Escape to Paris

{2}

I fiddled with my fingers nervously underneath the dining table, watching everyone fill up their plates as high as they could with the different types of delectables as it was laid out in front of us, my mum being extra precise to make sure everything looked pristine and perfect in the centre of the table.

There was an entire selection of food: garlic and rosemary mash potatoes, Marmite roast potatoes, buttered carrots and parsnips, thick and fluffy Yorkshire puddings with a side of beef gravy, and melt-in-the-mouth beef brisket with the fat still glistening away as it sat in its own cardinal red juices.
I looked around the table at my mum, dad and nana who were all laughing and chatting away, sticking spoons in different bowls so they could stack their plates up even higher. I grabbed my glass of water and took a nervous sip. I didn't know why it was so hard to tell them about how I've been accepted into studying abroad in Paris, but I just knew that it would break their hearts that I'd be moving so far away. I had lived in my house for twenty-three years, and now I'm leaving for two years; maybe even longer if I decide to stay there for good. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I just knew it wouldn't go as well as I would want it to go.

"Tris?" I quickly arched my head up from where I was staring down at the floor to my mum offering me a bowl of mash potatoes. "Do you want any?" She asked.

"Um," I wavered, "no, thank you. I'll just get some beef." I reached for the spoon and scooped some beef onto my plate, as well as some carrots and a few roast potatoes. I really wasn't that hungry due to the nerve-wrecking swirly feeling in my stomach. It felt like I was going to be sick.

"What's wrong, poppet?" My dad spoke from the other side of the table, a concerned expression on his face. "Something on your mind?"

Oh yes, dad. A lot.

"No," I gulped, forcing a smile. "Just feeling a bit restless."

"You need more sleep, that's what you need." I looked over to the other side of the table to where my nana, Anne spoke, her hands shaking from arthritis as she cut slowly into her beef with a bread knife. My dad saw that she was struggling and helped her, using his steak knife to cut the beef into bite sized pieces so it was easier for her to swallow.
My nana was a driven woman, with grey hair and kind, warm eyes. She would always wear a baby/yellow pinafore with a few bracelets around her wrist, and every time she would pick up a cup of tea her hands would shake from old age. But she still tried her best around the house, doing the ironing and washing up mainly. She was a saint and my mum loved her help.

My granddad unfortunately died a couple of years ago due to lung cancer, and since my mum didn't want my nana to be all alone by herself, she offered to let her stay with us for a while until she felt better and more able to live alone. Two years later she's still living here, and my nana put her old house up for sale. Which was when we realised she wasn't leaving anytime soon.

"Now, now, mam," my mum started, waving her spoon in the air at my nana authoritatively, "don't get onto the poor girl. She's probably got enough on her plate as it is."

"Bloody millennials," my nana mumbled under her breath, but didn't say anything else.

I glanced over at my mum and smiled at her thankfully. She gave me a wink and sat down to the left of me, pouring herself a large glass of icy water, the ice cubes clinking against the glass.

My mum and dad have always been besotted by each other, ever since they were fifteen. He had always said she was the first girl he he would look at when he walked into a room, and ever since she is still the only girl he looks at when he walks into a room. It makes me feel jealous of their relationship, as it reminds me of the lack of men in my life. And it's not like I'm not good-looking. I have my mum's long, chocolate brown curls and my dad's emerald eyes, my mum's bronzed-olive skin and my dads' freckles, as well as a few other physical attributes of my own: like a sloped nose, long slender legs, decent sized breasts and bigger hips.
I wouldn't say I was ugly; I would just say I'm unapproachable. I'm quite shy and timid when you first get to know me, which a lot of men find quite boring due to the hostile exterior I have at first. But, eventually, when I get more comfortable with someone, I just open. But not a lot of people stick around long enough to crack it free.