Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3)(111)

The next set of waves started coming in. It was here that Krista got a pang of unease. They were bigger than what she had been surfing all day. Much bigger. As in, too big. She floated over the first and watched it break and rumble down onto the distant beach. She stayed where she was, hoping the next set would be back to normal—or even smaller.

No such luck. Big wave after big wave came rolling in. The day was getting older by the minute. She needed to find a way into the shore, and she wasn’t really keen on surfing in. Bad news was there wasn’t anywhere else to go. It wasn’t a pool—you couldn’t just swim over to some steps and get out. She was either swimming into a bay in Mexico, or she had to ride a wave in.

She steadied her resolve. If she could catch it and hang on past the first slope down, she might make it. If she didn’t—well, she had gotten rolled before. Surfers got rolled all the time. Granted, she could have been a better swimmer for this venture, she was no Olympian after all, but she could make it.

The next monster was rolling in, so Krista started paddling hard, ignoring the tired strain of her muscles. Her arms churned as fast as they could, trying to get her speed up. She just barely caught it, right on the cusp, and popped up. The free fall this time was out of this world! Past adrenaline. She was riding on ragged fear as she plummeted down a steep cliff of crystal blue water. She could feel the board under her feet but her balance was all over the place. Everything seemed too slippery—like she wasn’t glued on. It didn’t take long before she was falling head first into the waiting blue jaws.

Like a rag doll in a washing machine, Krista was churned head-over-heels and rolled like a tumbleweed along the desert floor. Bubbles scraped across her body like sand paper as she fought to remember which way was up. She forced her body limp, allowing the tangling world of white to move her along its course, hopefully to spit her out at the end. There was no ground to stumble along, no sky to glimpse; she was pushed down deep, into the belly of the wave as it rumbled toward the beach.

Finally, after years went by, Krista got enough slack in the furious currents to kick and stroke her way to the surface. Her head broke the plain of water just in time. She took a gasp of the sweet breath of life and looked for the beach. It was then she noticed a wall of white bearing down on her! The next giant wave was crashing and she was still in the kill zone!

She had barely enough time to take another big gulp of air before she dived as low as she could. The violent surge of water rolled over her, giving her a yank upward as it thundered by. She surged upward again, stealing another gasp of beautiful air before the next wave was baring down. Her heart sank. It was another monster. Everything coming in was monstruous. She was but a small fly caught in a sticky web.

She dove under the next. Then the next. She was waiting for a break to start heading toward shore, but she wasn’t getting one. It was merciless. One after another, the waves came crashing down, barely giving her time to get a breath. Never giving her body a chance to rest. One after another, she was confronted with a beast. Then its brother. And then a larger, meaner cousin.

After five monstrous waves, Krista’s body was past tired, and starting to give out. She couldn’t keep going. She couldn’t find any reserves. The waves were getting bigger, if anything, so there would be no hope to wait it out. Being that Krista had never been in that situation before, nor ever remembering Sean mention it, she didn’t know if she should start swimming, or just let the wave pull her into shore. She did know, though, that the wrong choice would result in drowning.

No pressure.

She would swim. Maybe she could get a few feet closer before the wave grabbed her. She could hold her breath for a while, so she would let the wave drag her in and hope for the best. She didn’t have much of a choice.

The next time she came up, she put her plan into action, frantically swimming toward the shore with everything she had. Stroke after stroke she pushed. She felt the water pulling her back and heard the thunder on her heels. This was it!

She took a mighty gulp of air just before the wave was on her. She closed her eyes, tried to keep her directional bearings, and let the wave squeeze her in its claws and carry her with it.

She had the claw part right, but the carrying—not so much. She was shoved down, down, down into the dark abyss. Bubbles seethed around her, tearing at her. Currents pulled her arms and yanked her legs. She lost sense of herself, vaguely remembering up, and losing the direction of the beach altogether. She held her breath, waiting for it to be over. Wondering when it would spit her out onto the hard sand. Waiting.

Instead, she churned, over and over, round and round, ass-over-head, no surrender.

Her lungs burned. Her eyes stung. Her legs and arms were wrung out of strength. She couldn’t control her body. All she could do were some futile kicks and small hand flutters. Darkness crowded her thoughts, blotted out her hope. Still no surrender.

Her chest was on fire now. Her limbs were ice. She needed to take a breath. She knew she couldn’t. She also knew, eventually, she would anyway.

She would die.

It wasn’t a thought she had. It wasn’t like she was capable of contemplating cause and effect; she just knew it. She needed air. She wouldn’t get it. She would die down there, in the blackness. Her body would probably hit the beach eventually, but it would be long after she could hang on.

It was amazing how quickly the thoughts came. She spun there, in a different world, years and years away from safety, consumed by the fuming ocean, and she was filled with unspeakable sadness. Not for herself so much—he thought Jim would have killed her long before now—but because she never really got that chance with Sean. She never really got to know real happiness with him before this day came. She’d wanted to grow old with him. She’d wanted to share her life with him; share the miracle of birth with him. She wanted to share so much with him, and now she never would.