My Name is Andrew Lee Cooper.

Chapter Thirteen

"Dad?" As I'm turned around, I can tell that it's him. He has wide shoulders, and he's tall. He has white hair and a long, well-kept beard. He looks nice. Different; yet the same.

"Dad!" I rush to him in tears. He wraps his arms around me and I'm engulfed in the thick scent of cologne and aftershave. The smell brings me back to when I was a child. I remember waiting and waiting for him to come home after work, and once he finally did, he would pick me up and give me a hug. I would inhale his scent and marvel at the smell of his cologne. He always wore the same brand, always the same scent. I sometimes would steal it and wear some to school because I loved it so much. After his death, I remember waiting for him to come home from work knowing he wouldn't come. I knew he wouldn't appear, I knew he was gone. Yet, I sat in front of our front door and waited for it to open and for the smell of his cologne to wash over me. It never did. I ended up going to the bathroom and taking all the bottles of cologne he had and stashing them under my bed. I'm pretty sure I still have them in a box somewhere.

"Hey, kiddo. I missed you." I pull back, tears streaming down my face. He always used to call me that.

"How are you here?" I ask, wiping the tears from my eyes. He looks at me with pitiful sorrow on his face.

"Andrew, why did you do it?" My breath catches in my throat. He knows. He knows and he avoided my question. "You have so many people that love you. Why did you think that this was the only option for you?" I bite the inside of my cheek, embarrassed, but fury begins to bubble inside me.

"I don't have that many people, Dad. You left me, Mom doesn't even like to waste her time dealing with me, and a lot of my friends dropped me. If Mom really loved me, she wouldn't treat Claire and I the way she does." He looks taken aback, but recollects himself.

"I may not be there for you to hug and talk to, but I've always been there. Always." I look at him for a few seconds, neither of us saying anything.

"You're not real." I say. He smiles.

"I knew you'd figure it out." He says. I gaze around me at the hospital walls and hallways. There is barely any light; and it's too quiet to be a hospital. I look back at him and I feel like crying again. He comes closer, putting his hand on my shoulder. I look up at him, and his eyes bore into me.

"Son," he starts, "this isn't how you solve your problems." Son. He called me his son. "You can't just give up. I know it seems like nothing will ever get better, it seems like the end of the world. But it's not. You just have to press on and push forward. You have to get through the present to get to the future." He pulls me back into him. "Andrew, you're getting a second chance. Don't ruin it. Life is a gift. I love you, kiddo." I step back. Second chance? "Goodbye." He starts disappearing and I start panicking.

"Second chance?" I grasping at thin air. "Dad? Dad!" I screaming into the void, and soon there's nothing left but the scent of his cologne.

I wake up in a hospital bed. Monitors beep and machines hum. I have an IV in my arm and the air smells of medicine and cleansing wipes.

This is my second chance.

"Lily?" A small, squeaky voice sounds to my left and I'm in tears. I look in that direction, and Claire is standing at the edge of my hospital bed. Her hair is in soft ringlet curls, and her big eyes look up at me. She jumps up on the bed and wraps her little arms around me. She begins to wail and I can't think about anything but her.

"Hey, hey, hey. It's alright. I'm okay. I'm here. I'm right here." I try to comfort her, but it doesn't seem to work. I She continues to sob, until someone peels her off of me.

"Go sit in the hall." A voice, laced with venom, sounds in front of me. Claire begins to whine. "Now." My vision is pretty blurred, but I can tell who it is as Claire steps out. We are alone in the room now, and I'm scared. She walks towards me and I sit up, bracing myself for impact. She grabs the collar of my shirt and pulls me towards her; and we're almost nose to nose. My eyes are as big a saucers and she looks hungry. Like a wolf stalking her prey. I swear I can hear her growl as she talks.

"I don't know what the hell kind of stunt you were trying to pull, Lilian, but-" She is cut off as the door swings open and a doctor enters. She flies to the other end of the room and smiles charmingly at the doctor. He is wearing a long, white lab coat and mint-green scrubs underneath. He is tall, muscular, and has a sharp jawline dusted with a dark five-o'clock shadow. His nametag on his shirt reads "Dr. Zach O'Farrell" in big, black, blocky letters. His smile is bright and his aura is calm. He walks over to me with a clipboard in hand. I can't seem to calm down and I think he can tell I'm frazzled.

"Hello, Lilian, I'm Dr. O'Farrell. Feel free to call me Zach." He reaches his hand out to me. I take it; it's warm.

"I prefer to go by Andrew, actually." I say it mainly for my own comfort purposes, but also to piss Mother off. Zach nods, his expression unwavering. He scribbles something on my chart.

"That is not her name. My daughter is not really feeling that well, Doctor." I put a hand up to silence her, and I sit up a tad.

"That is your son's name, actually." I say it with such hatred I didn't think I had in me. The doctor looks from Mother to me, back to Mother, and at last back to me.

"Okay Ma'am," Zach says, looking at Mother, "we have to do what is best for our patients and given his mental state and what he has been through I think we need to just make him feel comfortable." I almost start to cry. Mother looks like she's going to as well, but more out of anger than happiness and relief. She sits in a tiny chair in the corner of the room, huffing and puffing.

"Now, Andrew, how are you feeling right now? Any dizziness, nausea, pain, or soreness?" I shrug.

"I'm kind of tired, but not really dizzy. My head hurts and so do my arms." I reply. Your arms. Remember what you did? You're so pathetic. You're such a coward. I look around the room but there's no sight of Umbra. I wait for him to say something else but he doesn't.

"Alright, well we can grab you some pain meds for that. Any history of allergies to any medications?" He looks at Mother. She shakes her head. "Okay then, either a nurse or I will be back with some meds for you." I thank him, and Mother stays silent until he's out of the room. She looks like she's about to say something, but then Claire comes running back in. She climbs back onto my bed and puts her little hand in mine. I look at Mother. She stands, fury in her eyes.

"I can't even look at you right now." She says, and then she leaves. Claire won't let go of me so I hold her tight; I hadn't realized how much I missed her.

"Lily, what happened?" She says into my shoulder. I pull back and sit her across from me. She hesitantly touches the thick, white bandages on both of my forearms and looks at them for a while. "Did someone hurt you?" I look away, trying my best not to cry. I feel so bad.

"No, Claire. I, uh..." This is harder than I thought it would be. "I did it." Her little nose crunches up as her face contorts into confusion.

"What? Why?" I sigh.

"Because... It's hard to explain, sweetie."

"Explain it to me." Her mind's made up, I can tell.

"Maybe when you're older, baby." 

A/N: Sorry these past few chapters have been kind of short! Hope you guys are enjoying it! Please, leave me comments so I can improve! <3