In high school, more than any other time in life, you're either in or you're out. At Beaufort High, Landon Carter is definitely on the A-list and Jamie Sullivan...well, Jamie isn't even on a list.
Landon and Jamie would likely not have given each other more than a passing glace as they moved through the halls and classes of Beaufort High. The might never have met if it hadn't been for that one night and a prank gone wrong.
It was a terrible night. Landon and his pals dared a naive new classmate to take a dive into a murky pool at the local cement factory as an initiation into their clique. The boy was eager to please. By the time they realized the pool was not empty but full of broken and rusty pipes, it was too late. He made the jump and then floated back up with a bloody wound. Panicking, the kids took off with a rush of screeching tire--all except Landon, who consequently, was the only one caught.
He was lucky to avoid jail time but Landon's punishment seems worse to him than being locked up. The school principal assigns him to the tutoring program, thinking the young rebel might redeem himself by helping a struggling student from a neighboring school. He also hopes Landon might gain some maturity by leading the Beaufort High School Drama Club's chess play. Performing on stage in front of his buddies will put him in the postition of those they so often ridicule. But the principal cannot foresee how much these experiances might actually change Landon. He doesn't count on divine intervention in the form of Jamie Sullivan.
Jamie is already volunteering her time to the tutoring program. She is also a lead in the spring play. At first, the very fact of her participation in both activities is proof to Landon that he is being unfairly cast into the school's nerd class. Finding himself in the same social sphere as the minister's daughter, even for a few hours a week, is mortifying.
Jamie is not pleased to be sharing extracurricular time with Landon either. She takes her interests and her community service seriously and doesn't care for his cavalier attitude. Knowing about the cement factory incident that almost killed a boy, she finds Landon and his friends contemptible. Still, she has been taught to forgive and to try to find the good in all people, so she dutifully puts her personal feelings aside and does her best to assist Landon when he askes for help memorizing lines for the play. Besides, there is just a chance--or is she imagining it?--that Landon might not be as bad as he likes to appear.
Jamie's father, seeing the boy on his doorstep one evening for a rehearsal session, is seriously concerned. Why would a kid like Landon be spending time with Jamie? Surely no good can come of it. A devoted single parent to his only child after her mother's early death, Reverend Sullivan's love for his daughter is as powerful and focused as the sermons he vigorously delivers from his pulpit Sunday mornings. It is clear that he will allow no one to hurt his little girl.
Landon's mother, Cynthia, is also a single parent. She loves her son more than anything in the world but doesn't know much about his interests or how he's doing in school because Landon doesn't confide in her. Seeing his new acquaintance to the first time, Cynthia is curious about what it means but knows better than to question him. Cynthia knows her son is troubled and hopes he will find his way, though she doesn't know how to help him.
Meanwhile, Landon's crowd is confused by his behavior as he spends more time with his newfound interests and less time hanging out with them. His friend Dean and former girlfirend Belinda wonder if he's leaving them behind, despite Landon's half-hearted attempts to reassure them--and himself--that nothing has changed. What is going on with Landon? What kind of spell does this girl have on him? They try to bring him around every way they know, and when that doesn't work they try to hurt him by hurting Jamie with a particularly nasty trick concocted by Belinda, who still carries a torch for her former beau. But nothing they do seems to have any effect.
What ultimately happens to these two young people is not at all what the Reverend fears nor what anyone else would have expected--least of all Landon and Jamie. They fall in love.
As Landon and Jamie get to know one another, they find themselves transformed. Each opens up a world to the other. As full as Jamie's life seems to be, with school, her volunteer activities, her amateur astronomy, and helping her father maintain the household, there is something important missing. For reasons of her own, she has not allowed anyone her own age to become really close to her and especially not allowed herself to fall in love.
Landon also has something missing in his life. Sure, there are friends, and things to do on Saturday nights. He's dated a few girls and maybe even thought he was in love once or twice but nothing lasted. He has no relationship with his father, who has remarried and lives nearby. Overall, Landon has made his adjustments and lowered his expectations of life as the years passed until he cannot imagine the possibility of a future that could be any different.
With Jamie, Landon is encouraged to ask questions he has never considered before and begins to grapple with the possibility of there being a power and order in the universe beyond his understanding. When she tells him "you can do anything," he begins to believe it. As they probe the night sky together through the telescope that Landon has built for his stargazing companion, his life begins to open up before him as vast with possibility as there are lights in the darkness.
The soul, as well as the heart, is stirred.
