I looked over intently at the young girl and her father, sketching them as they looked out towards the ocean. As I was sketching, I saw one of the many crew members of the Titanic walking three dogs out of the corner of my eye, but didn't pay much attention to them. "That's typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shite." I looked up, and smiled at the man who said it. He had a thick irish accent, most likely in his late twenties. "That's so we know where we rank in the scheme of things," I commented. The irishman smiled, "like we could forget." The irishmen put his cigarette in his mouth and extended his hand, "I'm Tommy Ryan." I took his hand, and smiled. "Jack Dawson." "Hello", he said, taking my best friend, Fabrizio's hand, "Fabrizio." "Hi." Tommy stood against the rail, "you make any money with your drawings?" I looked up at B deck, and I saw her. I didn't know who she was, but she was absolutely beautiful. She had bright red hair, put up neatly with a yellow dress on, definitely showing she was wealthy, first class passenger. I was mesmerized by her beauty, and astounded. I was in a trace, mainly just wondering who this woman was, and forgot to answer Tommy's question. She looked directly at me, and my heart skipped a beat. She stared for a moment or two, then looked away. I still couldn't stop staring, then she looked at me again. A few more moments passed, and a man came up to her and grabbed her arm. She turned around, jerking her arm away from him, and they argued. She stormed off, the man following behind. "Ah, forget her boyo," Tommy said. "You'd as like have angels fly out o' your arse as get next to the likes of her." I felt my heart sink, Tommy's right, I mentally told myself.

The rest of the day, all I could think of that woman's beauty. Her face, her hair, her eyes as they connected with mine. I think they were green, but I was too far away to know for sure. I sighed as I layed down on the bench and gazed at the stars as they twinkled down at me. I lit a cigarette, and took a few drags from it. As I was taking another drag of my cigarette, I heard a woman crying as her heels clicked against the deck's hardwood floor. I sat up, seeing striking red hair that made my heart skip. Is that her? I got up, and walked behind the redhead. By the time I reached her, she was on the other side of the railing, and standing toward the icy cold ocean below her. My heart sank, and I spoke before she would do something drastic. "Don't do it." She whipped her head around, and I saw the beautiful woman I saw earlier. Her eyes were emerald green, and they almost made my knees buckle. "Stay back," she warned. "Don't come any closer." I looked at her face, and saw tears going down her face. I didn't really know what to say to comfort her, especially because I never spoke to her before. I thought quickly, "come on, just take my hand... I'll pull you over." The woman quickly protested, "no! Stay back, I'll let go. I mean it." I remembered I had my cigarette, took one last drag out of it, and motioned to throw it over the rail, being sure she wouldn't let go, and through it while moving closer to her. I looked down, then back at her, "no you won't." The woman looked at me like I was crazy, "what do you mean, 'no I won't'?" Her voice shook with anger, "don't presume to tell me what I will and will not do, you don't know me." "Well... you would have done it already." She looked at me with annoyance, "you're distracting me, go away!" She turned her head back towards the ocean. "I can't," I muttered. "I'm involved now." She looked back at me, realizing that no matter what she said, I'm not leaving. "You let go and I'm gonna have to jump in there after ya." She laughed to herself, "don't be absurd, you'd be killed." I started to take my coat off. "I'm a good swimmer," I admitted. "The fall alone would kill you," she protested. I thought of the freezing cold water, "It would hurt. I'm not saying it wouldn't. To be honest I'm a lot more concerned about the water being so cold." The redhead looked down at the ocean, then at me. "How cold," she asked. I thought for a second while I began untying my shoes. "Freezing, maybe a couple degrees over." She looked back down at the ocean, rethinking what she was about to do. I decided to change the subject. "You ever been to Wisconsin?" She looked at me, confused. "What?" I continued, "Well they have some of the coldest winters around, and I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. Once when I was a kid me and my father were ice-fishing out on Lake Wissota... ice-fishing's where you chop a hole in the-" She snapped, "I know what ice fishing is!" I apologized, "Sorry... you look like kind of an indoor girl." I looked away from her, rolling my eyes slightly. "Anyway, I went through
some thin ice and I'm tellin' ya, water that cold... like that right down there... it hits you like a thousand knives all over your body. You can't breathe, you can't think... least not about anything but the pain." I took off my shoes, and looked back up at the beautiful woman standing in front of me. "Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don't have a choice. I guess I'm kinda hoping you'll come back over the rail and get me off the hook here." She looked at me, and back at the ocean. "You're crazy!" I laughed mentally, and said, "That's what everybody says. But with all due respect miss, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship." I took a few steps closer, until I was close enough to pull her back over to the safety of the Titanic. I extended my hand, "come on... you don't want to do this." She looked at my hand, and slowly took it. She turned around, and I smiled. "Jack Dawson." She looked me straight in the eye, and I felt my heart skip a beat. "Rose Dewitt-Bukater." I smirked, "I'm gonna have to have you right that down for me." She laughed slightly, and started climbing over the rail.

That night after I saved Rose, we sat and talked about everything. Where we grew up, what our childhood was like, what our life is like now. "My mother is making me get married to this man, I'm sure you heard of him, his name is Caledon Hockley," she sighed, and you could tell she had no feelings for this man. "My father had left my mother and I with nothing when he died. He gave all his money, our home, to a mistress he had." She pulled her hair in front of her, "however, my mother had many friends when he died. I believe I was... thirteen when my father died. And that's when my mother introduced me to Cal." I listened, feeling horrible for Rose. Nobody deserves to have to get married to someone they don't actually love. "Cal's parents and my mother agreed to the arranged marriage, and I was devastated. I mean, if I marry Cal, my mother would be taken care of, but... I don't, nor will I ever love him." I nodded, understanding. "What about your parents?" I took a deep breath, and sighed. "Uhm... when I lived in Chippewa Falls, I went fishing by myself the one day. My father was feeling ill, and my mother was taking care of him. I had a sister at the time, but my mother was teaching her how to be a proper wife, because she was of marrying age." I looked out to the ocean, remembering how my mom always cooked, my father always went fishing with me, and how my sister always taught me ways to sneak out when you get grounded. "I was fifteen," I looked back at Rose. "Nobody really knows how, but my house was engulfed in flames when I was returning home from my fishing trip. I ran home, hoping somebody made it out alive. When the fire finally died, my house was burned to the ground. I looked around, yelled for someone, anyone... then I came to the realization, my parents, my sister... they were all gone." Rose looked down, "I'm sorry for asking." I shrugged, "don't be. That was seven years ago. After that, I made my way to New York, took a boat to Ireland, and traveled for a couple years. That's how I met my best friend, Fabrizio. When I was in Italy, I was sketching a family portrait, and he happened to be part of it. I think he was seventeen then, I was eighteen. When I finished his family's portrait, I left for Paris. And little did I know, so did he." She looked at me, "you're an arti-" "Rose, darling." She turned around, looking at a tall man, probably in his early twenties, looking back at her. "Cal," she said and turned toward me, a look of depression across her face. She stood up, and walked toward Caledon. "I want you to meet Mr. Dawson. Jack Dawson," she said and motioned me to come forward. Cal glared at me, and faked a smile. "Good evening, Mr. Dawson." I smirked at him, "Mr. Dawson had just had an interesting conversation with me." He looked at Rose, "and how did you meet this Mr. Dawson?" Rose looked at me. "We were both on the uhm... poop deck. And we were talking to one of the crew members, and we just struck up a conversation," Rose lied. Caledon nodded, looking back at me. "Well, what a nice... surprise," he said sarcastically. He looked at Rose, "you know, it's almost midnight. We should get to bed." Rose nodded, "I'll be with you in a minute, Cal." He looked at Rose, looked at me with a look of hatred, and nodded. "Alright." Cal walked away. Rose turned to me, "I'm probably not going to go back, by the time he reaches our state room, all of his wealthy friends will be there wanting to drink and talk about their many accomplishments," she said and sat back down on the bench. "I might just stay out here all night."

I sat down next to her, yawning. "You have fun with that, I need to go to bed soon." She looked at me, her eyes pleading me to stay. "Oh... I forgot, I'm not the only one that needs to sleep." How I would love to have her stay in third class with me for a night. "I'm really sorry, Rose. If you want, I'm sure my friends wouldn't mind if you stayed a night in a third class room." I mentally slapped myself. What the hell did you just say?! She smiled, "I would if I could, Jack." I nodded. "Maybe I can, though..." She got up, and dashed away before I could ask what she was going to do.

The whole time we talked, I was dying for a cigarette, so I lit one, and took long, slow drags and laid back down on the bench. She's a wild one, I thought to myself. I finished my cigarette, through it off the side of the boat, and walked back to the third class deck. Time to be with my fellow slaves, I thought to myself, and laughed.

Instead of going to my room, I remembered that the third class passengers have parties until early in the morning. I walked towards the dining room, listening to the music and the laughing coming from it. I walked downstairs, and the first thing I saw was Fabrizio with a blonde woman. He was definitely interested, and she was too. The blonde was standing next to an older looking couple, who glared at Fabrizio as if he murdered someone. I walked to up to him, "Fabrizio!" He looked over, and smiled, "Hi Jack," he said. He turned to the blonde, "Meet Helga." She nodded, "she speak no english." I nodded, and smiled at her. Her parents gave me the same look that they gave Fabrizio, and spoke in a language that I couldn't understand. Helga seemed angry, looked at Fabrizio, and muttered the words, "I'm sorry, I must go," in Italian. Fabrizio nodded, and sighed. Helga left with her parents, who were still speaking in their fluent language. I looked at Fabrizio, and shrugged. He looked into the crowd of third class passengers, then looked back at me. "I'll go find Tommy." I nodded, "okay, I'm gonna walk around and meet some people." Fabrizio was out of sight.

I walked around, laughing at all of the people who were drunk, the dancers, and the band. A little girl with brown hair was clinging to her father, and also dancing around with other girls her age when she became separated from her father when her father was lost in the crowd, she looked around for him, but he was too drunk to even realize it. I went up to her, and got on one knee. "Hello, I'm Jack Dawson," I said, extending my hand out. I smiled politely, "and you are my new friend..." I paused, waiting for her to say her name. "Cora," she said quietly. "Cora Cartmell." I looked at the dancers, then back at her, "care to dance?" She smiled, and nodded. We walked over to the dance floor, and we started dancing.

I honestly don't know what time her father finally realized that his daughter wasn't with him, but, I know it was early in the morning because many third class passengers had went to bed. Cora went back to her dad, but before she did, she gave me a hug and said, "thanks Jack." "Anytime Cora, remember, you're my best girl," I told her. Fabrizio had most likely gone to our room. I yawned, and walked toward my room.