Titanic

{Chapter Twelve}

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I'm soooo in love with that gif, BTW!

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Rose sat at a dinner table, flanked by people in heated conversation. On one side, Cal and Ruth were laughing together, while on the other side, Lady Duff-Gordon was holding forth animatedly. Rose didn't hear what they were saying. She was staring at her plate, barely listening to the inconsequential babble around her.

She saw her whole life as if she'd already lived it...an endless parade of parties and cotillions; yachts and polo matches...always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. She felt like she was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull her back, no one who cared...or even noticed.

Beneath the table, Rose's hand held a tiny fork from her crab salad. She poked the crab-fork into her arm, harder and harder, until it drew blood.

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Rose walked along the corridor. A steward coming the other way greeted her, and she nodded with a slight smile. She was perfectly composed.

She entered her room and stood in the middle, staring at her reflection in the large vanity mirror...unable to recognize herself. She just stood there.

Then, with a primal, anguished cry, she clawed at her throat, ripping off her pearl necklace, which exploded across the room. In a frenzy, she tore at herself, her clothes, her hair...then attacked the room. She flung everything off of the dresser and it flew, clattering against the wall. She hurled a hand mirror against the vanity, cracking it.

Rose ran along the B Deck promenade. She was disheveled, her hair flying. She was crying, her cheeks streaked with tears. But she was also angry. Furious! Shaking with emotions she didn't understand...hatred, self-hatred, desperation. A strolling couple passed, shocked at the emotional display in public.

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Jack was kicked back on one of the benches, gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead. He was thinking the thoughts of an artist and smoking a cigarette.

Hearing something, Jack turned as a woman ran up the stairs from the well deck. They were the only two on the stern deck, except for Quartermaster Rowe, twenty feet above them on the docking bridge catwalk. She didn't see Jack in the shadows, and ran right past him.

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Rose ran across the deserted fantail. Her breath hitched in the occasional sob, which she suppressed. She slammed against the base of the stern flagpole and clung there, panting. She stared out at the black water.

Then Rose started to climb over the railing. She had to hitch her long, red, embroidered dress way up, and climbing was clumsy. Moving methodically, she turned her body and on got her heels on the white-painted gunwale, her back to the railing, facing out toward the blackness. Sixty feet below her, the massive propellers were churning the Atlantic into white foam...and a ghostly wake trailed off toward the horizon.

Rose stood like a figurehead in reverse. Below her were the huge letters of the name Titanic.

She leaned out, her arms straightening...looking down, hypnotized, into the vortex below her. Her dress and hair were lifted by the wind of the ship's movements. The only sound was the rush of the water below.

"Don't do it."

Rose whipped her head around at the sound of a man's voice. It took a second for her eyes to focus.