Perfectly flawless, fair skin. Olive green eyes. Dimples in both cheeks.

“Like little dents in cream” I mused as I started at my elder sister, Zara, burning with jealousy.

“Khateeja, give me the liquid eyeliner please!” Zara cried, flinging her arms about wildly.

“Why can’t you get it yourself? It’s right in front of you on the dressing table!” I snapped, rolling my eyes.

“Oh!” Zara said, laughing. She displayed a perfectly shaped set of pearly white teeth.

I snorted, toying with a loose thread on my shirt as I watched Zara make up her face for her friends huge birthday bash.

Zara hummed a song as she brushed her gleaming, chestnut brown hair. I couldn’t help but notice how very silky her hair was and how each strand glistened like diamonds in the bedroom light. Sighing, I picked up a strand of my own pitiful, black hair and twisted it around my finger.

“Well! What do you think?” Zara asked as she spun around and posed for me. I gulped. My sister looked like a supermodel. She had put on smoky grey eye shadow and had rimmed her eyes with black eye pencil. Her lips were glossy red and golden-pink blush powder gave her entire face a youthful, glowing look. She giggled and fixed her dupatta while her dangling earrings chimed melodiously.

“You look like a whore!” I commented viciously, eyeing her up and down sulkily.

Zaras face fell and a hurt, dubious look appeared in her innocent eyes.

“I…I didn’t mean that! I was only kidding!” I struggled with words, looking down at the carpet like it contained all the secrets of the universe. “So Mom actually let you wear that sleeveless shalwar kameez? Didn’t she throw a fit?”

I tried desperately to steer the conversation elsewhere. Zara looked at me for a second and then smiled.

“Yeah. Surprisingly, Mom didn’t protest. After all, I am nineteen. I’m not a little kid like you,” she winked and sprayed perfume on her neck.

“Whatever, Zara!” I muttered. “Have fun at the party!”

“Will do!” Zara said as she threw a lipstick and her cell phone into her purse. I cringed as I looked at my super hot sister one last time and slouched out of her bedroom.

Zara was stunningly beautiful. No doubts about that. I, on the other hand, had a terribly dark facial complexion, and to top it off, about twenty giant pimples dotted my entire face. A particularly nasty zit had sprung up on my nose just that very morning. My eyes were small and plain brown (Why couldn’t I also have inherited my grandmothers green eyes?) and my nose was rather large for my face. My hair was short, frizzy and tangled most of the time. No amount of hair grease would de-frizz them and flat iron straightners didn’t work the slightest.

“Face the facts. You’re ugly and she’s to-die-for gorgeous. She’s Beauty and you’re the Beast,” I told myself for about the hundredth time.

I lay face down on my bed with my feet up in the air.

“Why does this bother me so much?” I wailed, punching a fist into my pillow.

As much as I hated to admit it, my sister was absolutely perfect in every way. She was just as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. Zara was a straight-A student, passionate about sports, community services and also one of the most popular girls in school. She was angelically good; said all five prayers, never lied or gossiped about anyone and hardly ever boasted about her good looks. She always shrugged off the millions of compliments she received daily. Zara hardly ever raised her voice when talking to me and never picked fights with me. If we ever did fight, she would write me a ‘Sorry’ card and place it on my dressing table at night along with a chocolate bar tied up with a pink ribbon.

But ever since I had reached my sixteenth year, things had begun to change drastically for me. Her good looks had created such an inferiority complex in my head that I could hardly stand next to her in public. I recalled how I had lost my mind last Eid and had begun to pull out Zaras hair when the entire family was gushing over her lovely clothes, complete with matching bangles and ‘khussas’. Half my family decided that I was possessed and the other half believed me to be mentally retarded. My parents had thought of showing me to a shrink but then decided that the news might leak out and cause social embarrassment to the whole lot. I giggled as I remembered mothers bewildered expression when I had leapt on Zara, screaming like a banshee.

“Dinner is ready, Khateeja!” Mother called out from downstairs after a while.

“In a minute!” I replied as I hugged my fluffy, pink cushion. Suddenly, I realized that Zara had given it to me on my last birthday. Tears stung at the back of my eyes and my throat began to close up. I felt so cut off from my sister that I literally felt my heart ache. I hadn’t had a good, long, heart to heart conversation with her in years. How could I let a stupid insecurity come between us? Warm tears flowed out of my eyes and splashed onto the cushion.

“Why aren’t you eating properly?” my father demanded at the dinner table as he piled mashed potatoes onto his plate.

“I’m just not hungry,” I mumbled, pushing the peas around on my plate with a fork.

“Don’t play with your food! It’s bad manners!” Mother lectured with a grim face.??”I know you only enjoy desi food but I can’t always cook ‘daal chawal’ and ‘aalo gosht’.”

I heaved a sigh, barely listening to her.

“Maybe she’s on a diet!” my father said with a cheeky grin.

“Well, it’s about time she did something about her weight! Her Ruby Khala told me just yesterday that Khateeja is getting wider than she is taller. And Zareen thinks that Khateeja has roughly reached the size of a young killer whale!” Mother exclaimed.

My parents laughed insanely at this as they shoveled food into their mouths. I felt my face burn.

“Honey, you should honestly lose some pounds or else you’ll get so fat that nobody will offer to marry you! Look at your sister! She’s only nineteen and there are a dozen boys lined up outside our door, wanting to marry her!”

I slammed the fork down on the table, unable to take it any longer.

“I’m not the least bit amused,” I said in a shaky voice and stalked out of the kitchen.
Halfway up the stairs, I began to feel the start of a throbbing headache.

“Wonderful! A giant migraine is just what I need right now!” I said sarcastically, stomping my feet.

I just wished everybody would just get off my back for once and accept me for who I was-an over-weight, pimply girl with frizzy, unmanageable hair. No acne soap would clear up my skin, no conditioner would soften my hair and no force on earth would stop me from eating chocolates (my only weakness and of course, the reason for my chubbiness). I didn’t want to change; I was happy with myself. But people’s judgments and nasty comments had forced me to otherwise.

“Isn’t beauty only skin-deep?” I wondered aloud as I flung open the bathroom door and turned on the hot water faucet in the bathtub.

“A soothing, hot bath is just the ticket!” I told myself as I sprinkled bath salts and poured scented oils in the warm water. “Maybe this will dissolve all my troubles away!”

I was an average, yet extremely hardworking student. I worked tirelessly all nights to manage A’s but when I showed my A grade assignments and tests to my parents, they showed no reaction whatsoever.

“Zara gets A+’s all the time. Work harder!” Mom always used to say, never noticing the crushed look on my face. I had great friends-friends with whom I could go to Cafe Zouk and eat to my heart’s content. I also had a relatively happy family life. I had everything going on for me. Yet I had screwed it all up over a ridiculous complex. I had drifted apart from my only sister and it was entirely my fault. No one else was to blame.

I had been in the tub for barely fifteen minutes when I heard a bloodcurdling scream from downstairs. It sounded like mother. I felt my heart skip a beat. I could sense that something was wrong. A creepy feeling passed over me and the hair at the back of my neck stood up. I jumped out of the tub and quickly put on my bathrobe. I ran downstairs and saw that my mother lay on the sofa, her face white as a ghost.

“Zara’s been in a car…car accident,” my father stammered. “We have to go see her. You should stay at home.”

I simply stared at him, my legs wobbling like jelly. They rushed out and I heard the car zoom away after a minute or so.

It was drizzling outside and I sat crouched on the sofa, listening to pitter patter of the raindrops on the leaves of the trees. I looked out the window. The moon was peeking from behind dark clouds, casting eerie shadows all around the house. I turned away from the window and rested my head on a cushion. Water dripped from the ends of my wet hair and soapy residues stained the sofa but I cared not. I just lay there.

I stayed up for hours waiting for them. I was too afraid to call them and ask about Zara. They didn’t call back either which made things worse. Somewhere around four o clock, I fell asleep, my mouth dry and my heart, heavy. At 7 Aa.m., my parents came home, both with red, puffy eyes. I came to know that a drunk driver had rammed his car into Zara’s car. Her head had crashed against the windshield and practically the entire top of it had been cut off, held only by a few inches of scalp. I nearly collapsed, upon hearing this startling news.

“Is she gonna die?” I asked my father fearfully, biting my nails.

He said that the doctors still had to stitch up Zara’s head and that they didn’t know if she were to survive through the operation. I felt my stomach do somersaults.

The next day we went to the hospital to see Zara. I entered the room with sweaty palms and a hoarse scream escaped my throat when I say my sister lying so helplessly on the hospital bed. Her head was wrapped up in white gauze which was stained with blood. Her face was swollen and slashed horrendously. Her arms were bruised, with multiple cuts here and there. I stood there staring at her, frozen, with the bouquet of red roses in my hand. She started back at me. Neither of us said a word to each other.

Zara came home after three long days with the top half of her head shaved. She had hundreds of stitches all over her forehead, eyelids and cheeks. The little hair left on her head was so completely soaked and matted with blood that it eventually had to be cut off. I remembered how envious I had been of her hair earlier. Had I wished evil upon Zara? Filled with shame, I could hardly look at her. But I was overjoyed that my sister was safe and sound at home.

Zara was resting on her bed when I finally got the courage to go up and talk to her. I set down a bowl of steaming chicken soup on her side table. She reached up, touched my hair and started to cry softly. I immediately started bawling like a baby and knelt down by the bed. I held her hand and cried my heart out.

“I’m sorry for everything,” I croaked, my head bowed.

She gave me a watery smile.

“You’re the most beautiful sister one could ever have!” Zara murmured.

I sniffed.

“Not as beautiful as you though,” I replied.

Her face lit up for a second and then she shook her head.

“And I still mean that,” I said.