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Nicholas Sparks: The Best of Me

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Nicholas Sparks The Best of Me

The Best of Me: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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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.”

Her expression turned waxy, almost lifeless. “So that’s it?”

Instead of answering, he forced himself to turn away and walk toward the garage. He knew that if he so much as glanced at her he’d change his mind, and he couldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t do that to her. He ducked under the open hood of the fastback, refusing to let her see his tears.

When she finally left, Dawson slid to the dusty concrete floor next to his car, remaining there for hours, until Tuck finally came out and took a seat beside him. For a long time, he was silent.

“You ended it,” Tuck finally said.

“I had to.” Dawson could barely speak.

“Yep.” He nodded. “Heard that, too.”

The sun was climbing high overhead, blanketing everything outside the garage with a stillness that felt almost like death.

“Did I do the right thing?”

Tuck reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes, buying time before he answered. He tapped out a Camel.

“Don’t know. There’s a lot of magic between you, ain’t no denying that. And magic makes forgettin’ hard.” Tuck patted him on the back and got up to leave. It was more than he’d ever said to Dawson about Amanda. As he walked away, Dawson squinted into the sunlight and the tears started again. He knew that Amanda would always be the very best part of him, the self he would always long to know.

What he didn’t know was that he would not see or speak to her again. The following week Amanda moved into the dorms at Duke University, and a month after that Dawson was arrested.

He spent the next four years behind bars.


2


Amanda stepped out of her car and surveyed the shack on the outskirts of Oriental that Tuck called home. She’d been driving for three hours and it felt good to stretch her legs. The tension in her neck and shoulders remained, a reminder of the argument she’d had with Frank that morning. He hadn’t understood her insistence on attending the funeral, and looking back, she supposed he had a point. In the nearly twenty years that they’d been married, she’d never mentioned Tuck Hostetler; had their roles been reversed, she probably would have been upset, too.

But the argument hadn’t really been about Tuck or her secrets, or even the fact that she would be spending another long weekend away from her family. Deep down, both of them knew it was simply a continuation of the same argument they’d been having for most of the past ten years, and it had proceeded in the typical fashion. It hadn’t been loud or violent — Frank wasn’t that type, thank God — and in the end Frank had muttered a curt apology before leaving for work. As usual, she’d spent the rest of the morning and afternoon doing her best to forget the whole thing. After all, there was nothing she could do about it, and over time she’d learned to numb herself to the anger and anxiety that had come to define their relationship.

During the drive to Oriental, both Jared and Lynn, her two older children, had called, and she’d been thankful for the distraction. They were on summer break, and for the past few weeks the house had been filled with the endless noise typical of teenagers. Tuck’s funeral couldn’t have been better timed. Jared and Lynn already had plans to spend the weekend with friends, Jared with a girl named Melody and Lynn with a friend from high school, boating at Lake Norman, where her friend’s family owned a house. Annette — their “wonderful accident,” as Frank called her — was at camp for two weeks. She probably would have called as well were cell phones not prohibited. Which was a good thing, otherwise her little chatterbox would no doubt have been calling morning, noon, and night.

Thinking about the kids brought a smile to her face. Despite her volunteer work at the Pediatric Cancer Center at Duke University Hospital, her life largely revolved around the kids. Since Jared was born, she’d been a stay-at-home mom, and while she’d embraced and mostly relished that role, there’d always been a part of her that chafed at its limitations. She liked to think she was more than just a wife and mother. She’d gone to college to become a teacher and had even considered pursuing a PhD, with thoughts of teaching at one of the local universities. She’d taken a job teaching third grade after graduation… and then life had somehow intervened. Now, at forty-two, she sometimes found herself joking to people that she couldn’t wait to grow up so she could figure out what she wanted to do for a living.

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