The Boy In The Crystal Ball

Epilogue: Disappearing

Epilogue:

disappearing

The television blared loudly throughout the small capacity of the kitchen, the reporter's voice shrilly discussing the numerous, local bank robberies. He spoke without emotion, with his hands clasped in front of him on the channel's newstable. After the parting image of a bag of money disappeared from the right hand corner of the screen, the reporter turned towards a different camera angle. This time, the spitting image of a girl with long brown hair and glowing green eyes sat towards the top of the television screen. 

"In other news, today is the ten year anniversary of the disappearance of a high school senior. Police report that though it's been a while since the mysterious case of Joanna Granger, no evidence has yet to be found. For those of you whom forgot about this tragic story, the young senior was found missing from her home, where he mother had said she had seen her last. While many figure that the girl had ran away, nothing of importance or value was taken from the home. To this day, Joanna's mother still remembers the pain she faced . . ."

Slamming the remote onto the kitchen counter, Connor had effectively shut the noise from his ears and buzzing mind. It was hard for him to believe it had been already ten years since the incident; ten years since he had been beating himself up over the fact that he could have saved Joanna.

If only he hadn't fought with her that night.

The scene, as always, replayed itself through his mind. He was pacing the length of her floor, rage boiling beneath the surface of his skin. He could almost taste the disgust and betrayal on the tip of his tongue, ready to be released with the onslaught of hurtful words he wished he could say to her. Connor had wanted her to suffer the agony he just faced, walking into her bedroom without knocking and witnessing the cruelest of tortures. Joanna had been laying intimately against another male, one that wasn't him. She was completely bare, except for the lace that covered her breasts and hips. The man with auburn hair had his bare back facing Connor, but his face pressed to her ear, his lips moving slowly and surely. Joanna's eyes were closed, but the moment Connor had slammed the door behind his body, did they fly open. He witnessed the shock and astonishment within her green depths, before they glazed over and revealed nothing to him at all.

Fuming at the edge of her bed, he watched the bastard slowly untangle his limbs from Joanna's and turn towards him. A lazy smile was on his face, full of cockiness and arrogance. "Don't worry, I was just leaving." He said, grabbing his shirt off of the floor.

That's when Connor completely lost his control. His fist swung from the side, knocking the bastard off his feet. The only thought ringing through his mind was rear back, swing forward, crunch. 

The second he felt her skin graze his own, he could feel her tears leaking through the fabric at the back of his shirt. Her thin arms were wrapped securely around his waist, her lips brushing his neck. Connor wanted more than anything to stop this rage, to sweep her up and into his arms and lose himself in her body. The urge was there, thickening with each tear that she wept.

In the end, Connor was tugged viciously from pummeling the poor soul who dared to lay a finger on his woman. By the time he was forcibly pushed into the wall, a strong forearm keeping him there, his tongue lashed out at Joanna. The words were fumbled together and muffled, but the pain and anger lacing them was obvious. He had never seen her so pale and shaky before, as she listened to every, nasty word he had spewed at her. After the last word was said, his body sagged against the wall, exhausted from the emotional turmoil it received over the past twenty minutes.

He had been eagerly shoved out of the Granger home with handcuffs at his wrists, but that didn't matter. He had seen the puddle of blood laying behind the auburn haired man, had seen the torn and cut flesh. It had satisfied him to no end, even after he spent five days within a jail cell. It was his older brother who had coughed up enough money for him to post bail. He had never been so happy to see the sun gleaming behind white clouds.

Until he heard that Joanna had gone missing a few days prior to his leave. According to her parents, they had filed a missing-person's report after she hadn't returned home from a night out with her friend, Stacy. And Stacy had informed them that she had lost sight of Joanna once she used the restroom at the local mall.

The police had spent every waking hour, sending search teams and making flyers to help lead them to a trail. An anonymous caller indicated that they had seen Joanna with a man, one with auburn colored hair, right before her disappearance. And after a few days digging around for a name, they had discovered that he had just took his things and left the hotel he was staying at. Though they couldn't prove that this man had taken Joanna, every fiber in Connor's body knew that he did.

And he felt disgusted in himself for allowing that bastard to do so.

A soft knock to his wooden door, brought Connor back from his dangerous thoughts. Swiftly making his way to the peep-hole, he automatically grabbed the baseball bat placed near the coat rack. All he could see as he gazed upon the stranger awaiting his presence, was a heavy cloak and shadowed face. An awareness tingled down his spine and he wretched open the door, holding the bat in the air only inches from the stranger's face.

Immediately, a young, male voice cried in shock. "Please, sir! Don't hurt me!" In a scrambled to protect himself from the weapon, the teenage boy's hood flew back from his face. His eyes were wide with fear and he was practically shaking in his soggy sneakers.

Connor stumbled backwards, lowering the bat to the floor. "What do you want?"

"I just came to deliver a package," the boy trembled, nodding his head to the brown box sitting outside the doorway.

Connor growled low in his throat. "Why are you wearing a giant trench coat, boy?"

"It was raining, please. Just let me go!"

Using his foot, Connor kicked the box into his apartment and slammed the door behind him. Placing the bat next to the coat rack, he sighed and lifted the box into his arms. It seemed much heavier than expected, and he ungracefully dropped it onto his kitchen counter among the chopped vegetables and uncooked rice. His stomach growled at the sight of his dinner, but he ignored it. Connor had lived these past ten years without a wife's touch, whether it be through food, love or furniture.

Grabbing the used knife, he effortlessly slide the blade through the tape, which sealed the top together. A large array of old newspapers came tumbling out of the seams first, the withered ink turning brown near the edges. Tearing at the useless pages, he felt his heart nearly stop inside his chest at the orb sitting innocently inside the package, untouched.

Fingers shaking, Connor gently raised the crystal ball into the cup of his palms. There was a flurry of smoke within the orb, cascading around the entire area. Peering closer, Connor felt the tip of his nose brush the elegant glass, before a bright light appeared behind his eyes. There was a smiling face, wavy brown hair and glowing green eyes.

Her image began to frown, looking at him with disappointment and sadness. And that's when he felt his fingers grip the crystal ball tighter, practically devouring the illuminated presence of her inside his mind. She was everywhere: behind his eyelids, caressing his thoughts, brushing the focus of his attention.

And he had never felt happier than he did in that moment, with her clear-cut image haunting his very dreams.