Fading away

Chapter 9

After dinner had finished, I turned to James and simply told him that I loved him, and he put the comb into my hair.

"So do you want to do something crazy?" I asked him.

"What do you want to do?"

"Let's go to steerage!"

With no regard to manners and expectations, I took his hand and ran down flight after flight of stairs,down to the third class general room. The whole room went silent, and everyone just stared when we walked in. The Irish folk music died down- and we just stood, and let them all stare, until James said "What's a guy gotta do to get a beer round here?". It was a side of him I'd never seen before. We danced the night away in Third class, and at around 11:30 we ran back up towards the bow of the ship. Laughing as we did.

I kissed him and said "there's no one else I'd rather spend time with-ever" and that just made him kiss me even more. From there everything happened so fast. Time just seemed to rush by, it was exhilarating. Suddenly, I felt a shudder, which turned to the ground shaking, we pulled apart and jumped back. A shower of ice rained down on the deck, I could see first officer Murdoch stood on the bridge, staring at the iceberg. I knew it was serious. I knew what was coming.

"Oh god." I gasped.

"We'll be fine-they say it's unsinkable, right?"

However even James looked uncertain now.

"How many boats?"

"I think Thomas said 20, with a capacity of 65." I quickly did the sum into head "That's not enough for half of the people on this ship". All James did was nod, he knew the situation off by heart- Mr Andrews explained it all to him. The lifeboats being able to carry 1,178 people in total, women and children first. As far as he knew, if this ship sunk, he would die, and I would not let him go alone. Ever...