Disclaimer: Contains language and brief reference to drugs, alcohol, and implied violence. Ye be warned.
CharactersProperty of JKR.
It was so fucking hard.
But I'm not looking for sympathy.
Everyone told me that looks don't matter, that it's what's on the inside that counts. All lies. If you're the ugly sister, then you'll live a stereotypically "ugly" life. I was the ugly sister.
Lilly was beyond gorgeous with her thick red hair and startling eyes. She apparently got the share of familial Evans beauty that might have gone to me. People would look at us with confusion and swear that there was no way we could be related.
My parents adored her.
It hurt.
She could do no wrong, she was some kind of immortal being without sin. Luckily, for the school year she was at some fantastical "magic" academy, out of my hair but never far from my mind.
"Why can't you be like Lilly?" "Lilly never acts like this." Lilly, Lilly, LILLY.
And me? Who do you think covered for her in the summer when she'd sneak out to meet older guys? Who drove to meet her in the middle of the night when she'd gotten drunk and had been left at a gas station? Me.
It was hell, sitting at home, watching boys come and meet her, listening to her talk with her popular, gorgeous, perfect friends. I wanted so badly to hate her, but I couldn't. It would have been so much easier if I just could have hated her.
Nothing's ever easy.
I lived in perpetual retrograde, experimenting with fire, alcohol, and all manner of drugs. I was willing to do anything to forget about my life that was constantly in her shadow.
The last straw was overhearing my mother say to her, "I love you more than everything."
"Everything?" My sister asked, incredulous.
"Everything."
Including me.
That year, on Christmas Eve, there was a terrible fire. Both of my parents died.
I escaped unharmed.
They never found out how it got started. Officials speculate that there was faulty wiring involved.
Yeah. Wire. That's it.
When I was sixteen I got knocked up in the back seat of a Volvo. I swore that my child would receive the love that I never got; I promised myself that my child would never feel unloved. I got married to the guy who did me, had a cheap wedding with wilted bouquets, and lived a mediocre life for a year.
Then I got news that my sister had been killed.
I laughed until I cried.
Things are looking up.
