Crystal Bella Read online

  “May I have a red too please?” Ethan asked Carl.

  Carl smiled, he laughed at the theatrics of Ethan. A switch of drinks right at the last moment. Christian picked up on it too, it slightly bugged him, it’s almost as if Ethan was trying to twist the game in his direction with all his signs and gestures.

  Ethan took a sip of the red wine, then asked Carl, “can I have a rollie too?”

  There was already one rolled up on the table and Ethan sparked it up. He is a non smoker but does indulge in the odd durry, as he liked to call them, when the moment is right.

  “Play the game bro,” Christian said. Ethan laughed and said, “all in.”

  “Show us your Hands,” Carl said.

  When they go all in like this, the cards are turned over to see who has what, there is no more bluffing, it is just a matter of watching to see who wins the hand.

  They turn their cards over. Ethan took a sharp intake of breath when he saw that Christian had three Jacks. Ethan had a pair of Queens. Ethan took another sip of his wine. He had a heavy feeling. It’s just a game he thought to himself and he laughed.

  “Okay future boy you’re going to need some luck here,” Carl said.

  Ethan felt there was still a chance, nothing to lose really. The fourth card came out. It was an ace, no difference in the result and still one card to go.

  Christian led with one more card left to come out. The only way Ethan could win this hand was if a Queen came out. If it did, he wins the game, if it doesn’t Christian will be back in the match and leading. Carl put his finger on the pack of cards and flipped the final card. Christian heart starts to beat more loudly, Ethan just felt empowered and buzzed, but also nervous. He is not quite out if he loses but if he wins, what a win. Card turns, it’s a color, it’s a queen!

  “Yes!” Ethan yelled.

  “Mother Fucker!” Christian screamed.

  Ethan got up all smiles. He put a fist to the table in a light way and banged it. Christian gave him a handshake and said, “you’re a river queen!”

  River, the term that is used when the final card is dealt.

  They all left the table and went to the lounge and jumped onto the sofa and Ethan ever so chatty now talked about the game. He knew Christian lost it only on the river so he consoled him and said it just a bit of luck. Carl then started talking about girls and the game was lost for now. They consumed their drinks, chatted about life and talked about how it would be, if there were girls with them right now. It had a similar feel to when they were all 14. Back then they were hanging out on one New Years Eve, talking about girls, wondering where they were, where they were hanging out. They had a few drinks that night and they walked the streets hoping to bump into the opposite sex, no such luck that evening and here they were in a similar place. When they talked about it, it made them laugh so much. They were 23 and girlfriendless just hanging out with the same friends talking about girls.

  An hour or so later they all headed home, just like when they were 14 again, all by themselves with Ethan crashing on Carl’s couch. Ethan closed his eyes and started to think back through the evening, then he started thinking about his past and he thought right back to the time when his mother had to go away and he was forced to stay with the Taylors.

  ~ CHAPTER FOUR ~

  ETHAN CHRISTIE THE CHILD

  Ethan hopped into bed. He could hear the girls arguing in the other room and a door slam.

  “I hate you,” shouted.

  Then heavy footsteps hitting the wooden floors. It was just the normal chaos of this house. Ethan hated it, it felt unsafe and all he could do was feel a space in his heart who told him in his despair that he would be okay. He felt it, within the coldness of this house, there remained this hope inside. It was like the innocents of him would reflect back to him his safety. That was how he felt deep within and it was his soul talking. Within all this, was his reality of being in this home and away from his mom.

  He missed his mother, life was unbearable when she wasn’t here. He couldn’t think of a life without her. Ethan lay in his bed hearing the noise from the girls and feeling the tears roll down his cheeks. He sobbed in the dark, missing his mom and crying about where he had turned up. He prayed to God and asked to be safe and protected. Most of all he asked for his mom to return. That was all he wanted, it was all he needed.

  ~~~~

  Ethan was seven when his mom had to go away for work for a week. It was an important business job and she felt she had to do it. So she went to New York for a week and left Ethan with her cousin Richard who was married with six children and lived in Los Angeles. Richard was a nice, sweet man but Elisabeth had not met his wife and kids. They were nothing like Richard. It was for only six days and because it was the school holidays a lot of Elisabeth’s home town options were not available as her friends had gone away including Christian’s family who would have been perfect.

  So Ethan took the bus down to Los Angeles to live there for just the six days or so.

  While in New York Elisabeth had a car accident. She eventually made a full recovery but for the first three weeks she was unable to communicate. She had a punctured lung amongst other injuries and had to be on a ventilator. It was three weeks after her accident that she was able to communicate with Ethan.

  The communication to Ethan was not good. Elisabeth’s cousin Richard went away on a building project for two months as a plasterer and Ethan had to rely on what Richard’s wife, Mrs. Taylor said, and her children. Her children were brought up to manipulate and lie. Mrs. Taylor said to Ethan that his mother had been in an accident and was unsure if she was alive. His cousins would say she was probably already dead. While Elisabeth was being treated for serious injuries she couldn’t communicate with Ethan.

  Ethan didn’t like this family the moment he got off the bus. There were four girls and two boys. At the bus stop was the Dad, Richard and the four girls. The youngest was Ethan’s age. Her name was Megan, she was quite docile in her personality and as the youngest the most spoilt one. Then there were three above her. As soon as Ethan saw them he knew he was in for a tough time. They just had mean faces. The moment he saw them he became incredibly home sick.

  It was within hours before trouble started brewing, just arguing amongst themselves and the girls trying to drag him into it. It didn’t take long for Ethan to see that this was no normal family. The girls all had a position of what they could get out of a situation or how it could improve their stance. They were conditional, selfish and the longer Ethan stayed the more they hated him.

  It was a religious home and Mrs. Taylor had put the fear of God into all of her children. In the public domain they were all well behaved and looked fairly normal, but the family home had anger, resentment and fear. Image meant everything to Mrs. Taylor. She put a lot of energy into upholding that good, caring, religious, moral figure, whilst at home she was a tyrant full of anger. The Hatred that emanated out of her into the family home poured down into her children. Her fears, her low self esteem, her resentment on life was plugged unconsciously into all of them and those traits were passed on. They all learnt to manipulate, control and lie. When Ethan turned up, they hated his light, they hated his purity. Deep down they all wanted what he had.

  The two older brothers were out a lot, the oldest was Stan. When Ethan first saw him he thought he might be the only nice one. He was red looking and Ethan thought he might be a Red Indian. Ethan had quite a fascination with Red Indian’s so he decided to go up to him in the lounge and say hi and he asked him, “are you a Red Indian?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “A-a you a Red Indian?” he asked again.

  “Of course I’m not...why do you ask that?”

  “You’re very red, so I thought you might be Red Indian.”

  “No I’ve just been out in the sun, and I’ve been drinking a few of these. They make me go red too.” Stan showed Ethan his beers.

  “I’ve got a Red Indian tent back home if you ever want
to borrow one.”

  “No thanks I prefer a house.”

  Not a Red Indian after all Ethan thought, but he is very red.

  The other brother was Ivan. He was 15 and had a very mean face to Ethan. Ivan wanted to be a runner and was always stretching around the home. He also liked playing the drums and had a pair of special drum sticks that were forbidden to be touched by anyone but him. He had an athletic meeting coming up and was always saying, “I’m going to be the fastest 15 year old in California.”

  When Stan was not around Ivan tried to be the boss and would bully everyone. Ethan came to like it when Stan was home as he was the boss and he didn’t pick on Ethan. The girls would go quiet when he was around and Ethan could just chill a bit. When he was away the others would often try and pick on him.

  Ethan found it funny how Stan would speak to his sisters when he was at home. He would say things like, “Arrh you’ve got the breath to stop a bus!” at Mace, (the sister above Megan) Ethan was once going to the toilet and Stan said, “be careful! The little shit Megan just went in, and it’s like a dead rat’s been living in there.”

  It did stop Ethan in his tracks. It took him a few hours to realize that Megan didn’t have a dead rat with her, but it was an expression.

  Megan was jealous of Ethan. She was spoilt but she also had a bland personality especially compared to her other siblings who were feisty and dramatic. Megan was more docile and lacked creativity. She was like a boring old woman, a lot like her mother and she loathed the spark Ethan had. He could sing, draw and was funny, all traits she would never have so she would do her best to put him down with little insults. Not being creative or having much spark with her docile personality didn’t give Ethan too much grief though.

  Ethan noticed how people started not liking him because he was related to the Taylors. He was out shopping with them one day when a kid came up to him and said, “your brother’s a dick.”

  He was with the four girls and Mrs. Taylor so he was at first unsure what he meant, but as the middle sister Jane looked like a boy he thought it must be her that he was talking about. She was often mixed up for looking like a boy.

  “It’s not my brother and it’s a girl,” Ethan said.

  “What do mean? That’s not a girl.”

  “It’s a girl and I’m hardly related. They are my third cousins.”

  “It’s a boy! Go tell him he’s a dick!”

  So Ethan did. He told Jane the guy said she had a penis and as usual an argument broke out.

  The eldest girl was called Dorothy and Ethan could understand why people didn’t like her. Dorothy was aggressive and even Ethan at such a young age could tell she had some serious issues. Something was not quite right with her. She walked around like she had been pained by something and would never let it go. He always gave her a wide birth at home as she was always looking for trouble, always looking for a reason to let her aggression out and explode. There was hatred there, within her stemmed a toxic dislike towards others. It was like the purity of Ethan repulsed her as hers had been taken away and she hated him, without even knowing why. Ethan knew she hated him and he did his best to stay away from her.

  Ethan was walking home from school one day when two older girls came up to him.

  “You’re the brother of that bitch Dorothy,” one of the girls said.

  “No I’m not really related to her,” Ethan said, “I think she might be my fifth cousin.”

  The two girls said they wanted to beat him up or could they pass on a punch from them to him to her.

  Ethan started to enjoy the chat with them as he told them of his story and how he didn’t like her either. They playfully punched him lightly on the arm and said don’t worry about passing it on as they would do it in person.

  ~~~~

  Every day was horrible for Ethan as he missed his mom more and more and the Taylor family just got worst.

  Ethan knew there was a chance he would see his mom again. The girls had told him he may not see her ever again but it was okay they said, she will be in heaven and he would see her one day. Mace seemed to say it with pleasure, deep down she hated Ethan. She could see the spark in him and she hated it, he was cute looking and she hated that too. Some days she would pretend to be nice but once Ethan would open up a little, she would attack him in the most subtle ways. Mace knew Ethan missed his mother so she attacked him down that avenue. Pretending to care and give Ethan advice, but all she really wanted to do was put the boot in and give him pain. Not always though, some days she wanted a friend and a companion, but other times she just saw the little kid that had turned up unannounced and taking up too much attention.

  When Ethan was looking sad she would go up to him and tell him it was okay not to have a mother as a lot of children didn’t. She played it as if she cared. She loved the look of looking caring, she loved the image. She had learnt that very well from her mother. She would often say to her mother and younger sister Megan, “I’m an angel, I’m just like an angel.” In the softest voice she could muster and try and act sweet for an hour or so. But the reality was she was quite nasty with pretence for kindness. Nothing was sacrament when it came to her minds pursuit for what she wanted. When no one was looking she would go into the poor children’s box. A cardboard box full of coins destined for the poor children of Africa. But Mace wanted the money. In her eyes she needed and deserved it more than they did. ‘Those little shits don’t need the money.’ That was how she thought and when Ethan saw her stealing money from the box, he wasn’t surprised, it just told him what he already knew; she had a very selfish, nasty side but was fairly creative in hiding it.

  Mace pushed it too far one day when she said his mother probably didn’t miss him. As opposed to being sad Ethan just felt angry and replied saying she snorted like a little pig, because she did, all the time sniffing. If she continued as an adult she would come across as a cocaine addict. She started to cry. Ethan didn’t like to be mean to anyone but he was finding himself becoming so angry. Their judgment and meanness was bringing up a rage within him. It was all so unfair and it brought up emotions that were real and he was expressing them. Mace punched him. Ethan just took it and she went to punch him again, so he pushed her away, and she ran off and told Mrs. Larry. Mrs. Larry came over shouting as usual.

  “Ethan you little shit.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Ethan replied.

  “Yes you did you called Mace names.”

  “Yes I did, but she did it to me too.”

  “No I didn’t,” Mace butted in.

  “You see Ethan you’re a little liar. You made me swear before, that is what you do to others. You frustrate people, you have this evilness about you, it’s in your eyes. You have evil eyes! You’re evil!!”

  Ethan said nothing, he just stared. To anyone from the outside, with the exception of Mace and her mother, they would see Ethan looking very cute, his beauty, his innocents and surrendered nature. He just gave a look of wisdom, knowledge, pain all wrapped up into one look.

  “What’s wrong with you!?” Mrs. Larry snapped. “Go to your room!”

  Perfect, Ethan thought, I can just sit in there and play with my two cars and talk to my guardian angel. Ethan’s mom had told him once he had a guardian angel, so he went to his room and played with his cars and spoke to his angel. He was sure it was a girl. She seemed his age; blond hair, with a big smile, with big teeth and big eyes. All Ethan knew was that she loved him a lot. He started to cry and he could feel the tingles around his body, that was his angel. She whispered in his ear.

  “My name is Bella.”

  It made Ethan cry more because he could feel her love, her warmth and laughter, she was smiling and giggling. He wiped his tears because he couldn’t see.