Wanting So Bad, Loving So Good

by Bella Bentley

  Wanting So Bad, Loving So Good

  By

  Bella Bentley

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Click the following and connect with her! <3 | Twitter | Facebook | Blog | Newsletter

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Five

  Not responsible for: | Bodily harm | Seizures | Death

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Inside me

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Ninteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Five Years Later

  About Bella Bentley

  Click the following and connect with her! <3

  Twitter

  Facebook

  Blog

  Newsletter

  You never forget when you met the love of your life.

  Where did we meet? I rather not tell you. I rather show you—to get you to understand it all. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then picture this...needing to go to medical school, and being provided a solution.

  Him.

  I never thought I’d ever get myself in this predicament. But I did.

  Someone once told me, “What if you were meant to swim in the ocean but are only allowed to swim in the pond?” Kyle showed me the entire sea.

  I always wanted to be a doctor. Always had the perfect idea of what love was or should be. How you would meet. An opportunity came my way that is unconventional. Yes. But I took it. It was necessary so I could fulfill my dreams and attend medical school. But I never thought that by doing so I would meet him.

  Can fantasy, can passion, can forbidden erotic pursuits be more than lust? Can it be love?

  “What if you and I are the ocean you are meant to swim in. Won’t you leave your comfortable pond? Explore with me? Love with me?”—Kyle

  Chapter One

  “McKenzie, you’ll be fine. Really, you’ll see.” Shelly, my best friend and roommate, reached for my arm to console me as I sat at my kitchen table in a pool of tears. I was one month away from graduating from the University of Southern California, summa cum laude, and on my way to fulfill my dream to become a surgeon by attending the prestigious Stanford Medical School.

  Coming from a middle class American family; Mom a teacher and Dad a fireman, it was a big deal for me to get into USC with practically no student loans.

  But medical school was an entirely different league in the student loans arena. Stanford came with prestige as well as a hefty price tag of over $45,000 a year in tuition. There was no way I could attend medical school on my own accord or on my family’s salary; financial aid was a must for me. But there in bold letters on the document before me was an awakening—a slap across the face—that my dream was now over. I lost my funding. I wouldn’t be able to go to Stanford Medical School.

  “Ugh,” I crumbled up the letter and threw it across my small apartment. “What am I going to do?” I yelled in unfair annoyance. “I’ve worked so damn hard, Shelly. My whole life I’ve worked my ass off and they’re going to tell me that out of thousands of applicants . . . they only accept 3.3 percent of applicants, I got into fucking Stanford University Medical School! And now I can’t go because my fucking funding fell through?”

  After a few moments of silence, Shelly spoke softly, “My dad always said everything is up for negotiation. Why don’t you call the school and see if there is any sort of payment plan?” Her cheerful voice could lighten any mood. But not today, I was in the depths of despair.

  “Payment plan. Right.”

  “No, seriously. It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

  “Let’s see . . . Hi Miss so and so, who works at the business office who really doesn’t give a damn about me. I really want to go to this school. Please help me, please? I’ll make my payments of $45,000. Yet, now that I think of it, I don’t even have money to pay for September, but pretty please, let me. I graduated Summa Cum Laude!”

  My forehead fell on my arm lying on the table.

  “Well, I’m sure you really impressed them since you told me they only accept less than 200 a year.”

  “3.3 percent in fact.” I mumbled in my arms.

  The rain poured hard against the window pain only amplifying my disparity.

  “That’s it, McKenzie Kane. Get up.”

  “What?” I lifted my eyes and stared at her with blurred vision.

  “Ever since I’ve know you, you’ve been a fighter. You work your ass off. This isn’t the McKenzie Kane I know. We’re going out.”

  “I don’t want to.” I laid my head back on my arms. Pounding my forehead while telling myself, . . . think. Think. Think! . . .

  Why is med school so damn expensive anyway? Don’t they want doctors out there? Ever since this stupid market crash, loans have been impossible to obtain. Do they want this country to go to shambles because no one can get an education? It’s the government’s fault! My thoughts raced.

  “Kenze! Up!”

  Shelly dragged me out of my chair. “Get dressed. Get hot. We’re going for margaritas.”

  An hour later I sulked in my chair, nursing my second margarita at our favorite Mexican restaurant. The chips provided very little substance for soaking up the alcohol and I was feeling a little buzzed.

  “I just don’t understand, Shell! I’m so close!”

  “You’re going to get that money. I know it.”

  “Oh really, and how’s that?”

  “Well, for starters, you can enter this.” She handed me a flyer.

  Miss Orange County swimsuit contest. Winner wins $5,000.

  I nearly choked on my margarita. I was not one of those blonde bimbo types. No offense. But, I sought my entire life to be taken seriously because I was blonde. I wanted to be known for my brains and intellect and not for my abnormally large double d breast, my tiny waist, nor the junk in my trunk.

  I sighed and gritted through my teeth, “Hell to the no! Do you know what type of contestants I’d be up against? Models and actresses who are in between jobs. I’m just a girl from Texas.”

  “Those Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders are world renown for a reason baby. It’s because Texas women are hot. H-O-T-T. You are hot. You’re a bombshell but you refuse to admit it.” She rimmed her margarita glass and licked the salt off her fingers.

  “Look, you’re freaking hot. My brother is always begging me to bring you over. And, well, it’s time to use your assets baby! That’s ass-ets.”

  I rolled my eyes. I was not one of those women who used their body and looks. I just . . . wasn’t. Besides, I was raised conservatively, in a small conservative town where everyone attended the conservative southern Baptist church. If pictures surfaced of me in a two piece swimsuit , no doubt I’d give my grandmother a heart attack and send my grandfather straight to the grave. I couldn’t bear to think about what my pastor would think. His wife would call up my mother and tell her how rotten LA is and that the devil sure is getting a hold of my soul. I couldn’t help but to just
laugh at that atrociousness.

  “It’s in three weeks. Totally my treat. I’m going to make you look hot. Irresistible! We’ll do spray tan, endermologie, a brazillian wax. It doesn’t hurt too bad. I’m up for a fresh visit so we’ll do all of these together. It will be like a spa marathon. If you win, you can put a down payment on your loan. That should pay a month or something, right?”

  Shelly’s light brown eyes sparkled as she came up with a plan. I was never one to be a Debby Downer, but absolutely everything seemed so bleak. I wanted to laugh at Shelly’s plan. Here’s a month of medical school paid. But I didn’t want to be rude. She really was trying to help me.

  “And then, after that. After you win. We will start a YouTube video campaign with you in your swimsuit and—”

  “Wait. What?” I held up my hands in protest.

  “Look, Kenze, you want to go to medical school with every fiber in your being. Wouldn’t you do anything? People find a lot of success from YouTube. We’ll set up a Wordpress blog and have a donation bucket. You’ll be in med school in a jiffy.”

  Right. And then everyone at Stanford will know who I am and what I look like under my scrubs. I’d never hear the end of it all.

  I nodded my head strongly, fighting back tears. But I didn’t care what people thought about me. That was always my strong suit, one of my persevering qualities that always brought me out ahead.

  “I’d swim the damn strait surrounded by hungry sharks if it meant my med school would be paid for.”

  “Then a swimsuit pageant isn’t any different. Bottoms up baby because after tonight, I’m going to be training that gorgeous ass of yours into tip top shape. You’re going to win that competition and you will get to go to medical school. Case closed. Waiter! Another round please.”

  And that’s how it happened. That’s how me, McKenzie Kane, got entered into the most absurd thing ever. But hey, I was desperate.

  Shelly was true to her sweetheart word and treated me to the treatments ensuring my body was in tip- top shape. She came from money and never had to worry about money in her bank account. We met freshman year at USC and were instant besties. I, a serious med student, she a fashion design student. But we were always two peas in a pod.

  L.A. was such a different world than where I was from in a small town in East Texas. Which, East Texas should be marginalized into its entirely own country inside the US. Where I was from, family, church and football was everything. In that order.

  In L.A., well, image was everything. Everything. I had so many professors try to stir me away from internal surgery into plastic surgery because everyone and their dog wants cosmetic surgery. But ever since I took a mission trip with my church when I was fifteen, I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. Save people. Help them through much needed surgery. I wanted to save people’s lives. And if being in this damn swimsuit competition would bring me one step closer, than come hell or high water, I’d do it.

  Chapter Two

  Alas, the nervous Saturday came. It was one week before finals and I rather had studied but since I was already accepted into Stanford, I didn’t sweat it too much. There I stood, with fifty other contestants. Most of them had had work done. I’m sure of it. I felt confident after all of my beauty treatments. Shelly even had someone put extensions in my hair and she did my make up. I never had this type of treatment. I barely recognized myself when I looked at myself that morning in my floor length antique mirror.

  “Damn. This is what money can do.”

  I was toned, cellulite free, and tan. I looked totally like an Orange County bunny.

  Everyone appeared to be around my age, twenty something. As we stood there shoulder to shoulder, I was just ready for this competition to be over already. But then, much to my utter surprise, they said my name. My name.

  Fuck! What?

  “McKenzie Kane winner of Miss Orange County.” They repeated my name several times until I blinked back into reality and stepped forward to the presenter with dozens of long stem roses and a giant check. Fans were screaming, Shelly jumped up and down and her brother wouldn’t stop staring at my breasts.

  “McKenzie Kane will be attending Stanford University Medical School in the fall. I guess you can have the looks and the brains.”

  I wobbled in my heels and felt awkward as all the camera flashes went off. I just wanted to cash the check, get off the stage, get home and put on comfy sweats and study.

  But, truthfully, I was elated. I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe this plan would actually work. Maybe I would get to go to Stanford after all.

  After a celebratory meal of Mexican food, I ate the forbidden carbs and dairy that I was off of for three weeks and gladly downed my margaritas.

  “Oh my gosh, those guys at the bar are so staring at you. He looks famous or something. See, that’s what I’m telling you girl. You should use your body and your looks and land a millionaire, heck billionaire. Then you’ll never have to work.” She said dreamily.

  “Seriously? And be a bored housewife?”

  “Honey, you won’t be bored. There’s plenty to do when you have all the money in the world. Parties, lunch-ins . . . have a few babies. It’s the life. Shopping...” She sighed. “Don’t you ever watch the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?”

  I laughed at her incredulously and shook my head no.

  “So, is that your little plan, missy? Marry a rich man?”

  “You betcha.”

  I stirred my margarita. “Not me. I want to marry for love.”

  “Well, that’s cute. That’s sweet. Really.” She cooed. “Just don’t work so hard. You’ll have to pay heaps for a great plastic surgeon later.” She winked.

  Later at home, I turned music on and was about to study for my final but I needed to check my Facebook because the study group I was a part of had yet to designate a meeting place. But after I signed in, my heart was in my throat; I was tagged in twenty pictures of the competition! Damn it. I just knew I should have changed my personal preferences and made tagging impossible without my approval.

  I clicked through each picture. One of them was of me turning around and you could see my toned ass in the barely there bottoms.

  Crap! My mom’s gonna kill me!

  I clicked picture after picture, panicking that people at home had already seen the pictures. As I feverously deleted each picture, I felt a small smile hang on my face. I did actually look good. I stared at the one last picture daydreaming. It felt nice to be admired for once. I had always felt like a fish out of water here in Plastic City, California and I couldn’t believe that I actually won. The admiration was short lived when I saw a message alert from my mom.

  McKenzie,

  Pastor Jenking’s wife was on Facebook today and saw that you won some competition. She called me and so I got on to see what she was talking about. You must call me as soon as you get this so we can talk about this! Your little sisters look up to you! How am I supposed to explain this? And more importantly, your father’s Fire Fighter buddies no doubt have seen these circulating. Your poor father. Call me asap.

  Love,

  Mom

  PS—Did you receive the card I sent in the mail? It was a little something for you while you study hard for your finals. But judging by these pictures, it looks like none of this is happening.

  I rolled my eyes and sighed.

  What a buzz kill.

  I trudged to my mailbox and flipped through my mail as I walked back to my apartment. A few magazines, bills, . . . ah, there was my mother’s fancy cursive handwriting.

  Good luck sweetie. I know you love Starbucks! We are so very proud of you. Xoxox Mom and Dad.

  It was thoughtful of them. I was thinking about calling her and explaining my situation and how things may be a little different for a while. They were about to see much more of me in a swimsuit on Youtube and if the church had a problem with it, well that was their problem. I was going to go to medical school!

  I reached for my Iphone but t
here next to the phone, peeping out under a magazine was a shiny chic black envelope with my name written in beautiful white calligraphy: McKenzie Kane.

  Chapter Three

  I stared at the envelope curiously. The thick envelope had a rich elegance to the paper. There was no return address. My name was written in beautiful white calligraphy on the front and the back was sealed with a red ink stamp with the initials BC.

  It was so beautiful, I didn’t even want to open the envelope but curiosity got the best of me. What was this?

  I opened the envelope to reveal a cream stalk card with the same BC emblem at the top.

  Dear McKenzie,

  We were very impressed with your performance today at the swimsuit competition. We would like to extend to you the invitation to join us for the evening. A little birdy told us you are short on your medical school tuition. If you join us tonight, consider your first year paid in full.

  A black limo will arrive at your residence to take you to your destination at 11pm. It will wait only five minutes. The choice is yours. If you do decide to come, come just as you were today in full hair and make up. Attire will be provided. You will arrive home no later than 6am with your payment in full. No cell phones. No personal belongings.

  Cordially Yours,

  The Elusive and Exclusive BC

  I reread the note over and over. Was this some sort of practical joke? Behind the stalk card, the following words were written: Verbal password is as follows: BlueAlpha118

  11pm? Bluealpha118? What the heck was this?

  I looked at my phone. It was 6pm. I could still make the study group from 7 until 9 and then come home and primp. Damn it. I didn’t know how to re apply my professional make up and Shelly was out at some party. Wait a minute, was I really considering going? Just because some money was thrown my way?

  I re read the phrase . . . If you join us tonight, consider your first year paid in full.

  Yes. I would do anything to go to medical school.

  But was this even legitimate and true?

  There was only one way to find out. I had to go. I spent the next hour googling “what does bc stand for?” Besides British Columbia and other standard replies, I got nothing. “The Elusive and Exclusive BC”. Nothing.