ALL I NEED
Chapter One

There was a loud knock on the door.

"Cathy? Catherine?" Another loud knock. "Catherine!"

What do you want? Just leave me alone! I thought as I opened my eyes and scanned the dark room, the small windows announcing that it was already night. I could see the reflection of the light coming from outside in the wooden walls of the room; it was a large, beautiful stateroom. The bed I was sleeping in was very comfortable and warm, the sheets made of silk, my favorite fabric. It smelled new, as did everything else on the ship.

I was aboard the RMS Titanic. "The unsinkable ship!" Cal would say every time he mentioned the ship in a conversation. There was actually a good deal for Mr. Thomas Andrews, the ship's builder, and the White Star Line with the press for saying that the ship was unsinkable. They never said that. It was just a misunderstanding in an interview that Mr. Bruce Ismay gave to the press, saying that the ship was practically, not really, unsinkable.

We boarded today at noon. My older brother, Cal, his beautiful fiancée, Rose DeWitt Bukater, her ice queen mother, Mrs. Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and I. We were one of the richest families on the ship. That was, of course, my family--the Hockley family.

Cal and I were from Pittsburgh, where all my family was from, and we were returning home on the voyage. My father was the owner of a very large steel company that he inherited from our grandfather when business was already quite good, but Grandfather started from the bottom. Hockley Steel was the pride of the family. Even mine, though I didn't care much about it. What I was really proud of was the fact that my grandfather started from nothing and made his dream come true.

Our trip to England was for Cal to talk to a steel tycoon in England about a possible partnership with Hockley Steel and to take his fiancée, Rose, to America. She was there traveling with her mother.

I did not have to go to England, but I demanded the night my father announced the voyage to Cal that I had to go because of my engagement. My soon-to-be husband was a thirty-five year old--seventeen years older than I--executive in New York. I had never seen him in my life, except for newspaper pictures. It was actually a picture of my family in the society column that caught his attention.

I remembered that picture every time the thought that I was engaged went through my head. I was with Mother, Father, and Cal at a party in Chicago. I had my long, smooth, straight black hair pinned up in a bun--I hated to pin it up, but my mother made me--a few locks falling over my shoulders on each side of my face. I had an open, bright smile. My father always told me it was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen, but then again, he was my father, so I never believed him. My eyes were like his, a silver-blue color. I was slender, almost fragile-looking, and my facial features were very delicate, too, like my mother’s. That particular day I was wearing a dress that was the latest fashion. It had no sleeves and it barely covered the bust with the bodice. It was my favorite dress. It was dark red, very long, and tight, curving around my body. It caused quite a fuss because it showed a lot of my skin and it showed my shoulders, but at the same time, it was beautiful. After that day, I bought a lot of evening dresses in the same style.

The picture and the column were announcing Cal's wedding, and as my father informed me, the man asked him for my hand and he accepted. A fine match, my father told me with a proud smile.

I was in shock, needless to say, that my father accepted. I didn't even know who the man was, and my father handed me the engagement ring he sent by mail--he was in Canada for a business trip. It was a Goddamned heavy diamond thing that my mother made me wear. I had nothing against him. He seemed like a fine man. It was just that I did not know him and he was much older than I, and Jesus Christ, he sent my ring by mail! Could there be a more distant relationship? And I was only eighteen years old. I just wasn't ready.

Cal, in a gesture of compassion--which was quite rare coming from him--told my father that he would take me to England. It was unnecessary for me to stay in the United States, since my soon-to-be husband was in Canada. I was not very sure if Cal agreed for me to go with him because he felt sorry for me or because he was overprotective of me, but I did not care either way. I just accepted the offer. My father agreed and my mother ordered me to go to Paris with Cal to buy my wedding dress. And so I did, but I did not even try the thing on. I received it in a box. There it stayed, and there it was in my closet on the ship.

"Catherine!" Cal's voice called again from the other room. For a moment I regretted having accepted traveling with him. With Mother and Father not around to keep him and his controlling personality away from me, he just would not leave me alone. But then again, every coin has two sides.

"What do you want, Cal?" my voice, an octave higher than usual, finally answered him as I stayed in bed.

"Won't you get up and come to dinner? Socialize, for God's sake!" his raised voice replied from the other room.

Socializing. My biggest problem with the whole family. They demanded that I go with them to every party, every event, everywhere with them, and conduct myself as a lady as I was taught to do. I did do that a lot, even though I did not enjoy it at all, but since my engagement was announced, a month before I went with Cal to Europe, I had tried my best to avoid all of this. I never enjoyed it much, especially when I was around the ladies, the always narrow-minded and uninteresting talk. It was boring, extremely boring. And the fact that every single person in the world knew that I was going to marry Gregory Henderson, powerful businessman, King of New York--my mother hated it when I referred to him like that--didn't help either. Every lady would tell me that I was very lucky and every man would tell me he was lucky. It was just pointless.

But since I set foot on the ship to travel to Europe, all of that changed. I wasn't wearing my engagement ring then. I also avoided these parties and events. I would attend to one or two out of ten of them and Cal just did not have control over that. He did not have control over that because I had some of his secrets as my cards to play. Every time he ordered me to do something, I didn't, and he threatened me, saying that he would tell our parents, I would reply that if he told them, I would tell them that even though he was engaged, he did not stop his one night stands. That was much worse for him than for me. And with that, we always agreed on keeping our mouths shut.

My father knew that Cal, in spite of being an excellent vice president for our family’s company and very charismatic, was a brat at night. He would go out to cabarets, spend his endless money in casinos, sleep with three or four women at once and all of that bohemian sort of thing. Knowing this as a fact, my father hired Spicer Lovejoy to look after him. He was his bodyguard--and Cal just hated it when I teased him, saying that Lovejoy was his nanny--and he was hired to keep my brother's life and wallet with him, and when he got engaged, to keep him away from other women, even though they were kind of magnetically attracted to him. He was handsome and had loads of money, but he was, honestly, a little weird with all his need for control.

What my father did not know was that Lovejoy united with Cal and he just kept the first part of the contract, actually encouraging my brother to keep going with his one night stands, since he always ended up with a few women for himself. That was my weapon against him.

"I don't want to go. I'm not hungry," I said across the room with a smile on my face. There was nothing he could do.

"Catherine, you cannot continue this routine." He started his lecture. "You cannot sleep during the day and stay awake at night reading and walking around. This is bad for your health." He sounded like my mother. "And, of course, it's just not right for a young lady to behave like that."

"What are you talking about?" I sat up in bed. I was laughing quietly. "I attended tea with you today. Did I mention that I hate Mr. Ismay?"

"Catherine!" he said severely. From the other room, I could hear Rose's laughter for a second. "Catherine, stop acting like a child!"

I did not know why Rose wanted to marry Cal. I was almost sure it was for his money. She was so sweet and kind. She was nothing like Cal. She would never be able to handle him, and, of course, she was one year younger than me and Cal was twelve years older than I. Not that I cared about the age difference, but it was strange for me to have my older brother marrying a girl younger than me. She was just too sweet and dreamy to deserve a man like Cal. She was very beautiful. I loved staring at her...she had dark red hair with long curls, and she usually kept it pinned up in some kind of bun. Her eyes were dark blue and shining, though they seemed distant every now and then. Her skin was pale, like mine and every other lady’s--a lady shouldn't stand in the sun, my mother used to tell me. And she had beautiful facial features, like those women in paintings. She was one of those ladies a man would like to marry and take home, not just have a one night stand with.

Cal, on the other hand, asked for her hand just because she was something he did not possess yet and she did not even look at him the first time we all met. That just enraged him, how the woman would not look at him. He was very good-looking. Even I had to admit it. He had pale skin and dark, smooth hair always combed and pomaded. He was very robust, too, and he always dressed with excellent taste. His facial features were kind of regal and he had the same smile that I had, but his eyes were plain black, very deep. And, of course, he had money and a lot of power on his hands. He just couldn’t accept the fact that a woman might not be interested in him. So, he had asked for her hand, just like that, a few months later to her mother--her father was dead, and she accepted right away.

Mrs. Ruth DeWitt Bukater reminded me a lot of my mother. She was a lady in every possible meaning of the word--she talked properly, she walked properly, she did everything a lady should do, and she was extremely icy with people that she considered not to her standards or worthy of her company, exactly like my mother. And she looked exactly like Rose, like an older and colder version of her.

"I am not acting like a child, Cal," I said distractedly as I lay down in my comfortable bed again, starting to roll the end of my long hair around my finger. "Just leave me alone."

I could hear him sighing loudly in the other room and I couldn't help but smile to myself. It was a brother and sister thing. I loved to tease and upset him, and vice-versa.

"All right! Do as you wish!" he shouted, and I could hear his steps leaving the other room.

With a smile and wiping my mind of all thoughts, I quickly fell asleep again.

Chapter Two
Stories