Into the Great Wide Open Read Online Free PDF

around with her parents, last summer. The grand tour.”
    His question had somehow wrecked it, and she didn’t go on. She unlaced her black boots instead and slipped them off, practical wool socks that she stuffed inside; and then, barefoot, she lifted her skirts and walked out into the water. This was unexpected, and Kenny didn’t know what to do: rescue her, join her, stay where he was. The night felt like a small closed room, the edges invisible, but not far away. She waded in past her ankles, up to her knees, letting out a little shivery yip when the wave came in to meet her.
    “Jesus,” she said. “Cold!”
    Then stood there with her back to him, holding her skirt bunched together in her left hand, clutching her jacket, close to her throat, with her right. Looking for something?—or going where he wouldn’t follow her. He didn’t know. The distance between them. Kenny felt how strange and apart people were from each other, how far he was from Junie, separate planets. He didn’t know what she thought, or what she felt. He wouldn’t know, until she took some action to show it: start to sing, or wade in deeper, to her waist, to her chin, over her head, Kenny could imagine that. He longed to close the distance. I want to be inside you, he thought. Both ways. The way that men’s bodies were closed, his own body. Kenny ended at the skin, no way out; but women’s bodies had a hole in them, a place you could enter. It wasn’t going to happen, he guessed that much—not this night, not this girl. Which was all right, more or less, he was liking her company so far. Just the longing wouldn’t stop, the isolation. He wanted to escape himself. He watched her, turning a little to one side and then the other, the way somebody will move when they are singing to themselves. Her bare legs, the round dark shape of her penitent’s head.
    She came out of the water, still holding her skirt away from her wet legs, and she sat next to Kenny again except closer than before. This seemed like the time to put his arm around her and he did—quickly,before he lost his nerve. He put his arm around her waist and felt her tighten under his hand, through the heavy nylon of her parka, like he was going to hurt her.
    He waited for her to relax but she didn’t seem to. They stared at the ocean, not at each other. He shifted his hand and felt the sharp intake of her breath, felt the tensing.
    “Is this all right?” he asked her quietly. “Can I do this?”
    “You seem to be,” she said; awkward. She didn’t move away, didn’t move closer. Separate planets. I want to be inside you, Kenny thought, and sent the thought her way, so she would at least know: I want to be inside you, I want to be inside you. Wondering what would happen if he tried to kiss her—wondering which should come first, whether he should kiss her on the lips or on her beautiful heck or not at all—when he felt her start to shiver under his hand.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “I’m fine,” she said quickly. The shivering didn’t stop. What did she mean? The wind, though it had died down a little, was still cold and clean. Her wet, bare legs, he thought. But she wasn’t cold until he touched her. She shivered.
    “You’re cold,” he said.
    She started to deny it but saw that she couldn’t.
    “We should go back,” Kenny said.
    “Maybe we should,” she said. Apologetic, but already getting to her feet, his hand left to fall to the sand, wherever it fell, careless. Nothing was going to happen here anyway, he reminded himself. But still.
    “I, urn,” Junie said. Composed herself while Kenny got to his feet. “I don’t mind, what you were doing. I mean, that’s not the reason.”
    “No,” Kenny said.
    “I’m not doing anything to hurt your feelings,” she said, although he had accused her of nothing.
    “Nobody said you were,” he said.
    “Apparently I can’t be trusted with other people’s feelings. That’s what they tell me.”
    “Let