Falling into the Ship of Dreams (Jack Dawson love story)

Hanging by a thread

Avery sat in the first-class dining saloon, flanked by people in heated conversation. Caledon and Ruth were laughing together, while on the other side Lady Duff-Gordon was holding forth animatedly. To Avery, the sounds resonating from her surroundings barely reached her ears; she simply stared blankly at her plate and focused solely on it, trying hard to drown the inconsequential babble around her, though it was actually quite harder than it seemed. Beneath the table, her hand was holding a tiny fork from her crab salad. She poked the crab-fork into the skin of her arm, harder and harder until it drew blood.

Later that night, she walked along the B deck corridor at a quick pace. A steward came the other way and greeted her, and she nodded with a slight smile. She was perfectly composed.

Once she reached her door and entered her room, she felt even emptier than she'd felt earlier. She walked up to the middle of her suite and simply stood there, staring at her reflection in the large vanity mirror. 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 the dresser and it flew clattering against the wall. She hurled a hand-mirror against the vanity, cracking it, then started looking around in panic, and cried out till the point where she could barely breathe.

"Trudy? Trudy," she cried out desperately, though she knew the girl wouldn't come. She needed her as she was the only person who would understand her and help her in such a situation even though she did not know of Avery's little time warp. She needed Trudy— anyone. She needed home... her real home, where Brock and Anna were.

Knowing her cries would be of no avail, she ran out of her room and sprinted along the B deck promenade. She was disheveled, her hair flying. She was crying, her cheeks streaked with tears. But also angry, furious! Shaking with emotions she didn't understand... hatred, self-hatred, desperation. A strolling couple watched her pass, shocked at the emotional display in public.

On the 'poop deck', as Tommy had put it earlier, Jack was kicked back on one of the benches, gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead, thinking artist thoughts and smoking a cigarette. Hearing something, he turned as Avery darted 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 flew right past him. He watched with furrowed brows as she ran across the deserted fantail. Her breath hitched in an occasional sob, which she suppressed. Avery slammed against the base of the stern flagpole and clung there, panting. She stared out at the black water. Then started to climb over the railing. She had to hitch her long dress way up, and her climbing was clumsy.

Moving methodically she turned her body and got her heels on the white-painted gunwale, her back to the railing, facing out toward blackness. Sixty feet below her, the massive propellers were churning the Atlantic into white foam, and a ghostly wake trailed off toward the horizon.

This shouldn't be hard, she thought as she looked down below herself, where the huge letters of the name "TITANIC" were imprinted on the vessel. I've done this many times before anyway. It's just a jump... like cliff diving.

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 movement. The only sound, above the rush of water below, was the flutter and snap of the big Union Jack right above her.

"Don't do it."

"Gaah!" She whipped her head around at the sound of his voice. It took a second for her eyes to focus as she cursed in her mind. Dammit! What is it with people stopping me all the time?!