ONLY HALF THE MAN I USED TO BE
Chapter One
Rose was lying on the piece of
wood that Jack had found for her in the middle of the freezing ocean,
wondering, hoping, and begging that a lifeboat would return to get them soon.
Oh, how Titanic had changed her
life. She had escaped Cal, her mother, and the other insufferable society
know-it-alls. The only two she was sad to leave behind were Molly Brown and a
man called Mr. Andrews.
Rose felt a tear slide down her
cheek as she realized that Mr. Andrews was probably dead now. The last time she
had seen him, he had been standing in front of the clock in the smoking room.
He had worn no lifebelt and wasn’t even going to try to escape.
Molly was what people called new
money. She was brazen, loud, and always said what she thought. Rose admired
that in her. Too many women in the society world faded into the scenery,
letting everything be decided for them.
Rose had been one of those women,
her insides screaming the opposite of whatever she said. When she had met Jack,
that all changed. She had begun to say what she really thought. She had had to
get away from Cal and the others. She needed to be with Jack, because from the
first moment she had seen him, Rose had known that she loved Jack.
*****
Jack floated in the freezing
water, still clutching Rose’s hand. The cold had taken over every part of his
body as he fought to live. He had to live. He needed to be there for Rose.
His friends had laughed at him
when he had first told them about her. They had said he would never get close
to a society girl, not because he wasn’t a nice guy, but because he was
steerage and she was first class, and that was just the way the world worked.
He felt his body slowly giving up
on him. He was feeling more tired with every second that went by. A tear rolled
down his cheek as he thought about his friends from steerage. Most of them
would be dead now, especially the men. They had had no chance of getting in a
lifeboat.
He almost cried for his best
friends on the ship, Tommy and Fabrizio. Tommy, who they had met on the ship,
had been a real friend. He had been cruelly shot by one of the officers who was
guarding the lifeboats as he tried to get in one. Still, it was probably better
than the fate that most of the bodies in the water now had met.
Fabrizio was an old friend of
Jack’s. He had helped him when he came to England from America. They had
boarded the Titanic after they had won the tickets playing poker. Jack had been
looking forward to showing Fabrizio all the great things about America, and
Fabrizio had been eager to see them. Jack had not seen him for a while now. He
tried not to think about the fact that he was probably floating in the sea now,
dead, or at the bottom of it if he wasn’t wearing a lifebelt.
Every particle in Jack’s body
wanted him to give up, to just let himself die, but he couldn’t. He had to stay
alive for Rose, because he loved her.
And then Jack was engulfed by
darkness as unconsciousness claimed him.