Crystal Bella (4 page)

“Maybe.”

Natasha just stared at Ethan. H
e stared back in a moment of feeling sad, lust, wanting, pain and a past. The complication of tainted love and they both could feel it.

~~~~

Ethan closed the front door of his house and ran to his car. It was late morning and he was running a little late for class. His Jeans were ripped to threads and he had a black singlet on. He had four necklaces. One had all these pictures on it, a car, a girl, an angel and an eagle all on a chunky metal plate attached to his chain. Ethan was still pulling his singlet over his head as he jumped into his car. Key in the ignition, turned, and away he went. Again he felt something special in the air, that time when you just want to party and have fun.

Christian’s road was coming up. He saw the corner and took it fast. The noise was loud. When Ethan took it
too quickly the weight ratio of the car would be out of balance for a moment and shake, one side to the next. It was almost poor driving, but it certainly had an effect. But when he took those corners, in such an extreme manner, the car was sometimes hard to gather control again, but he always did manage to pull it back into balance. Ethan remembered doing this with one of his local younger cousins when he was younger and his cousin commented on the look on Ethan’s face. At the time Ethan was burning around a corner, after he got around it his cousin said, “you have this funny look on your face when you go around corners fast, Ethan.”

Ethan didn’t
say anything, but the pace he applied sometimes to get around a bend made him go,
fuck
within and clearly he pulled a face to go with it.

Christian
was waiting on the footpath. As Ethan arrived, he drove towards Christian on the road, but he kept driving, as to pass him. Ethan was looking ahead as if he hadn’t seen Christian, but Christian knew his tricks and didn’t react. Just as Ethan was about 10 feet away from Christian he slammed his brakes on and they locked up. Smoke went up in the air as he came to a halt, Christian opened the door.

“Just testing
the brakes man,” Ethan said with a big smile.

“It stinks of
tires man, burnt ones,” Christian said waving smoke from his face. Christian jumped in and they drove down the road and headed on their journey to college. It usually took them 20 minutes or so.

They pull
ed into the college car park. There were quite a few cars with students coming and going. They jumped out and Ethan scanned around to look at everyone. For a moment he saw a girl that got his attention, she was blond, pouty mouth. He knew immediately he didn’t know her but of course she had triggered the memory of Natasha.

“Y
ou okay?” Christian asked.

“Yeah
, all good.”

The day wa
s young, Ethan could feel the energy and the state of his feelings, the essence of himself. He was feeling high today and wanted to indulge in it. The layers of life, sometimes he had to just sit with it for a moment to understand what he was feeling, to understand whether he was feeling melancholy towards himself, or was it something outside of life, or just the emotional tides of this flowing life. Ethan was feeling so alive and was still feeling that almost high feeling, but the Natasha trigger made him go within for a moment and feel more deeply and come down slightly too. Sometimes all Ethan wanted to do was laugh and have fun but there was a depth within him that made him feel melancholic sometimes. He knew he could be light as a feather, and could love like no other, but there was an edge to him, some sort of Goth edge that rippled within him and made him sometimes want to nearly scream. Truth was Ethan could feel his soul, the emotions of this life, but also many lives before in his highly sensitive body and heart. He was like a magnet to all these deep feelings. To be in a continued deep, flowing, peaceful, bliss was not really possible in this earth plane when you had a heart, a soul, a past, a past life and a human mind. The full moon always amplified Ethan’s emotions. He could always feel it coming, three days to go, two, one day to go, then the full moon. He found himself more emotional on that night, and when he first came to realize this, he looked back on the last few full moons and sure enough his behavior was usually more risky than normal. Usually relating to girls and going back to something that he knew he shouldn’t be doing; that random encounter and those high emotions used to pull him into the direction of that heightened buzz and need. The need to be fulfilled in that emotional and bodily way. 

As Ethan and Christian entere
d the university’s open grounds, they saw Carl, their other best friend. All three had been best friends since they were children. Carl had blond, fluffy, curly hair, cute as a button really. He was quite skinny and he liked to smoke his rollies. Carl was always so easy going. A very chilled, young man.

They all walk
ed into the corridor that weaved through campus. They always liked walking through here, the odd chit chat to the passing people on the way through. They felt popular and special and to walk through and socialize was always part of the fun. They were really here for fun, study was the by product that they had to do.

Chr
istian saw the glance of a girl that he knew. He knew that look, but he also knows her. She wanted something and it shined in her eyes. Like a bee to honey he is over to her in a flash.

“I
’ll be back in a moment,” he said to Carl and Ethan. They stood by the lockers in the corridor.

“He’
s probably more busy than normal, the university party is coming up,” Carl said.

“I like the theme, heaven, hell
,” Ethan replied.

“Cool Theme
.”

“Indeed.
”

Christian was
talking to the girl. She was cute, sweet and bright. Probably too sweet for him, would be the initial assessment, or he is probably a little rough for her, that would be the surface at a glance. Though Christian knows opposites attracts. But for now she just wanted some drugs, some weed.

“Hi
, Christian.”

“Hi
, Amelia.”

“Thanks
for being so intuitive,” she paused, “just the same, can I have two please.”

“Sure th
at will be 10 each.”

“Weed
?” she said, making sure they were reading between the lines correctly.

“Of course, unless you’
ve become more heavy in the last few weeks.”

Amelia laughed. In the most discreet way she handed Christian a 20 and he gave her two tinnies. They stared at one another for a moment. Christian looked at her beauty, the sweet face, her agile frame and the rich girl with something different. He said bye and headed back to Carl and Ethan.

T
hey started walking together towards their class. Today was Tuesday and every Tuesday they played cards, Texas Hold’em. They all loved it, especially Ethan who tried to use his psychic powers to win, read the game, read the thoughts of others. It’s a jovial game. 10 dollars each only, but the winner gets the win which for some reason meant a lot. They really get into it, Ethan turned to his friends in a slight twirl.

“So Poker tonight?”

“Yes, it will be at my place tonight. We’ll start around seven. Any predictions?” Carl asked.

Ethan smiled, looks
intensely for a moment in what looked like thin air, or can he see something in that  intense stare of his?

“
Hmm I will win,” he said, “Christian comes second.” Carl laughed.

“We will see future boy
.”

As they walk
ed slowly up the hall towards their class Ethan had that physical feeling when it hits the body in the stomach, it was Natasha. Again her beauty strikes him like a weapon. She was looking different today. Her hair was tied up. She looked exquisite, not too different from a porcelain doll in her clear features but with life and vitality. She was standing upright like she knew how beautiful she was and the effect it can have on everyone around her. Today she had got Ethan by surprise, just by her change of appearance. She was usually more edgy but today she had formed a new look that was nearly intimidating. Ethan quickly focused and delved into his emotions, into his heart. He could sense her beauty but he didn’t have to whimper to it. He could allow the immediate impact of seeing her, her beautiful, her untouched look to resonate within him, but also remain at one with his deeper self. He could see her with all her shine, adore her from the past, listen to his emotions but remain free without ignoring a thing. In the past he used to walk past her and feel like he needed to cry afterwards.

Natasha wa
s with her two friends, they flow nicely together in that they form an attractive, girly combination. They cannot help but know how attractive they look, it radiates. The three of them make a formidable team.

Why did life do this
?
Ethan wondered. One path on the left side of the hall, where Ethan, Carl and Christian were, faced Natasha and her friends. The other side, to the right had every one going up and down. The three of them came face to face with Natasha and her two friends. They started to slow up as they came closer, facing one another as if it was meant to be. For some reason it was like the universe had brought them together but forgot to show any finesse with how it’s meant to be random, or forgot to be subtle. There was no vagueness in the detail here.
You are going to meet and so it is, here you go,
the universe seemed to say.

At a la
ter time Ethan thought about the humans that believed in nothing. A random human world where you try and make money then die.
What about those random occurrences? Don’t they ever wonder? Ever?
No wonder they were all so afraid of death.

Ethan lo
oked at Natasha as they slowly came together to collide in each other’s path. Ethan could sense a lot, again like a vampire he could sense her thoughts, smell her beauty, feel some pain, long for her almost, at the same time wanting to be strong within and face her, face her beauty, face himself. Somehow in a way she reflected parts of him. There was an unknown quantity there that went beyond time that would make perfect sense in the after world, one day. If you could freeze this moment and then chat about it in the afterlife, in reflection, looking back in contemplation of being with the soul and knowing all, it would all make perfect sense. But now in this human time, they had human emotions, wants and needs and a past, this life, last life. And the soul would ripple those feelings out and to some humans they could not separate the truth from the mind or detach the particles of the energy sent from the soul, it just became one large amount of confusion, human baggage and fear.

Carl
, always the peacemaker gently moved forward.

“Hello Ladies
,” he politely said, almost shy in the wake of the beauty that lay before him.

“This is bit like a stand
off,” Ethan said.

Natasha saw
the humor in it, but with some ice in her stare and voice said, “you would be so easy to beat up, Ethan.”

“That’s i
t. I’ll take the two ugly girls, Ethan you take your psycho ex girlfriend,” Christian quipped.

They walk
ed forward, even Carl felt a little nervous, like,
what’s going to happen to me?
They all stared and had to gently pass. Carl smiled and headed past the two friends of Natasha, which seemed the most peaceful path. Christian gently walked ahead and passed through and Ethan did the same. He headed right towards Natasha and stared at her. As he passed her, she stared right back at him, so directly that when they passed, they both could feel the chill of seven months of love making from their hearts, their soul, wrapped up into this brief frozen moment of a second. It was deep and detailed, they both felt it immensely like energy running through their veins from that connection from before, somehow they were still connected, not quite free. Just as Ethan went past her, and their eyes looked away from one another, Natasha gave Ethan a big shove. It was an expression of that electrical build up and its release. Even Natasha was surprised by her physical power. She didn’t push him that hard but there was more power to her push than what she was expecting.

“
Don’t,” Ethan said, almost childishly. Sometimes they had that together, that playful, funny side where they did play like children. They all kept on walking, like two rivers coming together at a junction and then flowing again. Christian asked Ethan if he was okay.

“My arm
’s a little sore,” Ethan replied lightly.

“Her friends are hot
. I wouldn’t mind being shoved by one of them,” Carl said.

They kept walking and Ethan asked Christian about Amelia.

“You had a bit of a look in your eye earlier when you were talking to Amelia, just happy for the trade?”

“Yeah,
” Christian took a big breath, “just that spark, there was something different today that I hadn’t noticed before.”

“What was different?” Ethan asked almost automatic
ally. He could tell Christian wanted to be asked.