Malina Beach: A Paradise Island Series

by K. A. Burgdorf

  I find a changing room on the beach and tell Ben I’ll just a minute.

  Once I’m out of sight, I text McKenna and tell her where I am and that I’m with Ben. I keep his money a secret, because it seemed he didn’t want anyone to know. I wonder if Emily knows? Did Emily inherit the money, too? Maybe with Ben’s money, and the fundraiser, Emily’s parents won’t have to worry about her Chemo bills.

  McKenna says she will come down to the beach later, after the date she’s on. I text Emily and ask how she is. She doesn’t reply, so I tug my clothes off and trade them for the bathing suit. I let my hair down out of my ponytail and shake it out. I take a deep breath and step out of the changing room and onto the hot sand.

  At first, I don’t see Ben. When I do spot him, he’s already in the water, shirtless, in his shorts, floating on his back. I grin and saunter down to the water, which is a crisp blue color, and test the water with my foot. Ben spots me, grinning and motioning me in.

  “Come on in, it’s perfect.”

  Kids scream and play down the beach from us. A mother yells at her son to stop throwing wet sand. I walk out into the water, towards a smiling Ben, and dunk myself under, letting the water take over my body. I float along beside him, on my back, grinning up at the sun.

  “See,” he says. “This is the life.”

  “I don’t know why everyone doesn’t live here,” I sigh. He takes my hand under the water.

  “Well,” he says. “It is a small island. I think if anymore people came here it may sink,” he laughs. I grin.

  It’s quiet for a moment. I roll onto my stomach, letting my knees touch the sand under me. We aren’t very deep at the moment. I pull him further away from the shore.

  “Let’s swim?” I say, pulling my body away from his and down into the water. I kick my feet and slice into the water, head first.

  “Malina, wait for me!” he shouts behind me, though I hardly hear him because of the sloshing of water next to my ear. I know he will follow me, and surely try to race me, so I swim as hard as I can, working against the water and smiling while I do it. When I come up for air, I gasp in surprise.

  I’m further away from the shore than I thought. Ben is catching up to me, but I feel myself being dragged back under. My eyes widen. Oh, no.

  The current. I am being dragged in by the current. I’ve drifted farther from Ben when I come back up. He shouts my name. I reach my arms into the air, struggling against the water. My legs have worn themselves out. My lungs are burning. I take another gasp of air before I go under again, swimming as hard as I can towards Ben. I need air.

  I desperately need air.

  I’m too far from the surface. I can’t hear anything. The kids on the shore are gone. The sun is gone.

  Now I’m just floating. I open my eyes to see my hair, lightening by the water, drifting in front of my eyes. I touch it gently. I look up to see the top of the water, blue and illuminating in the sunshine. It’s so far away, I want to cry.

  Where is Ben?

  I shut my eyes again and feel myself being swallowed by cold, wet darkness.

  Something slams against my chest. I’m cold and shaking, but I’m still enveloped into wet black. Is something over my eyes?

  I feel myself being rocked, perhaps by the current again? Am I even still in the water? Things go in and out and once again I’m brought back to reality when something slams into my chest for the second time. I feel water in my throat, sore and disgusting, threatening to drown me. Am I already dead? I have to be dead; I’m not feeling anything. I try to wiggle my fingers and my toes. Nothing. I’m dead. I have to be dead.

  “Malina!”

  Something hits me again and again, now in a different place. The water in my throat moves at a painful speed, rushing out of my mouth and down my chin. I cough, choking as something hits me, again and again.

  “Is she okay?” someone shouts.

  “Is she breathing?”

  “No!” someone screeches. “She was, but now she isn’t. Oh, God.”

  Who is that? “Malina, open your eyes.”

  I struggle to fight my way out of the darkness the same way I struggled against the current. Why am I not breathing? Move, Malina, open your eyes. Move your lungs. Breathe. Breathe.

  “Where’s the ambulance?” someone shouts. I break through the last layer of crushing darkness and my eyes open into slits. There’s water in my eyes, but I open them anyway. Everything blinds me, but I locate people hovering around me. Something is on my chest, pushing, pushing, 1 2 3.

  “Oh, God, Malina!” McKenna says. Ben is pumping my heart, but stops as soon as he notices my eyes are open. I think he’s shocked, because he just stares at me with a blank face.

  “Malina, are you okay? Can you say something?” McKenna asks, kneeling down into the sand beside me. I’m on the shore; my body is drenched with water and sand. My mouth was full of seaweed and salt.

  Ben slides away from me, breathing heavily, defeated. I want to say something. I want to tell Ben I’m so sorry. I was stupid to go out that far. But I don’t talk. My throat is too sore. I only groan and shut my eyes again.

  “Back up, please, excuse me!” someone says. My mother. Oh, no.

  “Malina, what the hell were you doing?” she shouts, lifting my head off the ground and hugging me to her chest. I let her, mainly because there isn’t much I can do. My arms and legs are made of jelly at the moment. My lungs are burning, but thankfully, working, and my throat feels as if someone shoved a curling iron down it. I cough and struggle to breathe, but at least I’m breathing.

  “Let’s get her to the hospital,” Ben says, bending to lift me off of the ground. I lay my head on his chest, thankful to him beyond measure.

  “Does anyone have a blanket?” he asks. That’s when I notice I’m shivering. My teeth are clattering together and I cling to his warm body.

  I shut my eyes and focus on the swaying of Ben’s walk and his warm, smooth skin against mine. It’s like being carried away by an Angel.

  Something warm, but itchy is thrown over my body, but I hardly notice. I’m so tired. I drift in and out of sleep until someone sets me on a gurney. My eyes flew open and I grab for Ben’s hand.

  “Don’t leave,” I rasp, wanting to cry when my throat reacts. He shakes his head.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “We’ll be right behind you, Malina!” my sister calls as I’m lifted into a cool, slightly darker ambulance.

  “What’s her name?” a woman asks Ben. She wraps something around my arm, most likely checking my blood pressure. I groan.

  “Malina Beach. She’s sixteen,” he says, staring at my face the whole time. I stare back not breaking away from his eyes.

  “Do you know how much you weigh, Malina?” she says to me too loudly for casual conversation. I open my mouth to talk but nothing comes out.

  “She looks around one-ten, one-twenty?” she asks me. I nod my head.

  “One-seventeen,” I whisper. Ben takes my hand, rubbing my skin.

  “Are you in pain anywhere?” she asks me. I nod at her.

  “Throat,” I whisper. “Lungs. Back. Muscles.”

  “That’s normal, sweetie. You’re going to be okay,” she tells me. She checks my blood pressure, listens to my heart and asks us how it happened.

  Ben explains, and kindly tells her I got away from the shore and into the current. He left out the part of how I was stupidly trying to win a race.

  I spend the rest of the day in the ER. They check all of my vital signs, my pupils and my blood pressure again. They find nothing wrong with me, but a small scrape on my left inner thigh.

  My mom and McKenna promise to keep a close eye on me, and they send me home.

  Ben has to check in on Emily and tell her what happened, and then he’ll be over to see me.

  I change clothes as soon as I get home. I was embarrassed in the ER, being that I was in a bathing suit with the most awful hoarse voice and dreadfully bad hair.

&nbs
p; I ask McKenna to sit in the bathroom with me while I take a shower and wash the sand and dirt out of my hair and off of my body. She tells me about her date and about how terrified she was when she got the call from my mom, who got a call from Ben after he pulled me out of the ocean.

  Ben was apparently very heroic. He pulled me out of the ocean, swam back to the shore with me in one arm and literally beat the water out of my throat and windpipe.

  If it weren’t for him, I may have never breathed again. I wouldn’t be here, under the warm, welcoming flow of soap and water. I wouldn’t have finished school. I wouldn’t have been here for Emily.

  I wouldn’t be alive.

  When I’m done with my shower, McKenna brings me a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I change and stroll down the hall to my bedroom, snuggling under the covers.

  It doesn’t hit me how tired I am until I completely relax. My eyes slam shut, and I don’t open them until I feel someone moving and rustling my blankets. For a moment, I think its McKenna, coming to sleep in my bed with me like she used to do when we were younger. When I realize the person climbing bed with me isn’t a female, I panic.

  “Whoa,” Ben says as I shoot straight up. My abs ache, causing me to fall back against the pillows. “It’s just me. Calm down.” His voice is soft and reassuring.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. He slips under the blanket with me and tugs me against his body, getting comfortable. “Does my mom know you’re up here?”

  He grins. “No. McKenna does, though. Your mom’s asleep and I’m here to make sure you’re okay and to make sure you make it through the night.”

  I laugh softly. “Make it through the night?” I say. “I’m not dying, Ben, I’m just a little sore.”

  He chuckles. “Nah.... I think you’re worse than that,” he says and kisses my cheek. “You need close attention.”

  “Maybe I do,” I say, laying my head on his chest. He rubs my back.

  “Are you staying all night?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “I do.”

  “What about your mom? In the morning?”

  I pause to think. “Just don’t come down until she leaves for work?” I suggest.

  He grins. “Okay.”

  It’s quiet for a moment. It’s warm and content. For a moment, his breathing is so slow I think he’s fallen asleep. But then he moves, squeezing me into his chest.

  “I know we haven’t known each other long,” he starts. “But earlier you scared the hell out of me, Malina. I know it wasn’t your fault. I should have warned you about the currents. But it made me realize that I care about you a lot.”

  I stay quiet for a moment. Then clear my throat. The scratchiness has gone away for the most part. “I care about you, too.”

  That seems to make him happy. He kisses my hair and holds me tighter. “Good,” he grins. “So what do you say?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, confused.

  “Will you be my girlfriend?”

  I don’t think I’ve ever grinned wider. Ben stared at me, patiently smiling, waiting for an answer. No guy has ever asked me to be his girlfriend before. I mean, Jacob did, when we were like ten, but every time we broke up and got back together we just kind of understood.

  “Well?” He nudged.

  “Yes.” I could feel my face blushing and I kissed Ben on the lips.

  “Awesome.” He smiled, kissing me back. “Now get some rest, we can talk in the morning.”

  “No, I’m not tired,” I say and kiss him again. “Tell me something about you?”

  “I’ve never met anyone who wanted to know so much about me,” he chuckles.

  “Really?” I say. “You’ve never had a girlfriend?”

  “I have,” he murmurs. “But I never talked much about me.”

  “You don’t like opening up to people?” I wonder, saddened by this.

  “No, I don’t mind, it’s just… it’s new to me. Telling someone everything.”

  “Well…” I whisper and kiss his cheek. I start a trail of kisses down his throat. “I can tell you something about me and then you tell me something about you?” I suggest and kiss him. “So it’s even?”

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  His eyes are closed. He’s enjoying my kisses, so I keep going as I talk.

  “When I was eight,” I tell him, kissing along his jaw. “I had a crush on a boy that was fifteen, named Chris.” I kiss the tip of his nose and he grins. “And I had only met him a few times, but he was really nice to me, so I thought he liked me too. So I wrote him a very nice, heartfelt love letter and had my cousin, who was in his grade, give it to him. And he didn’t even read it. He threw it away.”

  “Oh,” he says, frowning. “I wish I knew where he lived,” he says. “I’d kick his ass.”

  I giggle against his skin before I kiss him. “It’s okay,” I whisper. “Do you have any friends?”

  “Yeah I have friends.” He laughs. “And one best friend. His name is Tom. I call him Tommy, but he hates it. He went to the college I was supposed to go to.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s okay, though. I see him almost every holiday and we call when we can.”

  “Why isn’t he here?” I ask. “It’s summer.”

  “College is different, baby.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you want to go to the beach tomorrow?” I wonder.

  He shoots me a loaded look. “No way. No more beach for you.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “I’m not in the mood to drag you out of the ocean two days in a row.” He jokes.

  I roll my eyes. “Really?” I say sarcastically.

  “Yep.” He yawns, rubbing his eyes.

  “Sleepy?” I wonder.

  “Nope. Tell me something else about you.”

  We talk for another hour and a half, lying in bed and cuddling. He tells me embarrassing things that have happened to him and I tell him things I remember of my dad. When I talk about him with Ben, I’m surprisingly okay with my father’s death.

  It’s one of the sweetest nights I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t want it to end.

  Ben is wonderful, sweet and funny and perfect for me. Our bodies fit together in my bed like a puzzle piece. There’s no tension, no nerves and no awkwardness. Just quiet murmuring in a beautiful room lit by the moonlight. It’s like a dream, a fairy tale.

  He is like a Prince.

  Ben stays the night. We fall asleep around four in the morning, clothed and exhausted and cuddled up in one large lump under the blankets. In the morning, we have breakfast together. My mother is none the wiser.

  Chapter Nine:

  This becomes a routine over the next week. McKenna helps Ben sneak into the house at night, after my mother goes to bed around 10:30PM. He spends the night and hides out until my mother goes to work around 7:30 the next morning.

  I know it’s probably not right to sneak my boyfriend in so often at night behind my mother’s back. I know this. But I made it clear to both Ben and McKenna that there will be no funny business in my room.

  “I’m not going to hear anything at night am I?” McKenna had asked at breakfast. I roll my eyes.

  “Shut up McKenna. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  When I made it clear to Ben, we were kissing on my bed around midnight. It was a particularly warm evening, so he had come over shirtless. My bedroom window was open, allowing the cool breeze to roll into my room from the water. He planted kisses along my collarbone and as he did, I felt the soft wetness of his lips along my skin.

  “Ben,” I say. My voice is breathless.

  “Yes?” He says. When he sees my uncomfortable expression, he pulls away from me. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No,” I laugh. “Come here.” I pull him closer.

  “What is it?” He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, making me smile. I intertwine our fingers.

  Nothing I just…” I pause. “We’re going really fast,” I say to him. “M
aybe we could just talk or watch a movie?” I suggest, trying to sound light, so he doesn’t think something’s wrong.

  He smiles sweetly, which is a relief.

  “Of course. Let’s watch a movie and fall asleep.”

  I grin and sit up. “Okay. I’ll go and get McKenna’s laptop.”

  I’m gone only a few minutes, sneaking into McKenna’s bedroom while she lies asleep, a still lump under the blankets. I notice she still uses a pink and purple Care Bear blanket that we used to share when we were small. I had no idea she still owned it. I grab her laptop off of her desk, knowing she won’t mind, and make my way back to my bedroom. Ben is still there, lying underneath my blankets now. I set up the laptop on my desk, facing the bed for us to see.

  Ben talks while I work. “You know,” he says, tucking his hands behind his head. “You’re right. We are moving quickly. We’ve only been together two weeks tomorrow.”

  I grin. “Happy Two Week Anniversary,” I say. He chuckles.

  “What are you going to get me?” he asks.

  “What do you want to watch?” I wonder. “What do you mean get you?”

  “For an anniversary present,” he says. “Let’s watch something scary.”

  “Scary?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What are you getting me?”

  He pauses to think. I pick the first scary movie I see on Netflix, turn out the lights and come to lay next to him.

  “What do you want?” he wonders. I smile, snuggling into the warm circle of his arms.

  “Picnic on the beach,” I say with a yawn.

  “That’s a great idea.”

  The movie is scarier than I thought it would be. I end up hiding my face in Ben’s chest, while he chuckled at me, but hugged me in close. This is something Jacob never did. Jacob would have made jokes, made me feel bad and he never would have comforted me. I shake my head at myself, wondering why I keep comparing the two.

  The next night, Ben texts me and tells me he has something to show me, to wear something comfortable, and that he will be here to pick me up in ten minutes. I tell McKenna with excitement while she sits in her room with two textbooks open in front of her, before running to my room. I keep forgetting that McKenna’s school started already. Like Ben, she doesn’t know what she wants to be, or what she wants to study. All she knows is that college is the smart thing to do.