Longevity Center was close to the street where Alexis was found unconscious, so the ambulance reached the hospital in no time. When the driver of the ambulance opened the patient pod, Melissa was already there with other assistants to receive her daughter.
As the assistants were shifting Alexis from patient pod to the patient board (stretcher), Melissa's eyebrows curled up and you could clearly see wrinkles on her forehead. Melissa could feel everything around her becoming blur and every sound dying out. She was finding it difficult to breath and she felt her body becoming cold with sweat. She was searching for something to grasp on and she saw a hand held out to her.
Melissa took that hand and she heard the words, "You must be her mom. Don't worry. She is going to be alright." She felt a gentle pat on her shoulder which was comforting.
Then suddenly Melissa felt everything return back to normal. She looked at the person whose hand she was holding. He was roughly around the same age as her daughter. He had dark hair neatly combed to the side. And he had beautiful emerald green eyes, just like her daughter's.
Her judgmental eyes were interrupted by an assistant, "Ma'am, which ward shall we take her to?"
"Take her to the staff ward, she is my daughter," Melissa ordered the assistant after coming to her senses.
The staff moved forward and the patient board followed him as if it was mentally connected to the staff. Melissa turned to the boy and said, "I need to look after her treatment. Will you please wait in the lounge so that I can thank you properly?"
Although the boy was in a hurry, he agreed to Melissa and followed her inside to the hospital. Melissa gestured him towards the lounge and said, "Please! Make yourself comfortable." And then she hurried towards the staff ward, where her daughter was taken.
The boy was looking around the hospital and was slowly walking towards the lounge. He heard a very loud noise behind him and turned back to see who was causing such a ruckus. He saw a girl in the bath robe and flip flops and thought that she must be a hospital patient who was unstable.
"Ma'am, I have to ask you to calm down and speak slowly so that I can understand what you are asking." A reception staff was trying to speak very patiently to that girl.
"Why can't you understand the simple thing I am asking?" Natalia was trying very hard not to shout at the receptionist so she spoke carefully and slowly, "I want to know if NURSE Melissa's daughter was brought to this hospital or not? She was found unconscious on the street."
"I was on a small break earlier. Let me check and get back to you." The receptionist gave a fake smile and started to scroll through the records of patients on the screen that was in front of her.
"I cannot believe this." Natalia murmured to herself in anger.
The boy was hearing all this conversation and he approached Natalia. "I think we spoke on the phone earlier. Your friend is being treated right now; her mother took her to the staff ward."
Natalia let out a huge sigh of relief and said, "Thank you so much for bringing her to the hospital. I thought I had to go look for her in the street from the way you were talking before."
The boy did not know how to receive this backhanded compliment and simply gave an awkward smile and asked, "Why don't we wait in the lounge while she is getting treated?"
"Sounds like a good idea. My legs are wobbly from all the tension." Natalia stared to walk ahead of the boy and lead the way.
Both of them sat down on the comfortable sofa in the lounge. There was chilling silence for a while. Natalia being a talkative one started the conversation with the boy. "I never caught your name by the way?"
"I'm Vorian. Vorian Zadoc. And you are?" Vorian asked with not so curious look on his face.
Natalia thought it was a very uncommon name that this guy had but didn't want to say anything about it, and simply replied to his question, "I'm Natalia Gonzales."
Again, there was a silence in the lounge for a while. Natalia started to speak again. "I'm sorry for shouting at you earlier. I couldn't control myself when I heard that my best friend was lying unconscious on the ground."
Natalia apologized for her behavior earlier and started to complain, "It must have been those bullies again. What has she ever done to them? Poor Lexi! If I knew they were still torturing her, I would have accompanied her back to her home. I even asked Lexi the other day if the bullies were still after her. She said she had become an expert in avoiding them, obviously she was not. I shouldn't have listened to her; I should have just grabbed her hand and dropped her to her home every day."
Vorian understood why she was acting like crazy; she cared about her friend dearly and hearing about what happened might have been a great shock to her. Vorian attempted to console Natalia, "She is very lucky to have a friend like you. Not everyone has a friend like you who is ready to fight everyone for a friend's sake."
"I agree… she is one lucky girl. She is lucky that she found you in that deserted street. Who knows what would have happened to her if you were not there in the right time?" Natalia showed her gratitude towards Vorian indirectly.
Melissa entered the lounge with a sense of relief on her face. When she saw Natalia in her bath robe, she could not help but laugh. "Oh! Nat. You must have been really worried about Lexi."
Seeing Melissa's looks travelling over her body, Natalia looked to see if anything was wrong. And to her horror, she was still in her bath robe AND she was wearing flip flops. And she was talking to a boy looking like this the whole time. She had never felt this embarrassed of herself.
Melissa noticed Natalia was uncomfortable and said, "But your hair looks really nice. Were you preparing to go somewhere?"
Natalia's eyes were wide open. She had completely forgotten about her date tonight. She looked at the time and it was already 7:15 PM. "Shoot! I forgot about my date tonight."
Melissa was surprised, "Date? Then what are you doing here in the lounge? You should go."
"How can I leave Lexi here like that? I cannot even think about enjoying myself when she is in the hospital." Natalia was really looking forward to this date but she could not bring herself to leave her best friend in the hospital. It would be like betraying their friendship.
"Lexi would be very upset if she knew you were not able to go on your first date because of her. Lexi will be fine; you should go and have fun." Melissa gave a soft smile and encouraged Natalia to go on her date, "And besides, she is not alone here, I can take care of your friend."
Finally, Natalia felt reassured and smiled, "Thank you! Melissa. I'll call you later then." Natalia hugged Melissa and then ran out of the lounge; she was already late and she had not even done anything yet, neither makeup, nor dress up.
Melissa finally went and sat beside Vorian and hugged him, "Thank you so much young man." She pulled herself back and smiled at the gentleman and said, "I owe my daughter's life to you. If it weren't for you I don't know what would have happened to my precious daughter. Thank you for taking your time to save my Lexi."
Vorian smiled back at her and said, "Anyone else would have done the same for her. I just happened to be there."
He was also in a hurry. He was only there because he could not say no to Melissa before. And he wanted to get back to his schedule, "I would also like to take a leave now. I have to go somewhere urgently. How is your daughter doing?"
"She has not regained her conscious yet but other than that, her treatment went well. Would you like to see her before you go?" Melissa asked courteously to Vorian.
"Yes, if that's okay with you." Vorian was curious about one thing so he wanted to see her once before he went away.
"Of course it's okay. You are her savior after all. Please come this way." Melissa led the gentleman to the room Alexis was in. "I have to check on other patients as well. Thank you once again." Melissa gave him a bright smile and then went back to resume her duty.
Vorian slowly entered the room and then his eyes twinkled with joy. At last, he found her! His soulmate!