A Walk to Remember

by Nicholas Sparks

My name is Landon Carter, and I’m seventeen years old. This is my story; I promise to leave nothing out. First you will smile, and then you will cry—don’t say you haven’t been warned.

“So,” I said instead, “you were at the orphanage today?” Jamie looked at me curiously. “No. My father and I were at the doctor’s office.” “Is he okay?” She smiled. “Healthy as can be.”

“I’d love to,” she finally said, “on one condition.” I steadied myself, hoping it wasn’t something too awful. “Yes?” “You have to promise that you won’t fall in love with me.”

I’ve been praying about it for months now because I want this Christmas to be the most special one of all.” “Why is this Christmas so important?” I asked her, and she smiled patiently, as if I’d asked a question that didn’t really matter. “It just is,” she said simply.

But even though Mr. Jenkins liked Jamie a lot and knew she meant well, he didn’t think it was a good idea. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said. That’s how I knew what he was thinking.

The strange thing was, when she said it, I realized that Hegbert would be driving her home, and for once I wished that I would have had the opportunity to walk her there.

Jamie reached out and rested her hand on mine. It was warm and soft. I glanced at her, not knowing what to say. Jamie had given me her Bible. “Thank you for doing what you did,” she whispered to me. “It was the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”

I thought about the homecoming dance and what she’d done for me that night. I thought about the play and how angelic she’d looked. I thought about the times I’d walked her home and how I’d helped collect jars and cans filled with pennies for the orphans. As these images were going through my head, my breathing suddenly went still. I looked at Jamie, then up to the ceiling and around the room, doing my best to keep my composure, then back to Jamie again. She smiled at me and I smiled at her and all I could do was wonder how I’d ever fallen in love with a girl like Jamie Sullivan.

My mother and father were both dressed very nicely, as was I, and my mother kissed Jamie hello on the cheek. My mother, I couldn’t help but think as I watched her do it, had scored before I did.

Jamie Sullivan had leukemia… Jamie, sweet Jamie, was dying… My Jamie…

I realized I’d never even known her when she’d been healthy. I had started to spend time with her only a few months earlier, and I’d been in love with her for only eighteen days. Those eighteen days seemed like my entire life, but now, when I looked at her, all I could do was wonder how many more days there would be.

It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.