On their first date, Landon helps Jamie to fulfill her list of things she wants to achieve in life, such as being in two places at once, and getting a tattoo. Landon asks her father if he can date his daughter. Landon asks Jamie on a date soon after, but Jamie says her father doesn't allow her to date. Jamie avoids Landon after the play, and it is not until Landon's friends play a cruel prank on Jamie and he protects her in opposition to his friends that she warms up to him again.

When Jamie finishes, Landon kisses her which is not part of the play. Onstage at the peak of the ending to the play, Jamie sings. On the opening night of the play, Jamie astounds Landon and the entire audience with her beauty and her voice. They get to know each other and a spark of affection arises between them. Landon and Jamie begin practicing together at her house after school. Jamie, who is also in the play, agrees to help him on one condition: Jamie warns Landon not to fall in love with her. Landon has trouble learning his lines for the play. She makes no attempt to wear make-up or otherwise improve her looks or attract attention to herself. Since he's one of the in-crowd, he has seldom paid any attention to Jamie, who wears modest dresses all the time and owns only one sweater.

During these functions, Landon notices Jamie Sullivan, a girl he has known since kindergarten and who has attended many of the same classes as him, and who is also the local minister's daughter. The head of the school gives Landon the choice of being expelled or atoning for his actions by tutoring fellow students and participating in the school play. The popular, rebellious teenager Landon Carter is threatened with expulsion from school after he and his friends leave evidence of underage drinking on the school grounds and seriously injure another student as the result of a prank.

A walk to remember sparks