Nicholas Sparks - The Best of Me

They argued as well, and then Dawson caught a glimpse of her fiery nature. Their disagreements weren’t constant, but they weren’t infrequent, either; remarkably, no matter how quickly things flared up, they almost always ended equally fast. Sometimes it was about little things — Amanda was nothing if not opinionated — and they’d bicker furiously for a while, usually without any sort of resolution. Even in those instances where he became truly angry, he couldn’t help admiring her honesty, an honesty rooted in the fact that she cared more about him than anyone else in his life.

Aside from Tuck, no one understood what she saw in him. Though they initially tried to conceal the relationship, Oriental was a small town, and people inevitably began to whisper. One by one, her friends withdrew, and it was only a matter of time before her parents found out. He was a Cole and she was a Collier, and that was more than enough cause for dismay. At first, they clung to the hope that Amanda was simply going through a rebellious phase, and they tried to ignore it. When that didn’t work, things got harder for Amanda. They took away her driver’s license and prohibited her from using the phone. In the fall, she was grounded for weeks at a time and forbidden to go out on weekends. Never once was Dawson allowed into their home, and the only time her father ever spoke to him he called Dawson “a worthless piece of white trash.” Her mother begged Amanda to end it, and by December her father had stopped speaking to her altogether.

The hostility surrounding them only drew Amanda and Dawson closer together, and when Dawson began to take her hand in public, Amanda held tight, daring anyone to tell her to let go. But Dawson wasn’t naive; as much as she meant to him, he always had the sense that they were on borrowed time. Everything and everyone seemed stacked against them. When his father found out about Amanda, he would ask about her when he came by to collect Dawson’s wages. Though there was nothing overtly menacing in his tone, simply hearing him say her name left Dawson feeling sick to his stomach.

In January, she turned eighteen, but as furious as her parents were about the relationship, they stopped short of throwing her out of the house. By then Amanda didn’t care what they thought — or at least that was what she always told Dawson. Sometimes, after yet another bitter argument with her parents, she would sneak out her bedroom window in the middle of the night and strike out for the garage. Often he would be waiting for her, but sometimes he’d awaken to her nudging him as she joined him on the mat he’d unrolled on the floor of the garage office. They’d wander down to the creek and Dawson would slip his arm around her while they sat on one of the low-slung branches of an ancient live oak. In the moonlight, as the mullets were jumping, Amanda would rehash her arguments with her parents, sometimes with a quaking voice and always careful to protect his feelings. He loved her for that, but he knew exactly how her parents felt about him. One evening, while tears spilled from beneath her lids after yet another argument, he gently suggested that it might be better for her if they stopped seeing each other.

“Is that what you want?” she whispered, her voice ragged.

He pulled her closer, slipping his arms around her. “I just want you to be happy,” he whispered.

She’d leaned into him then, resting her head on his shoulder. As he held her, he’d never hated himself more for being born a Cole.

“I’m happiest when I’m with you,” she finally murmured.

Later that night they made love for the first time. And for the next two decades and beyond, he carried those words and the memories of that night inside him, knowing that she had been speaking for them both.

After landing in Charlotte, Dawson flung his duffel bag and suit over his shoulder and walked through the terminal, barely registering the activity around him as he sifted through memories of his final summer with Amanda. That spring, she’d received notice of her acceptance to Duke, a dream of hers since she’d been a little girl. The specter of her departure, coupled with the isolation from her family and friends, only intensified their desire to pass as much time together as possible. They spent hours at the beach and took long drives while the radio blasted, or they simply hung around Tuck’s garage. They swore little would change after she left; either he’d drive to Durham or she’d come back to visit. Amanda had no doubt that they’d find a way to somehow make it work.

Her parents, however, had other plans. On a Saturday morning in August, a little more than a week before she was supposed to leave for Durham, they cornered her before she was able to escape the house. Her mom did all the talking, though she knew her father stood firmly in agreement.

“This has gone on long enough,” her mother began, and in a voice that was surprisingly calm, she told Amanda that if she continued to see Dawson, she would have to move out of the house in September and start paying her own bills, and they wouldn’t pay for her to attend college, either. “Why should we waste money on college when you’re throwing your life away?”

When Amanda started to protest, her mother talked right over her.

“He’ll drag you down, Amanda, but right now you’re too young to understand that. So if you want the freedom of being an adult, you’ll also have to assume the responsibilities. Ruin your life by staying with Dawson — we’re not going to stop you. But we’re not going to help you, either.”

Amanda ran straight out of the house, her only thought to find Dawson. By the time she reached the garage, she was crying so hard she couldn’t speak. Dawson held her close, letting bits and pieces of the story trickle out as her sobs finally subsided.

“We’ll move in together,” she said, her cheeks still damp.

“Where?” he asked her. “Here? In the garage?”

“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

Dawson remained silent, studying the floor. “You need to go to college,” he finally told her.

“I don’t care about college,” Amanda protested. “I care about you.”

He let his arms fall to his sides. “I care about you, too. And that’s why I can’t take this from you,” he said.

She shook her head, bewildered. “You’re not taking anything from me. It’s my parents. They’re treating me like I’m still a little girl.”

“It’s because of me, and we both know that.” He kicked at the dirt. “If you love someone, you’re supposed to let them go, right?”

For the first time, her eyes flashed. “And if they come back, it’s meant to be? Is that what you think this is? Some sort of cliché?” She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into him. “We’re not a cliché,” she said. “We’ll find a way to make it work. I can get a job as a waitress or whatever, and we can rent a place.”

He kept his voice calm, willing it not to break. “How? You think my dad is going to stop what he’s doing?”

“We can move somewhere else.”

“Where? With what? I have nothing. Don’t you understand that?” He let the words hang, and when she didn’t answer, he finally went on. “I’m just trying to be realistic. This is your life we’re talking about. And… I can’t be part of it anymore.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying your parents are right.”

“You don’t mean that.”

In her voice, he heard something almost like fear. Though he yearned to hold her, he took a deliberate step backward. “Go home,” he said.

She moved toward him. “Dawson—”

“No!” he snapped, taking a quick step away. “You’re not listening. It’s over, okay? We tried, it didn’t work. Life moves on.”