Éffleurer

Chapter 1

"Instead of seeing, feel it."

Creaky sounds were heard when the train finally arrived, the weather was cloudy as if the rain would fall anytime soon. It had been a long time since I left the city to visit my family. I breathed out before getting into the train. See you soon Brighton.
I pluged my headphones into my phone and put on some music, after that I made myself confortable on my seat.
"Excuse me, Miss. We're at the final destination you have to get off the train." My eyes shot open and in front of me stood a young train host. I pulled my headphones out and excused myself before I grabbed my stuff and got out. Thankfully, the final destination was actually the place I needed to be at. I took out my phone and dialed my older brother Daniel's number.
"For God's sake Elise, where have you been? I've been waiting for half an hour." He sounded half pissed and I couldn't help but to smile, everything was just the same as always.
"Hello to you too brother, and I'm sorry I took a nap on the train. I'm on my way now." I walked out of the trainstation and looked around for his car. "Where are you?" I asked but saw him before he could answer.
He was leaning against the car with one hand pressed against his ear. He looked as good as always with his dark messy hair and green eyes. He was wearing a grey suit which meant that he came to the station as soon as he finished his work at the company. His eyes met mine when I approached him and he smiled. He gave me one of his big teddy hugs, he was big and muscular. "You owe me this time, mom has been nagging at me for the whole day." He grabbed my suitcase as I got into the passenger's seat.
"It's mom, you know how she is." I smiled as the picture of mom appeared in my mind, she was wearing a green summer dress that matched her green eyes and her hair was pulled into a low bun. Her eyes were shining with happiness. I'd missed her. "How's Ina? Is the pregnancy going well?" Ina was my brother's wife, the had been married for two years but been a couple for 6, high school lovers. But she was two years younger than him. She was also one of my close friends since we're the same age and we went to the same school.
We chit-chatted all the way home and parked in the parking lot close to the apartment where my parents and little sister lived. I hurried out from the car and walked into the apartment without Daniel. I took the elevator to our floor and slowly opened the unlocked door to the apartment.
  There were a lot of jackets and coats hanging on the coat-hanger and a lot of shoes were spread out on the floor. "Guess who's back?!" I yelled out loudly with a smile plastered on my face and then heard some small footsteps before I saw that it was all of my small cousins. "Ellie! We've missed you." The oldest one Esme among the youngest said with a huge smile on her face. Her curly brown hair had gotten longer and her pretty hazel eyes and the longest eyelashes I've ever seen were shining with happiness. She was indeed one of the prettiest ones in the family with all of her features. "I've missed you too guys." I looked at the other kids, Léon who was 2 years younger than Esme stood next to her with hopeful gray eyes and a smile on his cute face. They looked similar him and Esme even though they were only cousins. The one who stood next to Léon was Elijah, Léon's younger brother, and he was the handsome kid in the house. I couldn't wait to see how handsome he would look once he'd grow up. He had green eyes and pale skin. His hair was a little bit lighter than Léon's goldenbrown hair and he was the calm kid in the family. Lastly and leastly Ruby, the youngest one who stood next to Elijah. She was wearing a white dress and her darkbrown almost black eyes were looking at me curiously, she was my youngest aunt's only daughter and I didn't have that kind of a relationship with Ruby since they lived in France. But they would always visit London to meet the family and with me living in Brighton didn't give me the chance to get to know her that well.
"How heavy can a bag even be?" Said a panting Daniel. "Well, with all the gifts I've brought it should be very heavy right kids?" I looked over at Daniel with a grin and got a loud and happy yes from the children.
"My darling!" I heard my mom say and I turned around to hug her. "Hi mom." Her hugs would always comfort me. We pulled out and her gaze wandered up and down my body. She looked beautiful as always, her hair was pulled into a low bun and her face lit with happiness just like the picture in my memories. Next up was both of my aunts who had similar looks as my mother with green eyes and same face shape except that my youngest aunt Zina had more full lips and my oldest aunt Sarah had wine red hair and bigger eyes than mom. Behind my aunts stood my sister Clarissa, two older cousins and Ina, aunt Sarah's older daughters' Madeleine and Adelise. Clarissa approached me first and hugged me tightly, then Madeleine, Adelise and lastly Ina. "Ellie, girl you're missing out so much stuff." She smiled as she pulled out from the hug, her belly had grown out a lot since last time I visited which was 5 months ago. Her hair was shorter but she looked brighter and happier than I'd ever seen her. Daniel is doing a good job. "Daniel, take my suitcase into the livingroom. It's time to hand out your gifts." I heard the kids jumping and yelling out happily before they ran into the livingroom with Daniel.
I walked behind Daniel and then opened my bag as soon as he placed it in front of the television. "Let's see, here's Esme's." I slowly began to hand out everyone's presents. Esme got a new schoolbag because she needed one, Léon got a big car toy since he loved cars, Elijah got a new teddy bear  because stuffed animals were his favorite. It was hard to buy someting for Ruby so I asked my aunt who told me that she liked books so I bought her a book called Howl's moving castle which I used to read when I was younger. I bought parfumes based on personality for mom and my aunts. Clary got a chanel bag, Adelise and Madeleine got gucci bags and Ina got a gift card at the mall so she could buy whatever she needed and wanted. Lastly Daniel got a new leather watch because I had missed his birthday last week. I got thank yous' and many hugs from them which made me happier.
  "Ellie, you hungry?" Mom asked curiously after opening the gifts. God, I'd missed mom's food. I nodded and got up. "Am I the only one who's going to eat?" I looked around and Daniel stood up. "It seems like we're the only ones with an empty belly." He grinned. We made our way to the kitchen. Mom had recently renovated the kitchen by changing the color of the walls and changed the cupboard doors into white ones with golden knob handles. She had also built a kitchen island in the middle and bought some black barstools on one side of it. The kitchen looked amazing. I took out two plates and two forks for me and Daniel as I sat down on one of the four barstools. "Mom's made all of your favorite dishes, dolma, lentil soup, chicken, rice and sallad." Daniel grabbed his plate and filled it with food. My origin isn't english or European, you see even though we have European names we still come from the middle Eastern from the beginning. "You serious?" I stood up and walked towards the stove with my plate and filled it with food. Ina walked into the kitchen and sunk down on one of the stools while Daniel and I filled our plates.
"Ellie, how do you feel?" Ina looked at me with concern in her eyes when I took a seat in the stool. At first I didn't get what she meant but then it hit me, the thought I had pushed away these several weeks hit me in the face 10 times harder when she asked that question. The thought I had all forgotten about as soon as I got onto the train earlier because the only thing that was on my mind was the smiles on my family's faces when they saw the gifts I gave them. The thought of him made me feel uneasy and weak. He who would say so sweet words that left a bitter taste in my mind, he was the actual reason for me to return to London again and I hated it. He was going to get married with one of my ex close friends in two days.
Daniel sent Ina those looks again, those looks who said 'don't' and I decided to shook it off. "I'm fine, don't worry." I gave out one of my  best smiles before I dug into my food. I didn't want to talk about feelings or about him at all. It was so delicious, mom's food was probably my number one on my what I've missed about London list.
"Where's dad?" The thought hit me too late actually, but it was kind of normal for dad to not be there. He was always busy with meetings in London and overseas. "He's in New York for a business meeting and he'll be back tomorrow night." Daniel answered casually. "So that's why you've been busy these days?" That explained why he was irritated and majorly pissed, handling stress isn't his thing to do.
The conversation went on and we talked a lot about the company and how everyone wanted me to return back to London and work for our company instead. I chose to move to Brighton for my career since nobody actually knew who I was and because I needed to get out from London to move on and become a better version of myself. Dad didn't like that decision but he knew that it was better for me to actually fight for my career and develop as a person through it.
  Ina and Daniel went home later together with my aunt Sarah and her three daughters' Madeleine, Adelise and Esme because they were also here only to visit for the wedding and to be with the family. Aunt Zina and Ruby stayed at our place since we had enough space for them. My aunt, mom, Clary and I tried some new face maskes Aunt Zina had brought from France for us before we went to sleep.  Aunt Zina said that this mask was an expensive one but so worth it, it cleaned out all the spots in the face and so on.
I brushed my teeths and hair before I combed it into a braid. I went past Clary's room only to say goodnight before I went into my own bedroom. I had my own big bed in the centre of the room, to the left side I had big windows with a great view over London. To the right side I had my white warderobe and some pictures of me and my friends. I extinguished the lights and let the darkness overwhelm me. Ina said that we would look for some dresses before the wedding. Of course he had hurt me, but I wouldn't let that make me fall as the victim. The person I am today isn't the person I was a year ago. With that as my last thought the sleep carried me away to my wonderland.