The Notebook

by Nicholas Sparks

I am a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.

The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. In my mind it’s a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not change the fact that it involves a great deal of my life and the path I’ve chosen to follow.

I realize the odds, and science, are against me. But science is not the total answer; this I know, this I have learned in my lifetime. And that leaves me with the belief that miracles, no matter how inexplicable or unbelievable, are real and can occur without regard to the natural order of things.

He was thirty-one now, not too old, but old enough to be lonely.

And sometimes in the moments right before sleep came, he wondered if he was destined to be alone forever.

But he had been in love once, that he knew. Once and only once, and a long time ago. And it had changed him forever. Perfect love did that to a person, and this had been perfect.

An ordinary beginning, something that would have been forgotten had it been anyone but her. But as he shook her hand and met those striking emerald eyes, he knew before he’d taken his next breath that she was the one he could spend the rest of his life looking for but never find again.

He taught her how to bait a line and fish the shallows for largemouth bass and took her exploring through the backwoods of the Croatan Forest. They rode in canoes and watched summer thunderstorms, and to him it seemed as though they’d always known each other.

But when he thought about New Bern, he seemed to remember only the last summer, the summer they were together.

“My daddy used to tell me that the first time you fall in love, it changes your life forever, and no matter how hard you try, the feelin’ never goes away. This girl you been tellin’ me about was your first love. And no matter what you do, she’ll stay with you forever.”

Poets knew that isolation in nature, far from people and things man-made, was good for the soul, and he’d always identified with poets.

Eventually he wrote a final letter and forced himself to accept the fact that the summer they’d spent with one another was the only thing they’d ever share.

Noah tried to stop by regularly to leave some flowers; occasionally he left a note. And every night without fail he took a moment to remember him, then said a prayer for the man who’d taught him everything that mattered.

She remembered sitting beneath the tree on a hot July day with someone who looked at her with a longing that took everything else away. And it had been at that moment that she’d first fallen in love.

He thumbed through old books with dog-eared pages, books he’d read a hundred times. He’d read for a while, then stop, and the two of them would talk. She would tell him what she wanted in her life—her hopes and dreams for the future—and he would listen intently and then promise to make it all come true. And the way he said it made her believe him, and she knew then how much he meant to her.

Occasionally, when she asked, he would talk about himself or explain why he had chosen a particular poem and what he thought of it, and at other times he just studied her in that intense way of his.

Yet the feeling went on despite herself, and for a brief moment she felt fifteen again. Felt as she hadn’t in years, as if all her dreams could still come true. Felt as though she’d finally come home.

Without another word they came together, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and he put his arms around her, drawing her close. They held each other tightly, making it real, both of them letting the fourteen years of separation dissolve in the deepening twilight.

They stayed like that for a long time before she finally pulled back to look at him. Up close, she could see the changes she hadn’t noticed at first. He was a man now...

Don’t let this get out of hand, she told herself; the longer it goes on, the harder it’s going to be. And she didn’t want it to get any harder. But God, those eyes. Those soft, dark eyes.

“A living poem” had always been the words that came to mind when he tried to describe her to others.

“I’ve thought about you ever since that summer,” she said.

“Did you ever think about us?” “All the time. I still do.”

I STILL DO

She reached over and touched his hand, hesitantly, gently, amazed that after all these years he’d somehow known exactly what she’d needed to hear. When their eyes locked, she once again realized how special he was.

God, she’s beautiful, he thought. And inside, he ached.

She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.

I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has happened only once, and that’s why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I’ll never forget a single moment of it.”

she knew that she had fallen in love with Noah Taylor Calhoun again, and that maybe, just maybe, she had never stopped.

“Not really. Not in the things that I remember. You’re older, of course, with more life behind you, but you’ve still got the same gleam in your eye. You still read poetry and float on rivers. And you’ve still got a gentleness that not even the war could take away.”

“I think I loved you more that summer than I ever loved anyone.”

“I don’t want to live the rest of my life thinking about you and dreaming of what might have been.

And if, in some distant place in the future, we see each other in our new lives, I will smile at you with joy, and remember how we spent a summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. And maybe, for a brief moment, you’ll feel it too, and you’ll smile back, and savor the memories we will always share together.

Sometimes I tell them. I might tell them of her sweetness and her charm and describe how she taught me to see the world for the beautiful place it is. Or I tell them of our early years together and explain how we had all we needed when we held each other under starry southern skies. On special occasions I whisper of our adventures together, of art shows in New York and Paris or the rave reviews from critics writing in languages I do not understand.

Allie, my dream, my timeless beauty,

I love you, Allie. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I’ve ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, every day we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours. And, my darling, you will always be mine.

I know what it’s like to be day and night now; always together, forever apart.