Scattered - Tangled series (Overprotective famous brothers)

The pressure to be perfect

ALISHA

So, ever since Arbaaz and Sohail found out about the little breathing incident yesterday, they have been paranoid. Like seriously, not letting me get out of their sight for a minute, making sure there were no windows open. And smoking in and around the house was strictly prohibited now. Which I was secretly happy about, but don’t tell the guys about it!

But when you have two brothers and their staff keeping an eye on you, it gets annoying.

“Why does geometry exist?” I mumbled, staring at the sheet blankly. I had returned from the gym, and showered. Now, I was trying to finish my work so I could actually make it to a blood donation drive and then a store launch. Gah, so much work, such less time. Why was I even going? Because after years I could finally find time out of the gym and go to places I wanted to.

“Looks fun…” Arbaaz said giving me one of the two coke cans he was carrying.

“Yeah, it’s paradise.” I replied sarcastically, holding the can away from me and popping it open. Having a sip, I went back to staring blankly at my sheet. It wasn’t fair. In my gymnastics language, teachers taught us a cartwheel, gave handstand as homework and back handspring in exams.

“Help?” he asked and I nodded. He was pretty much the brains of the family. Not that the others were dumb, but he was the MIT or Harvard kinda guy. He took my sheet, and solved it in three seconds flat.

“How did you? You’re not human, sorry. I forgot.” I noted rather dramatically, and he chuckled. I had always called him Extra Terrestrial for his excellent IQ and superfast calculations. I swear he was faster than a calculator!

“It’s easy. See, first you’ve gotta equalize both the LHD and the RHD…” he continued to explain me stuff in a lot simpler and logical manner. That was until Malaika flipped.

“No way are you having that!” she grabbed the coke can from me, and spilled some of it on my sheet in the process.

“Malaika!” I whined, trying to get the dirty brown off the white pages. With no success.

“Why in the world would you have this? There is diet coke, you know. I mean it has hundreds of calories. Gosh, it’s sick. Alisha, you are not gonna have junk like this…” and something in me blasted off just then.

“Oh I will. Because it doesn’t matter how hard I try, people will always find flaws in me! I will always be fat, anorexic, skinny, curvy, ugly, dumb, smartass, arrogant, shy, slut, whore, attention screamer…I can’t change a thing!” I yelled at her and ran upstairs. I could hear Arbaaz talking to Malaika, but never registered the actual exchange of words. Locking the door behind me, I threw my assignment across the room and picked my guitar to block the world out.

But, she may just be right. If I was skinnier, not gymnast skinny but model skinny, they wouldn’t be able to tag me as ‘chubby’ or ‘pig’ or ‘cow’, right? I’d get atleast one tag off me. The pressure to be perfect was killing me. Maybe it was the only way I could be perfect in their eyes.

“Sis, please open the door. I didn’t mean to say you are anything near fat. Please, talk to me?” Malaika knocked the door, but I only double locked it. I didn’t want to talk to her. She was perfect, and she was skinny. Hell, she was sexy with her almost negligible waistline. Maybe she was right, I thought.

Maybe if I was skinnier, they won’t hate me anymore. Everyone in my school called me rich bitch Liz now. They had set up a facebook group under that name, and it had thousands of fans. Their post this morning said I was a fat cow too.

I opened Google, and typed in ‘how to get skinny?’ Thousands of search results popped up. If so many results did pop up, it had to be something good. Clicking on the yahoo answers link, I began reading some answers. One answer caught my attention.

Don’t eat. At all. It’s quick and effective. You’ll get skinny, and if tall enough, you’d be in Milan fashion week. The best way, believe me. I was 196 pounds at the start of summers, now I’m 100 pounds- and not overweight.

“Switch the fucking thing off.” Arbaaz cursed from behind me, closing all the tabs open and shutting my laptop down. I wondered how he got in here, when I saw him holding the master key. It was a key which the security head always carried in case of any emergency. It could open and lock all the doors in our house. Talk about having privacy.

“Why in the world would you read stuff like that?” Malaika asked me from other side, and I sat silently. She practically gave me the damn idea.

“Arbaaz, I’ll handle it. Believe me, it’s a girl thing.” She said, and Arbaaz nodded. Kissing my forehead, he left closing the door behind him. Malaika waited till he was out of hearing range before taking my hand.

“I know how it is.” She said, and I looked at her for the first time since she entered the room.

“Yes, I do. It’s the voice at the back of your head. You can do better, people won’t hate you if you get better. Sexier, hotter. I know. You think people don’t hate me now? Many do. I still have to deal with all. Actually now, people are tagging me anorexic.” She stated matter of factly.

“What?” I cried but she shooed me off.

“Bad camera angles, that’s all. Anyways, one thing I learned was that the society doesn’t have any right to judge or define you. Nobody but you have that right. And trust me when I say this- I envy your skin complexion. Here in eastern countries, people love fair skin, ‘cause it’s rarer. Just like in the western countries, people love tanned skin. People like what they don’t have. But you have the perfect bronze skin.”

“But all of you are fair. I feel…left out sometimes. And people love to point out how I don’t fit in. My skin, height, hobbies, behavior, all of it so different from you guys. Everything, it’s like all I do is wrong.” It was the truth. I was the black sheep of the family. And the entire world couldn’t stop pointing that out.

“Really? Skin color decides families now? Just, don’t care about those narrow minded assholes. Yes, I just cussed.” She winked. It was rare for her to cuss, infact she’d yell whenever anyone around cussed. And her cussing meant she really, really was angry to the core.

“So, you think I’m ok the way I am?” I asked hesitantly. She was so beautiful. Heartthrob of millions, the sex symbol, tall, thin, gorgeous. I was short, muscular, curvy, and definitely not beautiful.

“No.” she replied and I looked down. I knew it.

“I don’t think, I know you are absolutely fantastic the way you are. Fierce, edgy, alluring, sun kissed, and with a heart of gold. I wouldn’t change a thing.” She said softly, hugging me. I had heard someone praise me for the first time in days. I hugged her back tightly, a few tears spilling.

“Now come on. We’ve gotta make it to the blood donation camp.” She said pulling apart and fixing her hair.

“You go, I can’t even donate blood. Damn under eighteen club.” I pouted. Seriously, I wanted to donate blood. What wrong could happen with me being underage?

“No can do, you practically pushed us to invite everyone we knew and promote this blood donation thing on twitter. So, you have to come.” She pointed out, and got out of my room.

“Fine.” I stomped to my walk in closet, picking up some shorts, red top and boots to wear.

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So So So sorry I didn't upload! Honestly, the reads this book is getting is depressing :'(

But, hope it gets better soon....Now, I'm planning to end this one soon....and if I get reads, there will be a sequel! :D 

If not, I'll chuck it. 

But details later! 

COMMENT, VOTE and FAN please! Any SUGGESTIONS are welcome and much appreciated! 

Thanks for reading! <3