FOREVER
Chapter Three
Everyone But Jack
Jack held onto Helga’s hand as they kicked
toward the surface. The suction had been so bad Jack wasn’t sure if they’d make
it to the surface. But when they finally did Jack felt the thousand knives,
which he had never forgotten from his childhood, once more all over his body.
He looked at Helga who was trying to tread water, but was failing. Then from
nowhere he saw a lifeboat with Cal standing up holding an oar, pushing anyone
who tried to get on, away. "Come on," he said pulling Helga toward
the lifeboat.
Cal looked down and saw Jack swimming toward
him. He lifted his oar above his head, ready to smack Jack over the head with
it, but he stopped seeing Jack had someone with him. "Why if it isn’t a
drowned rat." Cal smirked.
Jack looked up toward him but ignored him,
pulling Helga toward the boat. "Here Cal pull her up."
Cal started laughing. "Why? I’m not
letting anyone else in…what makes you think I’ll make the exception for
you?"
Jack looked at him. "Because if you
don’t everyone else here will think you a coward for not saving the life of a
young girl…" he said.
Cal stood there a moment, knowing Jack was
right. He felt the eyes of everyone else in the boat on him. He reached down
and pulled Helga into the boat. Helga crawled in then turned to Jack who was
still in the water. "Jack," she said loudly.
Jack looked at her. "You’ll be all
right…Fabrizio will find you," he said even though he knew she couldn’t
understand him. Jack waved at her then looked at Cal. "Thanks Cal,"
he said, then started to swim away. He felt awful; everyone seemed to be
getting into lifeboats somehow except him. He desperately wanted to see Rose
even if it was just one last time. He glanced around and saw that there were
men clinging to a lifeboat that had capsized. There was an officer on top
trying to pull as many people up as possible. By now a lot of the people that
had been left on board, but were now in the water, had scattered around and no
one else was trying to get on so Jack started to swim toward it. He looked around
to see if there were anymore people, especially women and children, before
climbing on. It wasn’t like Jack had anything against men, but he felt it was
only right to put women and children before himself. It had been a theme all
night long and there was no point in stopping it now. Jack reached the boat and
scooted himself toward the top, grabbing hold. He knew that if he could keep
most of his body out of the water that he might have a chance. The officer
reached down and pulled Jack higher.
"There you go lad," he said
tiredly.
"Thank you," Jack said softly,
holding onto the boat’s top as best he could.
***
Rose walked across to an emptier lifeboat.
The boat she had been in was going to be used as a rescue boat for the people
still in the water. It was Officer Lowe’s plan to go back and look for
survivors and so they had to empty out a boat. The remaining men were to stay
with the people in the lifeboats and tie the boats together with the rope they
found in some of the boats. Rose looked around for anyone she knew, but it was
still very dark outside and so it was almost impossible to see.
Soon after the ship had gone down one of the
collapsible boats had come toward the cluster of other boats. Rose had seen Cal
on the boat and quickly avoided him seeing her. She watched as a young blonde
girl tugged on Cal’s tuxedo jacket asking questions, and speaking rapidly in
Swedish. She looked very angry and Rose could have sworn she recognized her.
Cal pushed the girl away and pointed her in the direction of Rose’s boat. The
girl gave up and climbed into the boat where Rose was now standing, it only had
twelve people in it to begin with so many people were going there.
"Rose!" the young girl cried when
she spotted her.
Rose suddenly recognized her.
"Helga!" she said excitedly.
Even though they hadn’t known each other well
they both hugged each other tightly. Then suddenly Helga started speaking
quickly to Rose trying to explain to her that Jack had saved her life, but Rose
couldn’t understand her at all. The only word she got was Jack. "Wait…what
about Jack?" she asked.
Helga got even more excited, but Rose still
couldn’t understand her. More than ever Rose had wished she had decided to
learn another language besides French.
**
Jack’s eyes were growing heavy and his body
was losing all feeling. He closed his eyes and felt his breathing slow down. He
sat there for a moment then he started to see hazy images of Rose. She was
standing with Helga in a lifeboat! He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t;
it was as if someone had glued them shut. He saw Rose and Helga talking about
him and he suddenly could understand what Helga was saying. This shocked him
because he had never even heard someone speak Swedish before and understand it.
He was happy that he could see Rose, but he wanted to wake up. He couldn’t get
his eyes to open and it was scaring him. Suddenly Rose’s image faded and all
Jack could see was a blinding white light. He suddenly realized what was
happening. He was dying! No he couldn’t give up! Not now after all he’d done to
get here. He had been so sure he would have been killed on the ship before, but
now he had made it so far! He fought as hard as he could to pull away from the
light. "NO! I’M NOT READY YET!" he yelled loudly. Jack struggled so
hard with no results for what seemed like an eternity. He heard many voiced
asking him why he wanted to leave. Why wasn’t he ready for a peaceful forever?
"Because." He answered them; "I want my forever to be with
Rose."
Then suddenly he felt ice cold water encircle
his face and he felt his mouth fill with water. At that moment his eyes snapped
open and he kicked his legs coming back to the surface. He gasped for air and
looked around seeing a lifeboat coming his way. "Hey!" he gasped out,
his lungs burning as if they were on fire.
The officer in charge of the boat shined a
light in Jack’s face. "We’ve got one!" he yelled.
Jack began to swim toward the boat. He was so
happy he was going to survive!
Officer Lowe reached down and grabbed Jack’s
hand and helped him climb into the boat. The other men in the boat instantly
wrapped blankets around him and handed him a flask of brandy. Jack opened it
and took a long drink, trying to get some feeling back into his body. He lay back
on his seat and closed his eyes.