"...and in further news, meteorologist, George Tucker, has predicted the meteor shower to occur tonight around 10:00 P.M. Well that's all for Channel 36 News. See you tomorrow New York."
Connie stared at the television set, in the lobby of an anger management facility.
She could not believe she let herself get talked into this one. Here she was, sitting impatiently in the reception room waiting to see her assigned therapist. Annoyance boiled in her again. She was fine, perfect even. She did not need a damned therapist. Apparently, she had "anger issues". Connie scoffed at the thought.
Everyone else had things to do. Her friends and their jobs, her brothers and their family owned law firm, her colleagues at work diligently. She felt no point in wasting the rest of the day at this place.
The only reason she was here was to shut her family up. They and her friends decided to have a stupid intervention for her. She was forced to sit there for three hours, listening to stories about her "emotional issues" and how she could have conducted situations differently. Her friends and all three of her brothers talked on how she was jeopardizing her relationships with everyone. If there was a precise look for the word "traitor", she was flashing it at them. How could they do this to her, they were supposed to be on her side. She didn't understand why her mother was there. She made it clear that she didn't want a relationship with her, so she made a point to ignore her throughout the intervention. Sending her threatening glares would have been the "Connie" thing to do, but that meant acknowledging her existence.
"Constance Finnegan, the doctor will see you now!" the receptionist called out. She snickered to herself at the thought at how Gavin would have laughed at the thought of his little sister, the doctor, needing another doctor. Connie stood and smoothed out her skirt. Her tall heels clicked against the marble floor as she followed the receptionist out the door and down a hall. The walls were lined with mahogany doors. Just her luck, she had the room at the end of the hall.
"Here you go. Dr. Thompson just finished her last appointment. Well, enjoy and have a nice day."
Connie scowled at her. The receptionist seemed to be quite cheerful to be working in the lobby of an anger management building. Connie ignored her and entered the room to find no one. She thought of calling the receptionist, but she already left. The doctor would probably be back shortly.
Her bright blue eyes searched the room. It was spacious enough and seemed newly refurbished. The walls were white with light brown carpeting. On the right wall, there was a wooden bookcase filled with numerous novels and texts. On the far side of the room was a desk and working chair. In the middle of the room, was a coffee table. On one side of the table, was a small lounge chair and on the other was a small sofa. She walked over to the sofa and sat down. Connie took out her compact mirror and checked herself.
She looked respectable. She had on a billowy, soft-blue blouse, the front of the simple top tucked into a well-fitted black skirt that reached her knees and black 5-inch heels. Her makeup entailed of mascara and lip gloss, her every day wear, probably because she didn't know how to put on anything else without looking like a clown. She brushed a piece of her wavy, vivid red hair out her closed her compact and sighed. Could this lady hurry the hell up? As if by divine intervention, the doctor came through the door in a rush.
"Sorry to keep you waiting Ms. Finnegan. The coffee machine broke and I swear I was about to die. Coffee is to me what gas is to a car. A day without it and I completely shut down. It's my life." She laughed.
Probably why your teeth are so yellow too, Connie thought inwardly as she fake smiled at the therapists joke. She knew Patrick and Ryan would probably tell her to keep her thoughts to herself (she did!) and at least try to be friendly.
She watched the doctor quickly place the coffee cup on the table and walk over to her desk to get a pen and a legal pad. She scanned the doctor. She was tall, thin, and tan with shoulder length chestnut hair. The doctor was dressed professionally in a pantsuit and glasses. She looked like one of the lawyers her brothers worked with, not a menial therapist.
"Alrightie then, let's get started. I'm assuming you know that your mother scheduled the appointment."
Connie nodded with an inward grimace.
"Well, can you think of any reason for her to contact us?" Dr. Thompson inquired.
"My mother and I don't really talk." Connie said, opting for honesty.
She scribbled something on her notepad. It wasn't even 5 minute into the session and she was already ready writing things down. What the hell?
"How about your father?"
Connie's annoyed facial expression relaxed as she remembered her kind, soft-hearted father.
"My father is…dead, but he was the most remarkable man in the world. He loved all of us, my brothers and I, and defended us all the time." Connie said. She left out the part where he usually gave her a calm lecture about having more control with her emotions. Of course, she would listen…for a while, anyways.
Thompson nodded for her to continue.
"My dad was a compassionate, tranquil, diffident and humble man. Kind of the opposite of me, but he and I constantly got along great."
Connie watched the doctor take a sip of coffee and set the cup back down on the table.
"Pardon me for asking, but you seem to hold great reverence towards your father, while showing some hostility towards your mother."
"Yes?"
"Well, maybe your apparent anger issues stem from your relationship with your mother."
"Why are we talking about issues that I don't have? I'm really just doing this to please my family."
"Well, your family and friends have sent me shocking stories describing how you handle certain situations."
Connie watched with annoyance as she walked over to her desk and retrieved a manila folder from her drawer. She walked back over and pulled out a paper from the folder before sitting down.
"For example, your brother Gavin says that when you were ten, he took you to an ice skating rink. When he tried to teach you to skate, you fell and someone pointed and laughed at you. This testimonial than goes on to say that you chased this person with the blade of your skate, and when you caught up to him you forced him to take whatever he said back or else you would cut his throat."
Connie remembered with mirth when the older man tearfully regretted what he had said. She remembered going to school the next day and bragging about how she made a middle-aged man cry.
"That was not even my fault."
The doctor looked at her skeptically.
"Care to elaborate?"
"Gavin didn't even try to help me. He was too busy getting some girl's number. Also, that guy was older then my father. He had no right picking on an innocent young girl."
"I see, well, another testimony from your friend Emily, says that when she came to pick you up from your internship, your boss called you to his office and said that you weren't doing so well and he had to let you go. When he left, in retaliation, you broke his computer screen and scattered the keyboard parts across the desk. You sat back down and when he came back in and asked what happened, you responded with, and I quote, 'computer virus'. Emily was listening and watching from the outside."
At the time it wasn't funny at all. She was having really bad financial problems at the time and she really needed the job, but the terrible internship incident almost cost her medical career and she got some teachers and friends to pull a lot of strings to get another internship with a good medicinal background. But Connie tossed her red hair back in laughter. The doctor, however, was looking at her in all seriousness.
"Sorry, but Emily was laughing too."
She took another sip of coffee.
"Ms. Finnegan, I would like to ask of your occupation." Dr. Thompson inquired.
"I am one of the medical doctors at Cooper Pediatrics." Connie said confidently.
"May I ask how? You seem to be quite young, and becoming a pediatrician requires 11 years of schooling after high school."
"What are you trying to say?" Connie asked apprehensively. When people usually questioned her young age in relation to her job, their underlying suspicion usually made itself clear, earning the asker an earful and quite a scare or a swift punch in the jaw.
"Nothing. I am just curious as to know how you got the job."
"I started pre-school early and I skipped a grade in middle school. I'm sorry but what exactly does this have do to with anything." Her patience wearing.
The doctor nodded in astonishment at her apparent intelligence before continuing. "You're right. So you're a pediatrician working with young children. How are you able to suppress your anger?"
"Will you stop that! I don't have anger problems!" She said clearly irritated. She took a calming breath before continuing and answering the question. "My Dad…he always said despite my 'fiery' personality, I was always the most compassionate, the most caring person in the world." Connie laughed silently at the memory and towards the number of people that would highly disagree. "I always knew that I wanted to take care of people, heal them, and fix them. It was a while before I realized that children are who I'd rather take care of. Not because of favorites, but it's because children have this…this…innocence about them. Their innocence is sometimes so sweet, it's heartbreaking to know that they'll have to grow up and face the reality about the world, but for now it seems that it's worth protecting. I have to save them; have to make sure they live to see another day because despite the harshness and cruelty of the world, childhood innocence is what gives me hope and faith. Even though I know that one day it will be tainted, by them witnessing a murder or going through a divorce or God knows what, I have to keep it alive just one more day because their well-meaning heart, curiosity, imagination, care free, and fragile mind that hasn't experienced the big bad cruel world yet is beautiful, and when I take care of a patient and see that innocence sparkle in their eyes it makes want to make sure they live one more day so they can keep it and their obliviousness to this shithole called Earth. " For some reason she felt as if she just gave away something personal. But the Doctor just looked at her with adoration.
"So you love children?" Dr. Thompson inquired.
"I have to love them to work with them." Connie said obviously, back to her old retorts.
"Do you have any of your own?" She continued.
"I think I'm too busy for that." Connie scoffed.
There was a long pause and lots of handwriting before Dr. Thompson spoke up again.
"Ms. Finnegan, I could read the rest of the testimonials from your family and friends, but I have seen enough. I am afraid that you have been showing signs of aggressive anger."
What? After the speech she basically poured out of her? Not to be a self-centered, but that was pretty fucking nice! Who the hell did she think she was!? Connie did not need someone telling her what she had or did not have and cross-examining her life. It took all of her restraint to not screech at the woman and prove her right. And anyone who knew Connie knew she did not have a lot of restraint.
"Aggressive anger…" Connie gritted through her teeth slowly. Apparently, the doctor did not see her annoyance.
"Yes. A person who has aggressive anger shows symptoms of destructiveness, grandiosity, hurtfulness such as physical violence, manic behavior, selfishness, threats, unjust blaming, unpredictability, and vengeance. While not all of these are shown in the stories, many of them make themselves clear."
Connie rolled her eyes. "Oh, so are you going to diagnosis me, give me some sort of medication."
"Actually, there is a course that I would like you to take. It is a 5-month process, with support of family and friends. The first step to getting your emotions under control is admitting you have a problem."
Connie sucked in a breath and huffed out angrily.
"You know what? I think we're done here."
"We have one more hour."
"Oh, excuse me. I'm done then."
She stood up and forcefully grabbed her coat and purse.
"Should I expect to see you next week?" The doctor called.
"Don't count on it." Connie yelled on her way out and she made sure to slam the door.
She walked down the hall and into the lobby grumbling not-so-quiet obscenities. People in the waiting room looked at her like she had two heads.
"Well, what are you looking at!?" She yelled, finally venting out her pent up anger at someone.
Everyone immediately turned back around making sure not to irk the redhead further. She left the building, promising herself never to come back. She got into her car and angrily shut the door. Connie stayed there seated and took a few moments to cool down. She needed a drink.
It was 8:30 pm when she reached O'Reilly's Pub. It was her regular bar and she needed something, anything. She opened the door to the pub and immediately spotted her friends in a booth. They were all in an animated conversation with each other laughing and talking loudly. Olivia suddenly spotted Connie and tapped Emily on the shoulder while pointing towards her. Connie watched as Emily's eyes widened. Emily gave a hushed whisper to Sophia, Savannah, and Keisha who all immediately turned her way and blanched. Connie fixed a malicious glare onto them and walked over to them. There was room on the six person booth for one more, so Connie took her seat next to Emily and Keisha.
Connie realized that they were still silent and looking at her if she were a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.
"So how'd it go?" Emily asked hesitantly with that Texan drawl of hers.
"How do you think it went?" Connie snapped back.
"I'm guessing not well." Emily sheepishly replied.
Connie realized that she shouldn't have any reason to be mad at them, but she was just angry and she need to vent.
"Just tell us." It was Olivia who spoke up, just as bold as her Brooklyn accent .
"Can I have six beers?" Connie asked of a passing waiter who nodded.
"Well?" Savannah asked impatiently.
"Well what?" Connie replied in an indifferent manner.
"Well, what happened?" Sophia said, equally as impatient as her twin.
Connie sighed.
"Well, it was just great. No, really. I thoroughly enjoyed myself." Connie said in a tone that suggested opposite. But her friends knew that she was just resorting to sarcasm in an attempt to recede her anger.
Connie huffed before continuing.
"If you all thought I had that much of a fucking problem, why didn't you just come to me first instead of running off to my goddamn mother?" She said.
"Well, we would've, but we figured that you would…you know…react bad." Emily piped in sheepishly.
"And what makes you say that?!" Connie burst.
All eyes turned to look at her skeptically. Connie realized she just contradicted herself. She huffed and sat back forcefully in the booth seat. The waiter came back around with the six drinks and each girl took her own. After a rather large gulp, she continued.
"Whatever. I'm not going to get angry with you guys and prove myself wrong, but can you at least promise me that you'll come to me first about whatever supposed volatile problems I have."
Everyone let out a relieved sigh at that. From their own experience, you never wanted to be on the receiving end of Connie's wrath.
"Sure Connie. Just as long as you promise us that you will at least try to keep your emotions in check." Keisha said.
"Fine." Connie agreed half-heartily. "But, do you guys really think I need anger management classes?"
"Well, it might help…" Keisha said.
"Oh, shut up!" Connie said, and everyone laughed at that.
"Actually Connie, maybe it'll help you get a good, solid man." Savannah added.
"Sav, I don't need a man in my life… I've got you all you bitches."
Savannah rolled her eyes while everyone laughed.
"Besides, if a guy can't take me for who I am than he can't take me at all."
"I agree." Olivia piped in. "But you're crazy, Connie."
Connie laughed aloud. It was amazing to see how easily they resolved their issue. Connie was sure she was coming to the pub to tear these girls up and now she was laughing with them like nothing happened at all. Perhaps Connie knew it would turn out this way, after all these were her closest friends.
Connie chuckled as she remembered something.
"Em, I cannot believe you told her about the intern incident."
Emily eyes widened and she began to giggle.
"That was funny, Connie. I actually wrote that as a joke, I didn't mean to send it to her. I hope you ain't mad."
"Are you kidding? I cracked up. She looked at me in all seriousness, and there I was laughing my ass off! You should've been there."
"What else did she say?" Savannah asked.
"You know she brought up the ice-skating incident." Connie replied
"Wasn't that when you were ten?"
"Yes, Gavin sent it in."
"I still cannot believe you attacked a guy!" Sophia exclaimed.
"I was young and temperamental then." Connie explained.
"And you aren't now?"
"Shut up, Soph." Connie said.
Sophia just smirked.
"You guys still coming to the wedding?" Keisha asked
Everyone brightened up.
"Of course we are, Keisha." Emily said.
"We're still the bridesmaids, right?" Connie inquired.
Keisha laughed. "Who else would I have in my wedding."
"Tell, your sister I said hi." Connie said.
Keisha nodded.
"You still have not told us about the dresses yet." Olivia pleaded.
"It's a surprise." Keisha said with a sing-song tone in her voice.
Everyone groaned. "You know I hate surprises." Savannah said grumpily.
Keisha laughed and decided to spare her friends the torture of guessing.
"Fine I'll tell you."
Connie looked at all her friends with adoration in her eyes as they all talked loudly. Despite their physical and personality-wise differences, they were closer than glue. Keisha was a beautiful, dark-skinned woman with sparkling hazel eyes and extremely curly dark-brown hair. She was tall and pear-shaped. She had a distinct Bronx accent that constantly got her judged and stereotyped. Keisha proved the ignorant people wrong, becoming a successful working woman in New York City, but she still kept her Bronx attitude and never forgot where she came from, that was part of the reason why Connie loved her so much. And now she was getting married, which left only Emily, Olivia, and herself left. The twins were an entirely different story.
Savannah and Sophia were identical twin sisters down to the very last brunette hair on their heads. They had the same blue eyes, medium height, tannish skin tone, classical looks, skinny bodies, everything. But their personalities were quite opposite. Savannah had a more laid-back feeling towards her while Sophia was always opportune, and never let anything pass her by. However, both were fun to be around and you could tell they were close. Savannah got married first, and that left Sophia feeling as if she would be forgotten by her sister. But they were still closer than ever, and even after Sophia got married too.
Olivia was the most eccentric out of all of them. Originally hailing from Staten Island, or "Staten Italy" as she would call it, she was the wild child. Tan, fit, black-haired, brown-eyed, and heavily accented, Olivia brought life to their group. Olivia had a boyfriend who was very different from her. He was extremely quiet, shy, and not very social, but anyone could see that they both brought out the best in each other.
Emily was the "foreigner" in the group. She came all the way from Texas before high-school started to stay with her older sister here in the New York. She had a heavy Texan-drawl to her that constantly got her teased by the group of friends, but always out of love. She was short and hourglass figured, like Connie, but Emily had sun-kissed country skin, blonde hair and bright green eyes. She also knew Connie the longest and could be considered her best friend. Emily was extremely nice and pretty and very girlish. However, being that she grew up on a farm with dirt, bugs, animals and everything else the west had to offer, she had a little tomboyish attitude towards her. Connie met her Emily in high-school, and while Emily didn't go to college, they kept contact all throughout the college years.
Their conversation of wedding dresses had turned into an interrogation of Keisha and if she was having kids or not.
"Connie, I really don't know how you and Em are able to stay calm with kids." Olivia said.
"Well, Liv, I don't know what it is. The kids just tend to make my day better. Even when they're screaming all the way to fucking Hollywood." Connie said.
"I'm with ya Connie. Sometimes my kids are throwing tantrums and screaming for their parents and I wonder how in the heck I signed up for this job, but at the end of the day I wouldn't change it for the world. And I mean it. I really do love my kids." Emily said, talking of her job as a pre-school teacher.
They all smiled. Emily was always referring to her patients as her kids.
Connie checked her watch.
"Oh, I have to get home. I have work tomorrow." Connie announced, before downing the rest of her drink.
"Need a ride?" Emily asked.
"Nah, I'm good." Connie replied.
"Alright, Connie. We'll pay." Savannah said.
"Thanks guys, I love you all."
"We do too, Connie…surprisingly." Sophia said and everyone laughed.
Connie rolled her eyes and hugged them all before walking out the door of the bar. She walked briskly over to her parked car and got in. She started the vehicle and drove off down the busy New York street. It was two blocks, before the taxis and other various vehicles started piling in the road and the honking began. She too attributed to the noise, by vigorously pressing the horn to her car and yelling obscenities out the window. Sometimes she hated living in New York City. Unexpectedly, someone decided to cut in front of her when little distance was gained after waiting for nearly an hour, almost knocking the side mirror off her car.
"Fucking asshole!" She yelled at the stranger.
The targeted car honked back in retaliation and the driver stuck a certain finger out of the window. She almost got out of the car to tell that guy where his finger was about to be shoved, when she remembered the promise she made to her friends. She growled and grumpily bumped her head back against the seat. When ten minutes had passed, cars started moving. Finally! However the relief was short-lived when after about 30 seconds, she had to stop again.
"Fuck this." Connie muttered and she quickly swerved out of the lane and drove down one of the branching roads towards rural New York. She knew her apartment was in the opposite direction, but she really didn't have the patience.
As she drove further and further out of the city, something sparked in her. She saw familiar areas of grass and green hills. She drove towards that pasture that she knew so well.
After 30 minutes, Connie reached her destination. She drove onto the landscape and parked right next to the tree where all the heart to heart talks ensued underneath. She opened the door and stepped out. She grabbed her keys and coat and took of her heels, leaving them with her purse in the car. She then climbed on top of the hood of her car and lay back across the windshield, placing her coat across her small body to protect herself from the night chill.
This was the place she discovered with her father when she was little and from then on he would take her here when she was particularly upset or angry or when they just wanted to spend time together. It had become their sacred place. She stared up at the stars as she reminisced on a certain conversation she had with her father when she was young.
"Connie, you can't do that." Mr. Finnegan said disapprovingly, his native Scottish accent leaking through. Adam Finnegan was an average heighted, built, 38-year-old Scottish man. Not tall, but not short either. He had bright-blue eyes that all of his children had acquired. He had fair skin and faint freckles that were once very prominent in his youth, with short dark hair. Now his daughter had acquired the strong splatter of pigment. He had strong, handsome features that contradicted his soft-hearted personality. He was sitting underneath an old tree in the wide green land and his six-year-old daughter Constance was sitting in his lap.
"But Daddy, those boys were making fun of me!" Young Connie said defiantly.
"Well, what did they say that was so bad that made you punch them in their noses?" Mr. Finnegan inquired.
"They made fun of my hair." Connie said.
"What did they say?"
"I don't wanna say."
"Connie…"
"Well, we were at recess and I was swinging on the monkey bars. I saw Thomas was whispering to Andrew. Then Andrew yelled out to everyone in the yard, "Connie, your hairs on fire!" Then Thomas got Louis and they grabbed my legs and pulled me down from the monkey bars. Andrew walked over with a pail off water and dumped it on me. Everyone pointed and laughed and said my hair was the ugliest color they ever seen. I got up from the ground and punched them all square in the nose." By this time Connie was blubbering. She angrily wiped at her tears, feeling stupid for crying over something as silly as hair. "Daddy, why can't I have nice, blonde hair like mommy's. Or brown hair like Ryan, Pat, Gav and you."
Mr. Finnegan wrapped his hands around his daughter, pulled her in close, and rocked her back and forth softly while she sobbed.
"Connie, let me tell you something and listen good. Everyone will get made fun of, laughed at, and insulted. Even your Daddy has, and most of the time, there is nothing you can do about it."
Connie pulled back and frowned dejectedly.
"But you can choose to listen and be miserable with yourself or you can ignore them because you know that your hair is the most beautiful there is. Constance, your hair is not ugly and neither are you. But those boys are. They are mean-spirited and ugly. You have to ask yourself, "Am I going to listen to what those ugly boys said about me today?"….Well, are you?"
Connie shook her head and sniffed.
"But Daddy, how can I be brave like you?"
"Why not ask your brothers."
Connie rolled her eyes. "Oh Daddy! There big scaredy cats. Ryan is scared of the dark, Pat doesn't like clowns, and Gav screams whenever he sees a spider. And he's the oldest!"
Mr. Finnegan laughed.
"Connie see those stars up there."
"Yea."
"Do you know what constellations are?"
"No."
"Well, constellations are a group of stars."
Connie nodded.
"And I remember a long time ago, when I was in school, my literature teacher taught me about a very important constellation. According to Norse mythology, there was a lady named Indunn who was captured by a giant named Thjazi."
Connie laughed. "These people have weird names."
"Yes very weird, now this lady Indunn was special. She made magic apples that make you unable to become old. Well when she was captured she couldn't make them anymore, so people started to become wrinkly, like granddad."
Connie giggled.
Mr. Finnegan chuckled, eyes softly crinkling at the edges. "They all blamed it on this one lad named Loki." Connie giggled again from the strangeness of the name.
"They said that he had to go Thjazi and get Indunn back. Loki then had to go all the way to the big, ugly giant and face up to him."
Connie's big, blue eyes widened into gigantic orbs. "Was he scared? Did he do it? Did he die? He died didn't he!"
"Hold on, I'm getting to that part. He put on his mother's cloak, which let him fly and he flew over to Thjazi's house. He rescued Indunn and killed the giant."
"Yay! The monster's dead!" Connie exclaimed happily.
"Yes, the monster's dead, but the story's not over yet."
Connie calmed down and listened.
"Loki had left the giant's daughter, Skadi, alive. The people who had sent Loki to get Indunn had to compensate Skadi for her father's death. After many gifts, the leader of these people, who was also Loki's father, got the eyes of Thjazi and threw them into the sky making them two stars. The stars are what we call the Eyes of Thjazi." He finished with pointing into the night sky.
"Which one are they?" Connie asked, mesmerized by the countless stars in the sky.
"I'm not sure, but they're there." Mr. Finnegan replied.
"So how does this make me brave, Daddy?"
"Everyone was against this lad, Loki, just how the boys at school were against you. He knew they were wrong, just like the boys were wrong. But he stayed calmed and took what they said. He had to go to a scary giant and face up to him. He did it anyway and ended up conquering him. Constance, you can't react like that when people say things against you. Face up to your enemies and do what it is right."
"Take their eyes out?" Connie said happily.
Mr. Finnegan laughed aloud.
"No. You have to do the right thing, which means not yelling at them or punching them, but saying I don't care what you think."
Connie pondered on what her father had said. He was so kind and nice, it was sometimes hard to believe that she was his daughter.
"I just hope they weren't seriously hurt."
Connie rolled her eyes. "Oh please, all you need to do is pinch your nose, like this."
She demonstrated, causing her voice to turn nasally.
"Then put some ice on it." She let go of her nose.
Mr. Finnegan chuckled. "Alright Doctor Constance."
"Daddy…" Connie said bashfully.
"Kidding. So who taught you how to swing like that anyway."
"Ryan, Patrick, and Gavin."
"Figures. You know you're going to have to stop rough-housing around with them. They're getting older and you might get hurt."
"Ryan is only a year older than I am! And Pat is nine and Gav is ten!"
"They're almost teenagers. It may be time you start acting like a lady."
Connie grumbled. "You sound like mommy."
"Speaking of your mum, we better get back home before she calls. It's already dark."
"I don't wanna go."
"She's making your favorite…colcannon and pork." He said optimistically
"Yummy! Can you make some soda bread too?" Connie asked hopefully.
"Well…"
"Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaase?" She pleaded.
"Oh, alright. Let's go." Mr. Finnegan gave in.
"Yay!" She jumped up from her father's lap and ran towards the car, her vivid ginger locks flying behind her.
"Oy! Hold on!" Mr. Finnegan jumped up and sprinted towards the car. He scooped up his daughter and listened as she ecstatically laughed.
"Weeeee!" She exclaimed cheerfully.
He placed his small daughter on his broad shoulders, they laughed while she hooked her hands on his chin for support. The joyful laughter died down.
"Daddy?" Connie said while patting his head.
"Hmmm?"
"I love you."
She could feel his cheeks stretch into a smile.
"I love you too, Constance." He kissed her tiny hands. "Now let's go home."
Connie fingered the locket that her father had given her. It was a family heirloom and inside contained a black and white picture of her bright-eyed father, who was smiling broadly and looking up at a freckly faced 6-year-old Connie sitting on his shoulders laughing wildly. A tear ran down her cheek before plopping on the small image. She wiped the tear away and placed the locket back inside her top, where it could stay close to her heart. She lay back on the windshield and stared up at the stars. She was glad they were out tonight. She looked out and could see New York City. It truly was the city that never sleeps. The city lights twinkled, shining bright. She remembered a few years ago how the city was utterly left in ruins, by an alien invasion. If there was one thing NYC was known for, it was that it was tough. It built itself back up and even better than before. She looked real hard and in the far distance she could see the Stark Tower. It seemed that after Mr. Stark grew some humility, he decided to leave the lone "A" on the building. After the invasion, the "A" became a beacon of hope shining brightly for those who had lost it.
Suddenly, something bright streaked across the sky. She sat up abruptly. Another soaring light went by. She calmed down when she realized that she had forgotten that there was supposed to be a meteor shower tonight. She sat back and watched the beautiful night sky become even more so. Bright streaks flew across the sky landing in places unknown. The only thing that would make this moment more perfect is if her father was here to experience it with her. After a while, there came a particularly large one compared to the rest. She watched, mouth agape as it flew…but it wasn't going across the sky like the others, it was coming out, towards something. It took her a while to realize that it has coming towards earth. She was sure she was going to hear about this one in the morning. It wasn't everyday meteors landed on earth.
Connie watched it go by. Wait, was it coming towards….her? She sat back up and looked at it and sure enough it seemed that the great ball of fire was headed towards the pasture she was in. There was no way it could land right where she was. It was only until the meteor was so close, was when she quickly gathered her coat and keys and scampered off the hood of the car. She lost her balance and rolled on the ground. Her head knocked a rock and she groaned in pain. It was a few moments before she realized that she was about to get crushed to death, when she got up dazedly of the ground. She would not have time to drive away, so she jumped behind her car. The moment she got there she covered her ears. Despite that, she still heard the deafening BOOM! As soon as it landed, strong winds billowed across the pasture causing the grass and trees to shake, and the wind whipped across her body sending her fiery hair flying all over her face.
It took her many moments to regain her composure. Connie pulled her hands away from her ears and could hear a faint ringing. She slowly peered over her car. Her mouth opened in shock. There was a massive hole in the middle of the grassland. She looked around, had anyone seen? Of course not, no one comes here. She stood behind the car still feeling protected until curiosity got the best of her. She didn't know what was in that thing. She slowly stalked barefooted towards the gaping hole in the ground. She became tenser and tenser as she neared until she was at the edge. Her mind was screaming at her to turn around and run, but she was grounded were she stood. She got down on her hands and knees and slowly peered over the edge.
Connie gasped aloud. There was no gigantic rock, what was inside the crater was a…man. And he was alive.