TITANIC CONTINUED
Chapter Seven
Rose was now choking on her
tears. She felt as if she were being stabbed in the heart. She gasped for air,
gasped for the strength to call after Jack, who had already disappeared through
the doors.
What have I done? she thought, laying her head down on the
table, the tears pouring uncontrollably, her lips quivering. The pain was too
much. She could've sworn she had been punched in the stomach by some invisible
force. Everything spun.
After a few minutes, the pain
began to cease. She sat up without worrying about how awful she must've looked
with her makeup all runny and her hair in disarray. The walls seemed to be
closing in on her. The smoke made it hard to breathe. I've got to get out of
here, Rose thought. She stumbled across the lounge with no concept in her
mind of where she was going.
*****
Jack lay in his bunk. Ten minutes
ago, he had walked on out Rose. His heart had pounded so much. That was the
hardest thing I've ever done in my life, he thought. He cursed himself for
it. I didn't have to be so harsh about it, he continued to think.
But what he'd done was absolutely
necessary. He didn't want to end up ruining Rose's life, taking her away from
her family, the money, the aristocratic lifestyle she'd grown up with. I'm
only doing her a favor, he thought. Still, his own thoughts offered him no
comfort. His heart ached and his arms longed to hold Rose.
There was no way it could have
worked out between us. We're too different. We lead different lives. It just
wouldn't work.
His reasoning still didn't make
the pain go away. He loved Rose with all his heart, yet the previous night,
when he'd walked around outside, it had all come to him clearly. He had to
leave Rose here with her family, even if she hated it. If he didn't, she'd be
happy with Jack at first, but then she'd end up hating him for sticking her
with such a hard life.
I guess I owe her a better
explanation than the one I gave her, he thought. But getting out those words was hard enough. His palms
were sweating and his pulse was racing the whole time. He had told her the way
it was, and if she would have just sat down and thought about it like he did,
she would have ended up with the same conclusion.
You can't just take someone
out of their life like that and throw a new, completely different one at them.
They won't adapt like that. It doesn't work that way. If Rose were to marry me,
she'd be making a huge mistake. I won't let it happen.
He was worried about Rose. His
mind flashed back to the first time they'd met, Rose standing on the rail of
Titanic, ready to plunge into the Atlantic. Jack had saved her life.
He was worried that she might try
something like that again. Their horrible conference in the lounge just minutes
ago could have been enough to make her attempt to try it again. Terrible
pictures flashed through Jack's mind. He couldn't even bear to think about Rose
plummeting sixty feet into the freezing cold water. He couldn't think about
Rose being dead. And he didn't even want to think about a life without Rose in
it.
He prayed to himself that Rose
would understand him, that she would forgive him for being so terrible.
"Someday, when she's happily
married in her big house, she'll remember all of this, and she'll thank me for
it. She deserves to be happy. I won't take that away from her," he said,
not realizing he was talking aloud now.
Those words stung. He wished
there was a way to make all this pain and confusion go away.
He was afraid to face Rose now.
He was afraid that the instant he
saw her, he would run up to her, begging to be forgiven, taking every word
back, go down on one knee, and beg for her hand in marriage. And when she said
yes, they would kiss and hug and be so happy...
...for a while. It wouldn't last
forever. Jack knew it wouldn't.
He knew that Rose was the one he
was meant to be with. She was the only woman he'd ever loved. And he knew that
once he let her go, he'd never find another so perfect for him.
He was willing to trade all that
to prevent Rose from making a big mistake.