CAL’S PLAN
Chapter Fifteen
Rose was still looking into the
water, as if she hoped that someone would come out of it. Then, she heard a
man’s voice. He spoke slowly. It seemed that he didn’t want to scare her.
"Mind if I stay here?"
Rose didn’t move. She didn’t turn
around, either. She was scared. She knew that voice. She had heard it in her
memory, but could it be? Was Jack on the same ship?
"I do not own the ship.
Please come."
Jack didn’t say a word. He just
walked towards her and stood next to her, looking into the water. No one said a
word. Neither looked at the other.
Jack was wondering what to do. On
the one hand, he thought that Rose didn’t love him, but he had heard her, and
it seemed that she really wanted him back. Rose was also thinking. Jack had
every reason in the world to hate her. After all, he had been told that she
didn’t love him. But he had heard her, and he had approached. He wouldn’t have
done so if he hated her.
"Jack? Is this a
dream?" Rose asked, after what seemed like hours.
"I don’t know. If it’s a
dream, let me tell you, I have had this dream many times, although you were
with your fiancé."
"Cal is no longer my fiancé,
nor my husband."
A small smile appeared on Jack’s
face, but Rose didn’t see it. Both of them were still looking into the water.
"Do you hate me?" Rose
whispered.
"Trust me. Everything would
have been easier if I had hated you."
A smile now appeared on the
woman’s face.
"Why did you chose him,
Rose? Why did you choose him and then leave him?" Jack asked, trying to
stop the tears.
"I didn’t choose him, Jack.
You have to believe me. Please. It was Cal’s plan." And she explained what
her mother had told her. She also told him how she spent almost two years
trying to find him. "You can hate me, Jack. I hate myself for believing my
mother, but please…please forgive me. I can understand that you have already
rebuilt your life. I’m not asking you to come back with me. I’m just begging
you to forgive me. I can’t live my life knowing that you hate me."
"You don’t want me
back?" Jack asked.
"Of course I would love it
if you came back, but I will understand if you don’t want to. I know
that…" Jack cut her off.
"I do," he said.
"You do what?"
"I do want to come back to
you, Rose. I love you. I always did, and I always will. I left because it was
too painful to think of you and Cal together, but if I had received a sign from
you, I would have come back. I would have saved you."
Rose smiled, but this time Jack
saw it, and smiled, too. He touched her cheek and made her look at him. He
kissed her as he had been hoping to for two years. Then they both started
walking.
"Rose, I know this may seem
too soon, but…I have a job in Paris. I’m an art teacher at a very famous
school. They say the pay is good. It won’t buy too many expensive things, but I
think that I can live on it, and I think that I will…eh…that I will also be
able to feed a wife and maybe two or three kids, so…"
Rose looked at him, smiling. She
understood what he wanted to say, but she wanted to hear it from his mouth.
"So…?" she said.
"So…I guess that what I’m
trying to say is…would you like to be that wife? Will you marry me?"
Rose smiled. Jack, who was on one
knee, also smiled.
"Of course I will!"
"Crap. I don’t even have a
ring," he said.
"I don’t care that you don’t
have a ring, Jack. I don’t care if you don’t earn enough to buy food. I just
want to be with you until I die."
They kissed once again.
"Come. We have to tell my
mother," she said.
"Your what?" he asked,
still smiling.
"Come. She has changed.
She’ll be happy for us, I swear."
On the way to wake Ruth up, Jack
asked, "Do you think this one will sink?"
"I don’t know, but I do know
that I’m not getting into a lifeboat without you."
Jack smiled and kissed his new
fiancée.