A Walk to Remember - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,41

followed her gaze. Her gift was still beneath the tree, partially hidden by the stand, and I reached for it. It was rectangular, flexible, and a little heavy. I brought it to my lap and held it there without even trying to open it.

“Open it,” she said, looking right at me.

“You can’t give this to me,” I said breathlessly. I already knew what was inside, and I couldn’t believe what she had done. My hands began to tremble.

“Please,” she said to me with the kindest voice I’d ever heard, “open it. I want you to have it.”

Reluctantly I slowly unwrapped the package. When it was finally free of the paper, I held it gently, afraid to damage it. I stared at it, mesmerized, and slowly ran my hand over the top, brushing my fingers over the well-worn leather as tears filled my eyes. 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 turned away without responding and reached off to the side where I’d set my glass of punch. The chorus of “Silent Night” was still playing, and the music filled the room. I took a sip of the punch, trying to soothe the sudden dryness in my throat. As I drank, all the times I’d spent with Jamie came flooding into my mind. 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.

Chapter 10

I drove Jamie home from the orphanage later that night. At first I wasn’t sure whether I should pull the old yawn move and put my arm around her shoulder, but to be honest, I didn’t know exactly how she was feeling about me. Granted, she’d given me the most wonderful gift I’d ever received, and even though I’d probably never open it and read it like she did, I knew it was like giving a piece of herself away. But Jamie was the type of person who would donate a kidney to a stranger she met walking down the street, if he really needed one. So I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it.

Jamie had told me once that she wasn’t a dimwit, and I guess I finally came to the conclusion that she wasn’t. She may have been . . . well, different . . . but she’d figured out what I’d done for the orphans, and looking back, I think she knew even as we were sitting on the floor of her living room. When she’d called it a miracle, I guess she was talking specifically about me.

Hegbert, I remembered, came into the room as Jamie and I were talking about it, but he really didn’t have much to say. Old Hegbert hadn’t been himself lately, at least as far as I could tell. Oh, his sermons were still on the money, and he still talked about the fornicators, but lately his sermons were shorter than usual, and occasionally he’d pause right in the middle of one and this strange look would come over him, kind of like he was thinking of something else, something sad.

I didn’t know what to make of it, being that I really didn’t know him that well. And Jamie, when she talked about him, seemed to describe someone else entirely. I could no more imagine Hegbert with a sense of humor than I could imagine two moons in the sky.

So anyway, he came into the room while we counted the money, and Jamie stood up with those tears in her eyes, and Hegbert didn’t even seem to realize I was there. He told her that he was proud of her and that he loved her, but then he shuffled back to the kitchen to continue working on his sermon.