The Notebook (The Notebook, #1)

by Nicholas Sparks

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.

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.

So once again, just as I do every day, I begin to read the notebook aloud, so that she can hear it, in the hope that the miracle that has come to dominate my life will once again prevail. And maybe, just maybe, it will.

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.

“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.

I disagree. I think it eventually goes away with time.

He had a few girlfriends in school, but none had ever made an impression on him. Except for one. And she came after graduation. Allie. His Allie.

“I don’t care what my parents think, I love you and always will,” she would say. “We’ll find a way to be together.”

“Only the summer is over, Allie, not us,” he’d said the morning she left. “We’ll never be over.” But they were. For a reason he didn’t fully understand, the letters he wrote went unanswered.

“I wish I could give you what you’re looking for, but I don’t know what it is. There’s a part of you that you keep closed off from everyone, including me. It’s as if I’m not the one you’re really with. Your mind is on someone else.”

Damn, that would suck wasting two years on a relationship like this.

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.

Allison Nelson, twenty-nine years old and engaged, a socialite, searching for answers she needed to know, and Noah Calhoun, the dreamer, thirty-one, visited by the ghost that had come to dominate his life.

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.

Her eyes had spoken to him and whispered something he longed to hear, yet he couldn’t stop the voice inside his head, her voice, that had told him of her love for another man.

For something had happened during dinner. Quite simply, he had fallen in love again. He knew that now as they sat next to one another. Fallen in love with a new Allie, not just her memory.

And then Lon guessed that she had loved that person far more deeply than her mother had suggested. Maybe even more deeply than she loved him. And now she was there. Interesting.

“Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can’t control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That’s what it was like for me. 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.

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

Honestly, poor Lon.

“When did you finally tell him about us?” “After I got home.” “Was it hard?” “Not at all. I was in love with you.”

So she's cheated before with Noah???

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

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’m so afraid. I’m afraid of forgetting you again. It isn’t fair… I just can’t bear to give this up.”

Alzheimer's seems so emotionally painful :(.

A woman shaking in fear from demons in her mind, and the old man who loves her more deeply than life itself, crying softly in the corner, his face in his hands.

“I am still yours, Allie, my queen, my timeless beauty. You are, and always have been, the best thing in my life.”

I don’t know how you do it. You even beat her disease sometimes. Even though the doctors don’t understand it, we nurses do. It’s love, it’s as simple as that. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

“But Noah, you’re not supposed to do this, and I can’t let you. So go back to your room.” Then, smiling softly and sniffling and shuffling some papers on the desk, she says: “Me, I’m going downstairs for some coffee. I won’t be back to check on you for a while, so don’t do anything foolish.”

She's a real one lol.

I kiss her lips, her cheeks, and listen as she takes a breath. She murmurs softly, “Oh, Noah… I’ve missed you.” Another miracle—the greatest of all!—and there’s no way I can stop the tears as we begin to slip toward heaven itself.

Awe yay!