CONVICTED
Chapter Six
After a little while, I felt
completely drained. Despite the sleep I had gotten in the abandoned warehouse,
I felt like I could sleep for years.
"Come on. You should
probably lie down," Jack said, leading me back down belowdecks.
"Right…yeah, you’re
right," I answered, too tired to focus.
Jack steered me down the
corridors, and I got dizzy trying to follow them all. Finally, he pushed open a
door and shoved me into my bunk. I heard him climb into his bunk and the
springs screeched. Soon, I was out like a light.
My dreams seemed real, so
vividly real I could have sworn I was awake. People were bustling about,
screaming and running in any direction they could. I ran through the hallways
screaming Jack’s name. I heard him call my name, but when I turned, a mob of
people were dragging him away from me. He grasped my hand.
"Don’t let go, Marie.
Don’t ever let go," he said.
But I did. He was wrenched
from my grasp and flailed out his arms wildly. I turned again and saw flames
engulfing the walls around me. I was trapped, and I couldn’t breathe.
"Jack!" I screamed,
sitting up in my bunk.
Jack climbed down from the top
bunk and sat on my bunk.
"Are you okay? What
happened?" he asked.
I was drenched in cold sweat. I
was sucking in air rapidly, as if I would never breathe again. I was shivering
like a madwoman until his hand touched the side of my face.
"It’s okay. I’m right here.
I won’t let anything happen to you," he said.
I put my arms around his waist
and he put one arm around my waist and another around my head, pulling me close
to him.
He filled a glass with water and
I drank it. After a few minutes I was calm, and I felt much better. The sweat
disappeared and I stopped shivering.
"I’m okay now," I
confirmed.
Jack smiled and helped me out of
bed.
"You’ve had a rough week.
Come on. I know what will take the load off your shoulders."
Jack took my arm, and we went
down several hallways. After a few turns, I could hear Irish music playing in
one of the rooms. I quickened my pace, and we went into the room. It was like I
remembered it from the Titanic. People were dancing and singing and arm
wrestling.
Jack pulled me up on stage and
started stomping with his shoes to the music. I kicked off my shoes and stomped
in my bare feet, both of us laughing. The crowd was cheering us on while at the
same time clapping to the music.
Soon after the song stopped, Jack
plucked a few drinks from a table. I chugged it down in a matter of seconds.
"How are you feeling
now?" he asked.
"I feel great!" I
exclaimed.
We danced a bit more, and then I
took Jack back to the upper decks. We lay flat on our backs on some benches.
"This is what it was like on
the Titanic, right before we met Rose," I said, gazing at the stars.
"Don’t mention that name to
me," Jack said, covering his ears.
"Okay…okay…" I laughed.
I got up and onto the railing on
the ship. My feet dangled down over the water that was being churned by the
engines. I leaned back and looked up at the stars again, thinking that Jack
could have been up there, in the heavens looking down upon me. But instead his
life was spared, and I would always be grateful.
A few rich men, from which
country I’m not sure, walked by.
"Oh, look at those
disgusting people. I wonder why they were allowed on this ship?" one man
asked, almost as if he was trying to whisper.
"Excuse me? Have you looked
in a mirror? We’re the disgusting people, yet you walk around like you’re the
most important thing in the world!" I shot back, turning around on the
rail.
Jack had sat up, and one of the
rich men approached me.
"How dare you talk that way
to us? We are at a higher level than you. Why can’t you be more like us?"
"I would be more like you,
but …" I stopped in mid-sentence, not wanting to say what I had in mind.
"That’s what I
thought," the man said, and turned to leave.
Jack yelled at the men. "You
can’t talk to her like that!"
"I assure you, son, that we
can."
Jack looked ready to throw a
punch, but I said, "Fine…go back to your rich lives. But once things go wrong,
and they will, you’ll be the ones living out on the streets."
That set one of the men off and
he went for me. Jack lunged at the man, missed, and the man pushed me off the
railing.