lifes and wrote poetry. During recess, she collected flowers instead of climbing on top of the monkey bars like the other children. She swung slowly and peacefully, and never jumped off in mid air. So Candice grew older, and she had no scars. She was taught to be careful with everything she did, because she was a pretty girl, and she should always be dainty. 
 
 
 But her mother had been a pretty girl too. She knew that if you fought well, or played smoothly, you would n't get marks all over your face. She knew that cuts healed and bruises faded, and pretty girls remained pretty. But she also knew that Candice was not a normal little pretty girl. 
 
 She recalled when she held her in her arms on her second birthday, and how she slipped on the rug by the stairs and fell down by the landing. She remembered her little baby girl, limp and bloody at the bottom of the stairs. And she remembered how that gash on her little girl's head disappeared, and how she could *see* the bashed in portion of her skull rearrange itself. And she recalled how her baby sat up, smiled, and giggled. 
 
 When Candice was four, her mother took her to the park with her cousins. She thought of how she'd begun digging in her bag to find her breath mints, and how, when she looked up, her little girl had climbed up to the roof of one of the playground towers. Oh, how she plead for her baby to just come down the way she'd climbed up. And maybe Candice did try to retrace her steps, but her foot slipped across the roof and she began to fall. 
 She remembered how she screamed as her little girl's arm got caught in the railing, and with a sickening *crack*, fractured in two places and dislocated at the shoulder. Tony, her ten year-old niece, ran to go get his big brother. But before they could return, Candice yanked her arm free from the playground railing and continued her descent. She stood and swung her arm around, like a much older person may do when they've pinched a nerve. Her mother watched as the bones in her arm slid back towards their regular position, as her arm locked into the proper place on her shoulder. Her cousins returned; Tony feinted. 
 
 Candice was raised to be delicate and careful, and she believed that this was why she had no scars. Her mother kept her from doing physical activities because she was frail and weak, and could be easily hurt if she played too roughly. So she learned to be kind and gentle, and to convince others to do for her what her own body could not sustain. 
 
 `` Mama, how come I got ta be careful all the time?'' she asked. `` I mean there are other girls in my class and they get hurt but it's not that bad.'' 
 Her mother sipped her lemonade and smiled. 
 `` You're much too pretty to go around getting hurt. All the boys would go crazy if they saw you with a broken bone. Then what?''
