CAL’S PLAN
Chapter Fourteen
After he had seen Rose smiling on
the balcony, Jack had understood that she was really happy and that he
shouldn’t be there. He had promised himself that he would not chase her
anymore.
As it was very hard to keep that
promise, Jack decided to leave New York. But when he took the money that Ruth
had given him and donated it to an art school under the name of Spicer Lovejoy,
someone saw one of his drawings and begged him to stay as a teacher. Jack
couldn’t say no. That was what he had always wanted, so he stayed. He took the
name of his best friend, Fabrizio di Rossi, who was also a great artist.
After almost two years, he had
received an offer to go to Paris to work as an art teacher in a very important
school. Jack had accepted without thinking twice. The only thing that he didn’t
like about it was that he had to travel by ship, and, according to the ticket
they had sent him, he would arrive in London on April sixteenth, so he would
spend April fourteenth at sea.
Although he had a first class
ticket, he spent most of the journey on the deck. He didn’t like his room. It
made him fell trapped. Now I know how Rose felt. No. He couldn’t think
about Rose. She was dead, at least for him. But it was impossible not to think.
He was in the exact place where he had seen Rose running to the back of the
ship. It was a clear night and he was on a bench, facing the stars. He could even
feel someone running past him. That was too real, he thought. It
couldn’t be just a feeling. He decided to go and see what had happened.
He saw a woman facing the sea. It
was too painful for Jack, because she had red hair and she was in a very
similar position to Rose, but unlike her, she didn’t seem to want to kill
herself. He would have gone, unable to look, but in that moment, the woman
started to talk.
Her voice was no more than a
whisper, but he could hear every single word, and recognized it immediately,
although he hadn’t heard it in two years. She seemed to be talking to herself.
She probably thought she was alone. Jack wanted to move, but he couldn’t. With
each word she said, his heart beat faster. Could it be? Was he dreaming? He
knew he was awake, and he also knew that it wasn’t a vision. It was real. The
woman wasn’t lying.
Jack moved slowly so as not to
scare the woman. She was inside the railing, but she might fall if someone
talked to her when she was distracted.