The Wedding - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,42

know it is my signal to inform them that Jane was the first to leap out of her seat to make sure she was okay, because I was paralyzed with fear. But once I finally summoned the will to move, I bounded through the crowd, pushing and shoving and knocking people off balance, much like the running back a moment before. Then, in the moment I take a breath to pause, Jane easily picks up where I left off. I am amazed that neither of us seems to find this out of the ordinary, or even difficult. This give-and-take has become natural for us, and I often wonder what it is like for those who don’t know their partners quite so well. Leslie, I might add, was not injured that day. By the time we reached her, she was already reaching for her pom-poms.

But I never join in the story of my proposal. Instead I sit in silence, knowing that Jane finds it much more humorous than I. After all, I didn’t intend for it to be a humorous event. I was sure it would be a day she would always remember and hoped that she would find it romantic.

Somehow, Jane and I had made it through the year with our love intact. By late spring we were talking about getting engaged, and the only surprise was when we would make it official. I knew she wanted something special—her parents’ romance had set a high bar. When Noah and Allie were together, it seemed as if everything turned out perfectly. If it rained while they were out together—a miserable experience, most would admit—Allie and Noah would use it as an excuse to build a fire and lie beside each other, falling ever more deeply in love. If Allie was in the mood for poetry, Noah could recite a series of verses from memory. If Noah was the example, I knew I must follow his lead, and for this reason, I planned to propose to her on the beach at Ocracoke, where her family was vacationing in July.

My plan, I thought, was inspired. Quite simply, after picking out an engagement ring, I planned to hide it in the conch I had picked up the year before, with the intention that she would find it later, when we were out scouring the beach for sand dollars. When she did, I planned to drop to one knee, take her hand, and tell her that she would make me the happiest man in the world if she would consent to be my wife.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as planned. A storm was in full swing that weekend, with heavy rain and winds strong enough to make the trees bend almost horizontal. All day Saturday, I waited for the storm to abate, but nature seemed to have other ideas, and it wasn’t until midmorning Sunday that the sky began to clear.

I was more nervous than I’d imagined I would be, and I found myself mentally rehearsing exactly what I wanted to say. This sort of rote preparation had always served me well in law school, but I didn’t realize that my preparation would keep me from speaking to Jane as we made our way along the beach. I don’t know how long we continued to walk in silence, but it was long enough for the sound of Jane’s voice to startle me when she finally spoke up.

“The tide’s really coming in, isn’t it?”

I hadn’t realized that the tide would be so affected even after the storm had passed, and though I was fairly certain that the shell was safe, I didn’t want to take any chances. Concerned, I started to walk even more quickly, though I tried my best not to arouse her suspicion.

“Why the rush?” she asked me.

“Am I rushing?” I answered.

She didn’t seem satisfied with my response and finally slowed down. For a little while, until I spotted the conch, at least, I walked by myself, a few steps ahead of her. When I saw the high-water marks in the sand near the shell, I knew we had time. Not a lot, but I felt myself relax a bit.

I turned to say something to Jane, unaware that she had already stopped a little ways back. She was bending toward the sand, one arm extended, and I knew exactly what she was doing. Whenever she was at the beach, Jane had a habit of looking for tiny sand dollars. The best ones, the ones