Books: A Walk to Remember

I just finished reading the book A Walk to Remember authored by Nicholas Sparks. It was such a bittersweet story. I shed tears while reading it, especially on the last part. You should experience yourself too.

Here's the plot of the story:

               When a prank on a fellow high school student goes wrong, popular but rebellious Landon Rollins Carter  is threatened with expulsion. His punishment is mandatory participation in various after-school activities, such as tutoring disadvantaged children and performing in the drama club's spring musical. At these functions, he is forced to interact with quiet, bookish Jamie Elizabeth Sullivan, the only daughter of their church's pastor, and a girl he has known for many years but to whom he has rarely if ever spoken. Their differing social statures leave them worlds apart, despite their close physical proximity.

Landon has difficulty learning his lines for the spring play, so he asks Jamie to assist him. She decides to help him but under one condition: Landon must promise not to fall in love with her. He chuckles at the strange request, obviously doubting that he could ever fall in love with her.

Landon and Jamie begin practicing together at her house after school. As they spend more time together, a friendship begins to develop. Landon discovers that Jamie’s wish list of everything she aspires to accomplish in life includes befriending someone she doesn't like, getting a tattoo, being in two different places at once, and making a telescope so she can see a special comet that is coming, but she doesn't tell him her number one wish. One day, Jamie approaches Landon when he is hanging out with some of his friends. When Jamie asks if they are still on for practice that afternoon he smirks and replies, "In your dreams." His friends laugh and Landon's smirk falters as Jamie feels betrayed and embarrassed. That afternoon, Landon arrives at Jamie's house, hoping that she will still agree to help him. But she refuses to let him in, and asks him in a sarcastically sweet voice if he wants to be "secret friends." She slams the door in his face when he agrees. Landon eventually learns the script by himself.

During the play, Jamie astounds Landon and the entire audience with her beauty and singing voice. Landon, clearly surprised and overcome with unexpected emotion, kisses her at the end of her key song, "Only Hope." After the play, Landon is approached by his father, who walked out on him and his mother when he was very young. When he turns to go, his dad calls after him not to walk away. "You taught me how," he says simply, and leaves.

In the following days, Landon tries to get close to Jamie, but she repeatedly rejects him. The breaking point comes when a few of Landon's so-called friends play a malicious joke on Jamie. (The prank consisted of a photoedit of Jamie's face onto an almost pornographic image and its distribution.) She is about to cry in the middle of the cafeteria when Landon comes to her aid. He punches out one of his now ex-friends and literally turns his back on the group, takes Jamie out of the cafeteria, and, when they're outside the school, apologizes about the group, calling them "animals".

In his car at her house, he asks her out to dinner, but she replies that she is not allowed to date. He goes to her father in the church and asks him for permission. When her father says no, Landon apologizes for the way he has treated Jamie in the past and asks for her father to have faith in him. The man begrudgingly agrees, and Landon takes her out to dinner. Despite his reluctance at first, she convinces him to dance with her. Even though Jamie still doesn't want to reveal her number one wish, Landon reveals his number one wish to be leaving his hometown, to which Jamie points out that it's not about leaving, but more about figuring out what to do when he gets there.

Landon then sets out to help her accomplish a few things on her wish list. He takes her to the state line and positions her over it, with one foot on each side of the line. When Jamie asks him what he's doing he tells her, "You're in two places at once." He also gives her a temporary tattoo of a butterfly. While walking along a boardwalk, Jamie asks Landon how he could have such amazing moments and not believe. She explains her faith to him eloquently. "I might kiss you," he says. And he does. He then tells her that he loves her, but she doesn't reply right away. When he prompts her, all she can say is "I told you not to fall in love with me..."

As their relationship grows, Jamie's father confronts her. He tells her that her behavior is "sinful." She argues that she is in love with him, and her father looks her straight in the eye. "Then be fair to him, Jamie. Before things get worse."

The couple meets up at the cemetery where Jamie goes to stargaze and they spend the night waiting for Pluto to rise. Landon tells Jamie that he had a star named for her. She tells him for the first time that she loves him, and he finally realizes something that he has been trying to find out for a while: Jamie's number one wish is to marry in the church where her parents were married.

When Landon goes home in the morning, his mother confronts about being with Jamie, to which he assures is nothing bad. She also confronts him with a list of goals he wants to accomplish, which include going to college and getting into medical school. She tells him that he'll have to work hard to achieve those goals, to which he claims he is capable of because Jamie believes in him.

One evening, Jamie finally tells Landon that she has terminal leukemia and has stopped responding to treatments. He is initially upset, but she says that the reason why she didn't tell him was because she was moving on with her life and using the time she had left. She says that she was doing fine until they fell in love. Jamie starts to break down as she says, "I do not need a reason to be angry with God" and runs away.

Landon goes to his father and asks him to help Jamie. His father hesitates, as leukemia is not his specialty, and says he needs to examine her and know her medical history before he could do anything. Landon leaves, angry and bitter. On the way home, he tears up as the situation sinks in.

Eric, who was Landon's best friend but had also participated in the prank on Jamie, comes and tells him how sorry he is and that he hadn't understood. Landon leaves dozens of flowers on Jamie's doorstep and asks her father to tell her that he's "not going anywhere". The pair makes up soon after.

Jamie's cancer gets worse until she collapses one day. Her father rushes her to the hospital where he meets Landon. Landon doesn't leave Jamie's side until her father practically has to pry him away. The next day, Landon comes to the hospital and sees Jamie being wheeled out of the ward. He asks what's going on and she replies by asking him to thank his father for the help. Apparently Landon's father arranged to pay for private homecare for Jamie. Landon is stunned and, later that night, goes back to his father's house. He whispers "thank you" and his father hugs him. With all the exhaustion and fear over Jamie's situation and years of hurt about his parents' divorce on his shoulders, Landon breaks down in tears in his dad's arms.

Landon continues to fulfill various wishes on Jamie's list, including building her telescope. Her father, who now approves of him, helps out, as does Dean. Belinda, Landon's ex-girlfriend who originally proposed the prank, also apologizes. After Jamie sees the comet through the telescope, Landon proposes and Jamie accepts. They marry in the church where her parents were married. With the wedding, Landon has completed everything on Jamie’s wishlist, and then she died months after their wedding.

Four years later, Landon visits Jamie's father and tells him he has finished college and has been accepted into medical school. He then gives Jamie's father a book that Jamie had given to him. He tells her father that he is sorry he could not grant Jamie's ambition to witness a miracle before she died. Her father replies that Jamie did see a miracle. "It was you," he says with a fatherly smile.

In the end, Landon remarks that Jamie not only saved his life—she taught him everything about life, hope and the long journey ahead. He ends his monologue by saying that Jamie and his love is like the wind. "I can't see it, but I can feel it.