Very Far Away from Anywhere Else by Ursula K. Le Guin Read Free Book Online Page A

it was all sleek and soft, and the texture of her skin, which was white and very fine. And pretty soon I had managed to develop her into the real thing, the mysterious female, the cruel beauty, the untouchable desirable goddess, you name it. So that instead of being my first and best and only real friend, she was something that I wanted and hated. Hated because I wanted it, wanted because I hated it.

    In February we drove over to the coast again.
    There's always a week around Washington's Birthday that is fantastic. It stops raining. The sun gets warm. The leaf buds start showing on the trees, and some first flowers come out. It's the first week of spring, and in some ways the best, because it's the first, and because it's so short.
    You can count on that week, and I'd planned ahead. I got her to get a substitute at the music school and postpone her lessons, so that we could drive over to Jade Beach on Saturday. If her father made any static about it, I didn't care. She had to handle him. We were adults, and she had to learn to do without his approval for everything. I was all ready to tell her exactly that, if she mentioned her father; but she didn't. She didn't seem very enthusiastic about this trip, but I guess she knew I wanted it, so she did what I wanted, like a friend.

    When we got to the beach about eleven in the morning, it was low tide, and there were some people clamming. We'd worn shorts under our jeans this time, and we played in the surf again, but it was different. There was a low fog over the sand, not thick and cold, just a kind of dimming as if the air was made of mother-of-pearl, and the waves were quiet and broke slowly, curving over themselves in long blue-green lines, dreamy and regular and hypnotic. We didn't stay together, but drifted apart, wading in the breakers. When I looked, Natalie was way up the beach, walking slowly in the foam, kicking up spray. She walked a litde hunched with her hands in her pockets and looked very small and frail there between the misty beach and the misty sea.

    The clammers left when the tide began to come back in. After about an hour Natalie came wandering back. Her hair was all tangled in strings and she kept sniffing. The sea air made her nose run, and we hadn't brought any tissues. She looked serene and distant, the way her mother always looked. She'd picked up some rocks, but most of them were the kind that are beautiful when wet, but nothing much when they dry. "Let's eat," she said. "I'm starving."
    I'd built a fire with driftwood in the same place as last time, in the hollow sheltered by the big log. She sat down right by the fire. I sat down next to her. I put my arm on her shoulders. Then my heart started hammering in this terrifying way, and I felt really crazy and dizzy, and I took hold of her really hard and kissed her. We kissed, and I couldn't get my breath. I hadn't meant to grab her like that; I meant to kiss her and tell her, "I love you" and talk about it, about love, and that was all. I hadn't thought any farther. I didn't know what would happen to me, that it would be like when you're in deep and a big breaker hits you and pulls you over and down and you can't swim and you can't breathe, and there is nothing you can do, nothing.

    She knew when the breaker hit me. And I guess it scared her too, but she wasn't caught in it. Because she pulled free after a bit and drew back, away from me. But she kept hold of my hand, because she saw that I was drowning.
    "Owen," she said, "hey, Owen sweetheart, Owen, don't."

    Because I was sobbing. I don't know whether it was crying, or because I couldn't breathe.
    I came out of it gradually. I was still too shaken up to be embarrassed or ashamed yet, and I reached for her other hand, so we were kneeling in the sand face-to-face, and I said, "Natalie, why can't—we're not kids—don't you—"
    She said, "No, I don't. I don't, Owen. I love you. It isn't right."
    She didn't mean morally right. She meant right