“I need an ambulance at 568 Hickory Court... My friend’s been attacked. Please hurry! I don’t know how much time she has left…”
Cooper dropped the phone to the ground not caring if he hung up or not. He focused all his attention back towards me trying to figure out what happened and to see if there was anything he could do to help me. Even though he and I both knew there was nothing to be done. There was too much damage done to my body for a single 17 year old boy to fix.
“What happened?!”
“I don’t know…” I choked, struggling with my words.
“Shh, Lynnie just rest. You’re safe now... I got you.” Cooper continued putting pressure on my stomach, trying to make me as comfortable as possible.
“Cooper, help. Please it hurts so badly. Please make it stop.” I just cried in his arms.
“I’m trying Lynnie, I’m trying. Just breathe.”
It was hurt too much to breathe; it hurt too much to think. I was in unbearable pain and I just wanted it to stop and I didn’t want to leave Cooper’s arms. I grabbed a hold of Cooper’s now bloody shirt and didn’t let go.
“Don’t let me go, Coopie. Whatever you do, don’t go…”
“Never. I’ll be here. Don’t worry.”
I must have passed out from the pain because the next time I woke again, I was in the ambulance. The paramedic tried to ask me questions but I couldn’t register what he was saying. I passed out again before I had the chance to look at Cooper’s face.
I don’t remember much from the ambulance ride other than the paramedic hooking me up to all these machines to try and keep me alive, and Cooper squeezing my hand, crying telling me that everything’s going to be okay and that he wouldn’t let me die. But that was the last thing I heard from either him or the paramedic before passing out again.

When arriving to the hospital I woke again, in even more pain that I had been in while we were still in the woods. Maybe it was because Cooper was there to help take away some of the emotional pain. Maybe it was just because I hadn’t fully realized what happened. Or maybe because I hadn’t had time to think about why someone would do this to me or who.

As they wheeled me into the ER, the doctor walked up to Cooper taking in his blood stained jeans and the blotch of blood across his white t-shirt from where he held me tightly against him, trying to keep me alive.
“What happened to her?” The doctor asked Cooper while quickly examining the wounds on my body, writing it all down in scribbles on the paper held down by an oversized clipboard.
“I don’t know, I woke up and she wasn’t on the couch… so I went looking for her… She wasn’t anywhere in the house so I decided to look outside. I heard like little sounds in the woods, so I went and found her deep in the woods in my backyard covered in blood and leaves. Her clothes were torn. She had gashes all over her stomach and chest where her heart is and scratches on her face.” Cooper said as he gasped for air and trying to clear the tears from his eyes. “I noticed dirt and stuff under her nails... I don’t know though… I just noticed every time she would breathe in and out, blood raced out faster and faster every time, I don’t know how much blood she lost or anything. I took off my hoodie to try and put pressure on her wounds that I could grab hold off but I don’t know if it did anything.” Cooper started to break down again, unable to handle the thought that I wouldn’t make it through this.

“Alright son. Thank you. You’ve done all your work here. I need you to go tell the nurse her name and have the nurse call her parents. But you can’t be back here. I’ll come out later when I know more on what her chances of making it through this ordeal are.”
The doctor disappeared behind the giant white doors; Cooper watched as the doctor walked at a faster pace, practically running down the hall making a left into the ICU. Cooper stood there for several minutes as tears streamed down his face while he tried to figure out why all this happened. Why someone would try and take my life. He turned his back to the doors to discover Callina standing there, with a worried look on her face. Confusion rushed to his face. Cooper cocked his head and blinked profusely to see if Callina was really standing before him.

“Callina... What the hell are you doing here?” Cooper demanded.
“I saw the ambulance from across the street. What happened Coop?” Callina asked frantically trying to get closer to him. Cooper rushed passed her before she had the chance to touch him and kept heading towards the waiting area.
“Cooper!” Callina yelled. “I’m here for you! Please talk to me! It’ll be like old times…”
“No! No it won’t! You know why?! Because Leighlyns lying behind those doors, with a lifeless body that’s just holding on by a thread! Go home Callina. You don’t belong here.” He snapped back at her in range that she would even think of showing up at the hospital when she didn’t even like me.
“Coopie… Plea-“
“DON’T call me Coopie. Don’t talk to me. Don’t talk to my parents or Leighlyns. Just leave Callina.” He turned his back from her and just kept heading for the waiting area where he found his parents along with my parents. My mom took one look at Cooper, seeing all of my blood now stained onto my best friend’s clothes and she dashed over to him and hugged him. Callina followed Cooper back to the waiting area, seeing him crying in my mothers arms; looking away she headed toward the doors to the parking lot.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened,”
“It’s okay sweetie…” My mom cried. “All that truly matters is that you were there for her to help her get through this, just like you are now.” My mom said as she walked over to Cooper, taking him in her arms, holding him tight. Cooper just fell apart in her embrace, causing her to cry harder as well.
“Wendy, come here. We need to let the boy relax and go home and change.” My dad, Pete said to my mom.
“No! I will be here when the doctor comes out!”
“Cooper, honey. You don’t want to sit there in those clothes.” His mom said approaching him. Cooper looked at her with a piercing look.
“Don’t touch me! I’ll wait here until the doctor comes out damn it! This is all I have of her! You won’t take it away!”
No one argued with him after that. Cooper was still in shock, still not willing to fully except what had happened, or realizes how his image looked to others, not that he cared anyway. He went and sat down in one of the new chairs they must have put there when they redid this portion of the hospital. He sat there staring at the rough green fabric. Nonstop tears streaming down him face, leaving his once turquoise eyes now bloodshot and swollen. Raw from being rubbed one to many times in effect to get the tears away from his face. Cooper, his parent’s and mine waited there in that newly furnished waiting area for about 45 minutes until the doctor finally came out those big white doors.

“Hello, my names Dr. Haven. I’m working on your daughter’s case. It seems she’s been stabbed in the stomach numerous times. Seven to be exact. The stabbings have punctured her stomach and kidney. She was also stabbed pretty close to the heart, but it just missed puncturing her lung instead. She has some internal bleeding. We are doing our best to try and stop it. But I do believe whoever did this new what they were doing.”
“Oh my… is she going to be okay?!” My mom cried.
“For now. She’s in the ICU. I’m sorry but no one can see her at this time. Not until we know she’s going to make it through the night. She’s asleep right now, but she can’t quite breathe on her own. So we have on a machine kind of like life support, but it’s not quite as extreme. I’m here if there’s anything I can do, let me know. I’ll be keeping you updated on her condition. But I suggest that you all go home, get some rest and come back in the morning” Dr. Haven said as calmly as he could considering the situation. I think Dr. Haven just didn’t want Cooper sitting there in bloody clothes scaring the nurses or any of the other patients in the hospital.
“And find out she’s dead?! No. You’re crazy. I’ll be waiting right here in this chair until you, Dr. Haven, say I am allowed to go back there to see my best friend! Which who I may remind you was attacked in MY back yard. On MY watch. She need’s to make it through this and she will. And I will be here so don’t even think about telling me to leave.”
The doctor nodded his head at our parents, giving a slight smile full of worry and disappeared again down the long white hallway he came from, going back behind those giant white doors that held his best friend, back to what seemed like a completely different world to Cooper.

Cooper sat back down into the chair as his father said, “Son, I want you to know your mother and I will support you through all this. If you need anything just let either your mother or I know.” Coopers dad said while keeping his distance from his son.
“Yes, you’re father’s right. Anything, anything at all honey. We’ll go home and get you a change of clothes okay?”
Cooper didn’t reply. He just continued back to staring into the green fabric of the newly placed hospital chair. His mother slowly approached Cooper, and slowly went to touch his shoulder, and kissed the very top of his head. Causing Cooper to let out silent tears. Feeling them roll down each of his cheek. Cooper closed his eyes tight, trying to hold himself together, bringing his knees up to his chest and hugging himself.
“Please make it through this Leighlyn… I need you.” Cooper said under his breathe. My mother just looked at Cooper and I could feel such intense agony in her heart for Cooper and me both. My mother had helped raise Cooper and I. Cooper was just another one of her children to her. My mother never liked seeing one of us in such pain. It killed me to know there was nothing I could do but look on and hope they could get through this themselves, without me around to try and cheer them up.

Cooper’s parents returned with fresh clean clothes for him. But it didn’t make a difference. His best friend was still in critical condition, in the ICU and he couldn’t be by her side if she were to wake in a strange place she didn’t recognize as Cooper’s basement.
How could this happen? Why didn’t she wake me up? I don’t understand… Cooper thought to himself over and over. He had stopped crying by now, eyes puffy and red, unable to move from the chair he had been sitting in for hours, continuously staring into the green fabric. He hadn’t had any idea of how much time had passed since he had arrived with the ambulance. He hadn’t any idea how long his parent’s had been sitting directly across from him staring in worry and fear. Or how long his best friend was laying in unimaginable pain in the woods.

Cooper was still sitting in that same chair, staring at the same spot on the fabric, with no sleep, still waiting for the doctor to come out and tell him that I was going to be okay.
His parent’s came and went throughout the day, along with my parents. Not wanting to try and make him leave, knowing he wouldn’t. When the doctor finally came out, that’s the only time Coop sprang to his feet wanting to know whatever bit of information he could get out of her.

“Do you ever go home?” The doctor said while flipping through the pages on his clipboard. My parents came running up behind Coop. My mom grabbing hold of Coop’s shoulders.
“No. What’s the news? Is she okay? Is she gonna make it? What, tell me?” Cooper was fidgety, worried and anxious. All he wanted to here was I was going to make it and he could go back and see me now.
“Right now, I don’t know. She wakes up at random times, but she’s unable to talk. She’s only awake for several minutes before she passes out again, from which I believe is pain that causes her to pass out again.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do to take that pain away?!” Cooper cried.
“No, not without putting her into a drug induced coma. Which, if we do, with her conditions, she may not wake up again. We have to wait until her body is good and ready to wake up.” The doctor said with a slight smile.
“What the hell is that suppose to mean?!” Cooper started getting frustrated. He wanted to go back there and be by my side.
“Her body needs time to heal, recover from it all. Until then I don’t think she’s going to stay awake for very long if at all.”
“What are her chances of making it through all of this?” My father asked the doctor.
“Well… right now I’d say she only has a forty percent chance of making it.”
My mom fell into my dad’s arms crying. Cooper just turned his back to the doctor and ran outside, kicking a rock half way across the parking lot almost hitting a car in the process.

They continued to wait for news from Dr. Haven for what seemed like days. They didn’t know my condition had only gotten worse, they didn’t know I stopped waking up hours ago and my heart was ready to stop pumping blood throughout my body to keep me alive. They didn’t know how badly my lung had been punctured, or where I had been stabbed exactly. They didn’t know that my eye lids felt like windows, locked shut. I could feel my heart beat weaken as the time past, but I didn’t know how much time pasts. Not until I found myself walking up the same white hallway Cooper had been watching me being wheeled down. The hallways elongated, and the same bright white, but still seemed so dull and dark, I hadn’t realized I died yet. I walked into the waiting area, saw Cooper and all of my blood stained to his clothes and screamed.
“COOPER!”
He didn’t answer me, or notice. Nor did my parent’s or his. I walked up to them tried doing anything and everything to get there attention.
“Mom! It’s me! Dad? Hello! Can you guys here me?”
Cooper suddenly bounced up from his chair; I turned around to look behind me, seeing the doctor… My doctor.
“Well! What’s going on? It’s been hours.”
“Cooper! Please… let the doctor speak.” His mother said as she approached him.
“I’m sorry. She, she just wasn’t strong enough to pull through. She bleed out too much in the woods and there was too much internal damage to be repaired. If there is anything I can do, don’t hesitate.” The doctor gave a smile filled with remorse. I stood there in awe. I was dead, and alone. Cooper stood staring at the spot the doctor had been standing.
“Cooper I’m sorry! I don’t know what happened! Cooper!” I disappeared from the hospital. Although, I suppose it was for the best I did... I didn’t have to watch my mother and father cry over the loss of my life, there only daughter. I didn’t have to watch Cooper scream and cry, although I could feel it. I could feel all the pain my parents and Cooper felt, which only made it as bad as being there.

“Cooper... It’s time to go home.” His mother stammered.
Cooper turned his back to the hospital and walked straight for the car. His parents watched in pain as there son’s world was being carefully ripped apart with the loss of my life, his best friend since birth. I already missed Cooper, I wanted nothing more than to hug him and tell him how much I loved him, my little Cooper. I could feel he missed me too.

I’ll find out who did this. Damn it Leighlyn! Why did you have to go? Why?! Now I have no one… My best friend is dead. Leighlyn how could you do this to me? Didn’t you know I needed you? That I don’t know how to get through this without you? As if I could. How could you…
Cooper though to himself. Which he had been doing a lot lately, and I found it strange that I could hear what he thought. I was able to sense his pain. It was so powerful is took over and I just cried, tears streaming down my newly healed face. Cooper and his family drove home in silence. I was there when they arrived, he did nothing but head straight for his room, locked the door and bellowed out screams of pain and tears until he passed out from all the emotional stress he had been feeling. He did this for days, not speaking to a single person.

My funeral was held at the church where Cooper and I were baptized as babies. My entire family was there, my friends from school, teachers. My mother was crying like a baby, and my dad was right there next to her, doing everything he could to stay strong but I could see the tears in his eyes just waiting to fall.
“It’s okay to cry daddy.” I whispered faintly into his ear as a silent tear ran down his rough cheek.
Cooper sat quietly in a chair directly in front of my casket. I kneeled down by him, resting my hands on his knees. He couldn’t feel it, but that didn’t matter. My summer dress I had been wearing the night of the attack was new and clean. It sprawled out around me as I looked up into Coopers sleep deprived eyes. The once beautiful turquoise color of his eyes was now a dull hazel. He was pale, with dark purple circles around his eyes. He hadn’t slept in days.
“Coopie, I love you so much!” I said squeezing his leg. “I miss you more than anything, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be stronger. Cooper, you don’t know the pain I was feeling. I’m sorry.” I kissed his forehead as someone snapped a picture, that someone being Callina. I looked at her and she turned around and walked away. I got up to follow her, but she ran out so fast I couldn’t keep up.
“Cooper, Honey. I know you’re in pain sweetie. But…” his mothers voice trailed off as her son looked up at her with his now hazel eyes filled with tears and she couldn’t speak another word, she just wrapped her arms around him as he cried again. Just like he did when he was little.
“Oh Cooper. I love you so so much. I know it hurts now, but it’ll be okay.” His mother finally spoke out. But Cooper wouldn’t hear it; he just shook his head and continued to cry.

Meanwhile I found myself trying by best to search for Callina, and why she walk at my funeral taking pictures of my best friend who was in no way shape or form to be messed with, especially by her if she’s as crazy as Cooper says.

I searched the parking lot and found her sitting her lime green VBug. She was staring at the picture of Cooper she had snapped just minutes before. Her window was down and since I knew she couldn’t see me I stuck my head in and that’s when I saw it. The picture of Cooper, face lost in his hands. And me. ME, Leighlyn kneeling up to him with my hands of the lower part of his thighs kissing his forehead. How in the world did she capture me, someone dead in the picture of Cooper’s misery?
I ran back into the funeral home as Callina raced off, I didn’t know what to do. I tried everything I could to get anyone’s attention but it didn’t work.
I waited until my service was over and got into the car with Cooper. All the way back to his house she just stared out the window with his music playing so loud everyone in the car could hear. That was his way of ignoring the world and going to his own. As soon as we came into the driveway, I raced up to Cooper’s room finding a letter addressed to Cooper. I knew exactly what it was. Callina had somehow gotten herself into his house. And left him the picture.
When Cooper got up to his room, he discovered the letter and opened it. It didn’t say who it was from but I knew when the picture fell from the letter. Cooper carefully picked it up, staring in disbelief.
“Leighlyn?” He said to himself, continuing to stare at it until he realized the letter on the ground. He picked it up unfolding it and revealing what it said.


Cooper,
She’s still there. STILL. But don’t worry, I’ll fix it. She won’t hurt you anymore.

Cooper had no idea who left the letter. He put the letter down, looking at the picture again. He couldn’t cry anymore. He was no longer sad, he was angry. Angry with me for letting go, angry with my killer, angry with the world for ripping apart his life.