ONE LAST TIME
Chapter One
Jack had been lost without Rose
since he ran away four years ago. He had thought of her every waking moment.
His heart had broken. He tried to forget her, but as every day passed, he only
loved her more. He even drew portraits of her. Jack packed his belongings. He
was leaving New York. He had become a successful artist. But Rose was the what
he missed more than anything.
Rose and Jack had been childhood
friends. They had been very close, until one day, he had told her he was
leaving Charlotte.
*****
"Jack, why do you have to
leave?" Rose was crying.
"Rose, this town hates me.
I've been banished." He felt his heart breaking. He didn't want to leave.
"I don't understand. I love
you. Why can't they see you’re a good man?" Rose held his hand, tracing
the outline of his lifeline.
"I don't know, Rose. But
promise me this. When I leave, promise me you'll never forget me." Jack
looked into her eyes.
"I never will forget you,
Jack." She hugged him.
He pulled away and kissed her
hard, leaving her lips red. This was the first and last time he would kiss her.
*****
He shed a tear, remembering the
last moments he had spent with her. His love for her was tearing him apart. He
only hoped he was not too late, because if she was with someone else, he would
die.
He entered the plane, giving the
lady his ticket, and walked down the hallway to his seat. He wasn't going to
give up. If she had moved on, he wouldn't blame her. He just needed to see her,
even if it was one last time.
He took his seat, put his hat
over his eyes, and fell asleep. He had not slept in days. His thoughts about
leaving New York had been on his mind for some time. Finally, after selling a
painting, he had gotten enough money to be happy and live happily. But he
wasn't happy. The painting he had sold had been the only painting he ever
really cherished…his Rose. The buyer had liked the picture of the her. He had
paid him twenty-four million dollars for it. Jack had been astonished that the
man was willing to pay him that much. So, he had taken the check, deposited it,
and planned his trip to Charlotte, his old hometown. Now that he was successful
and rich, there was no way that the people of Charlotte would look down on him.
He had been a kid when he had set fire to a local charity center. It had not
been his fault, though. It had been an accident. He had been learning to smoke
at the time, just like some other kids. When he had dropped the match, he had
thought it to be out, but it hadn't been. The fire had started soon after he
left. He hadn't even realized that there was smoke when he left.
But they had blamed him,
nonetheless. They had told him to leave, even though he had told them he would
help rebuild it. There was no pleasing them. So he had decided to leave, even
though he didn't want to. His parents had looked down on him and taken him to
New York to stay with his grandmother, who had died last year. Jack had learned
to live by himself, getting a job to pay the rent and enough money for food. It
had been hard for him, but he had managed to live. His grandmother had left him
her place, which had been a lot of help for him to survive.
The flight attendant announce
their departure--New York to Charlotte.
Jack didn't hear. He was asleep.
He didn't want to sit there, waiting to get there. He just wanted to be there
already.
*****
Rose sat on her porch, thinking
about Jack. She had never forgotten him. Her friends had told her to forget
about him, that he was never coming back, and that even if he did, he wouldn't
care about her.
She didn't listen to them. How
could she? They didn't even know Jack.
Rose counted the times he would
come over and they would play together. They used to play hide and seek and
many other games. Rose laughed just thinking about the times she would sneak up
on him and scare him half to death.
She was a woman now. Her eyes
were always set on Jack. She would dream of him coming and taking her to bed
and putting her to sleep. She began to write and had become a writer. Her
stories were based on romance, and Jack had been her inspiration every time.
She would write how she and Jack would live and how he would make love to her.
Her body craved him like he wouldn't believe.
She had lived with her parents
until she had been seventeen and Jack was about twenty years old. She had began
to write when she was fifteen. She never knew where Jack had gone. He never
told her, and his parents didn't tell her, either.
"Rose, your dinner is
getting cold," Abby said.
"Be right in, Mother."
Rose went inside and wiped her tears.
"Oh, Rose, you’re hopeless.
You've been thinking about him, haven't you?" Abby knew Rose.
"Yes, Mom. He's the one.
He's the one I want to marry," Rose told her.
"Rose, you gotta move on. I
am sure he has." Abby set the food on the table.
"No, we made a promise. He
wouldn't break it." Rose was one hundred percent sure.
"Rose, he promised to never
forget you, not to come back and be your husband," Abby reminded her.
"I know, but I'd like to
think that, if he was still here, he would have been." Rose never gave up
hope.
"Rose, it's been four years.
You need to move on. That boy Eric is not gonna wait forever." Abby did
not want her daughter to waste her life on Jack.
"I know, Mom, but he's not
Jack." Rose sat down.
"Just give him a try. Go to
the party. You'll have fun." Abby needed her daughter to smile again.
"Fine. If I go, do you
promise to stop saying I'm hopeless?" Rose hated it when her mother called
her hopeless.
"Yes," Abby agreed.
"Okay. I'll go," Rose
said, finally, to stop her mother from badgering her.
Rose sat there and ate her
dinner. After that, she went upstairs and looked at her photo album like she
did every night. She glanced at the pictures of Jack. They were posing
together, face to face. She remembered it as if it were yesterday. She had been
thirteen. Her figure had been starting to come out. Jack had noticed and stared
at her a lot. That was the day that she had told him she loved him.
"Oh, Jack, please come back
to me. I need you so much." Rose ended up going to sleep with the photo in
her hand.
The party was tomorrow. She had
promised to go, but not to ever forget her Jack.