A Walk to Remember - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,33

his Hooville body would work against him. At every critical moment when I really needed his help to balance the load, he’d stumble over some dust or an insect on the floor, and the weight of the prop would come crashing down on my fingers, pinching them against the doorjamb in the most painful way possible.

“S-s-sorry,” he’d say. “D-d-did . . . th-th-that hurt?”

I’d stifle the curses rising in my throat and bite out, “Just don’t do it again.”

But he couldn’t stop himself from stumbling around any more than he could stop the rain from falling. By the time we’d finished loading and unloading everything, my fingers looked like Toby’s, the roving handyman. And the worst thing was, I didn’t even get a chance to eat before rehearsal started. Moving the props had taken three hours, and we didn’t finish setting them up until a few minutes before everyone else arrived to begin. With everything else that had happened that day, suffice it to say I was in a pretty bad mood.

I ran through my lines without even thinking about them, and Miss Garber didn’t say the word marvelous all night long. She had this concerned look in her eyes afterward, but Jamie simply smiled and told her not to worry, that everything was going to be all right. I knew Jamie was just trying to make things better for me, but when she asked me to walk her home, I told her no. The Playhouse was in the middle of town, and to walk her home, I’d have to walk a good distance out of my way. Besides, I didn’t want to be seen again doing it. But Miss Garber had overheard Jamie’s request and she said, very firmly, that I’d be glad to do it. “You two can talk about the play,” she said. “Maybe you can work out the kinks.” By kinks, of course, she meant me specifically.

So once more I ended up walking Jamie home, but she could tell I wasn’t really in the mood to talk because I walked a little bit in front of her, my hands in my pockets, without even really turning back to see whether she was following. It went this way for the first few minutes, and I hadn’t said a word to her.

“You’re not in a very good mood, are you?” she finally asked. “You didn’t even try tonight.”

“You don’t miss a thing, do you?” I said sarcastically without looking at her.

“Maybe I can help,” she offered. She said it kind of happily, which made me even a little angrier.

“I doubt it,” I snapped.

“Maybe if you told me what was wrong—”

I didn’t let her finish.

“Look,” I said, stopping, turning to face her. “I’ve just spent all day hauling crap, I haven’t eaten since lunch, and now I have to trek a mile out of my way to make sure you get home, when we both know you don’t even need me to do it.”

It was the first time I’d ever raised my voice to her. To tell you the truth, it felt kind of good. It had been building up for a long time. Jamie was too surprised to respond, and I went on.

“And the only reason I’m doing this is because of your father, who doesn’t even like me. This whole thing is dumb, and I wish I had never agreed to do it.”

“You’re just saying this because you’re nervous about the play—”

I cut her off with a shake of my head. Once I got on a roll, it was sometimes hard for me to stop. I could take her optimism and cheerfulness only so long, and today wasn’t the day to push me too far.

“Don’t you get it?” I said, exasperated. “I’m not nervous about the play, I just don’t want to be here. I don’t want to walk you home, I don’t want my friends to keep talking about me, and I don’t want to spend time with you. You keep acting like we’re friends, but we’re not. We’re not anything. I just want the whole thing to be over so I can go back to my normal life.”

She looked hurt by my outburst, and to be honest, I couldn’t blame her.

“I see,” was all she said. I waited for her to raise her voice at me, to defend herself, to make her case again, but she didn’t. All she did was look toward the ground. I think part of her wanted to cry, but she