I sank down into the beautiful while sand. It was blissfully warm, and perfectly soft. Looking out into the brilliant blue ocean, I wished I was still in England. The little waves were lapping the edge of the sand, and there was a gentle breeze blowing grains onto my light blue dress, but I didn't care. My straight, brown hair had gone wavy from the sea salt, and I could taste it constantly on my lips. I scanned the beach. This was paradise, and yet I couldn't be more miserable. My parents had dragged me away from my home in Cornwall to come and live abroad after they won eighty-eight million pounds on the lottery. When they first told me the news, I didn't believe them. I'm not even sure if I believe it now, but yet, here I am. Dragged away from my friends, Willow, Sarah and most imortantly, James. James who had been my best friend for eleven years and still didn't know how I truly felt about him. A stray tear rolled down my face and I brushed it away angrily.
'Stop being so silly, Marina,' I told myself, 'you have everything now!'' I nodded to myself, but the tears kept streaming out of my eyes. I didn't even bother to wipe them away this time, for I knew that they would beat me anyway.
"Ha! So I see you've found my place," a husky American voice came from behind me. I whisked round to see a tall, tanned, dark hair boy stood behind me with a smirk on his face. He was wearing three-quarter length karki trousers, a white t-shirt and green Converse trainers. The smirk instantly disappeared when he saw that I was crying.
"Are you okay?" he asked, gentler this time. I nodded, carefully wiping tears from my eyes once more.
"This i-is y-your place?" I stammered shakily, fighting the on-coming tears that I knew I would have to save for later.
"Well, no. Not really. I mean, I don't own it or anything, but I come here when I want to be alone," he explained, "wow. I've never seen a beautiful girl cry before."
Beautiful? No-one had ever called me beautiful before. Back in England, I had always been that girl who managed to make the school uniforn even more boring. I was the one who wore the same t-shirts and jeans at the weekends and the one who had had the same haircut since Year Six. The only reason I was wearing a dress was because it was too hot to even consider jeans.
"Beautiful?" I asked, completely frazzled at what he had just said.
His face went red and he sat down beside me, ignoring what I had said. "I'm William Ashton, but call me Will," he introduced himself, holding out his hand. I took it and replied, "I'm Marina Damon."
"Cute name," he complimented, "how old are you?"
"I'm six-teen," I said, hoping he wasn't much older than me.
"Oh, me too!" he smiled, "so, why are you crying?"
I explained the whole story to him. I wasn't quite sure why I was telling him - I had only just met him! But I did, and he listened. While I was talking, he edged closer to me and slipped an arm around my shoulder. It wasn't until I had finished my story that I realised what he was doing. Surprisingly, I didn't feel uncomfortable. I nestled my head into the crook of his neck and shuffled up closer to him, and we talked for hours, until the darkness was drawing in.
I opened the front door to out new house to find my parents painting the living roose. Despite having only been in America for half a day, they were already rearing to go with decorating. The house was modern, mainly white with a lot of big glass windows and doors. The white was broken up by some wooden-looking material in places. The drive-way was made up of white pebbles and we had a huge garden with a big swimming pool shaped like a kidney bean.
"Hey darlin'!" mum said as I walked through the door.
"Hey mum. Decorating already?" I asked, eyeing the big blue streak dow the chimney breast.
