After her short encounter with Kyle, Viviana went back to her room. As scheduled, the renowned specialist came to the hospital and attended to each patient individually with their parents present to give them updates on the patient's condition. Lorenzo also arrived at the hospital and was having a chat with Viviana about her health and Theo's upcoming birthday she was excited about. He was glad that she was in a good mood.
" Is Aunty Lizzy going to be present, it's been a while I since heard from her. …" Viviana was inquiring about the guests' list for the birthday As Viviana received guidance from her father, a soft knock interrupted her. Two individuals, a lady in her thirties and a young man in his mid-twenties, entered the room. Their professional attire resembled that of doctors. Since Viviana hadn't encountered them at the hospital before, she speculated they might be the international specialist and her new assistant.
" Good afternoon. You must be Viviana and I guess you are Mr. Lorenzo Marino. I am Dr. Brenda Xavier." The lady greeted waving at Viviana and then giving Lorenzo a handshake. When Viviana discovered her name was Xavier, she quickly realized that this lady must be related to Kyle, paying more attention to her looks, there were subtle resemblances as their facial structure had some similarities, she had the same shade of brown hair as Kyle and most striking resemblance are those hazel eyes that always stands.
"I oversee this ward as the head specialist. I regret not being present when your daughter was admitted, but I've thoroughly reviewed her case, and that's what we'll be discussing today." She informed before she pointed at the young man beside her and added" By the way, this is Dr. Casper Walter. He is my new assistant, more like an apprentice as he would be working directly under me to handle your cases. I know he might look a little young, but I assured even though he doesn't have much experience, he graduated with first-class honors from Cambridge University." Dr. Brenda properly introduced her new assistant.
Ludwig, who now bears the identity of Casper Walter, nodded at Lorenzo and Viviana. " Good afternoon." Viviana was shocked at how good-looking the new doctor looked. ' I guess I would be expecting a lot of gossip relating to him from the nurses.' she thought to herself because Casper was a head-turner. He even had silver eyes like her father, only that he had a tint of gray in his own making them slightly darker, the best way to describe his eyes is gray-silver-like. He was the third person she had seen with this eye color as they as extremely rare just like her emerald green eyes.
Lorenzo, who had been quiet all this while, finally, spoke. " Please pardon me Miss Xavier but have we met before, you look familiar." He asked, puzzled because it felt like Brenda was someone he knew a long time ago.
Brenda smiled at Lorenzo's question, she never expected Lorenzo would find her familiar as it had been like two decades since she last saw him. " I wasn't expecting you to find me familiar Mr. Marino, but I think it's because we attended the same high school, you were ahead of me by 2 grades. We were both in the Math club." Brenda replied. Although she and Lorenzo were the same age, he was ahead of her because he was exceptional. She also heard his children possess exceptional intellects like him.
Brenda and Lorenzo grew up together as they were both from the high class in society, so they attended similar schools before Lorenzo left to study abroad after high school. While growing up, she was drawn to Lorenzo just like other girls. Back then they had a secret fan club for him. Now she thinks back at her teenage foolishness she can't help but laugh at her younger self. She tried all ways to get close to him, but Lorenzo was always passive when it came to people and dedicated most of his time to his tech and hacking skills, which made him more cool combined with his looks.
To get close to him, she even tried making friends with Lorenzo's friend and whenever she was close enough to him, she tried initializing conversations in which Lorenzo either ignored her or gave her civil answers when he didn't want to be rude. She always had teenage fantasies about them ending up together and used her little power as the youngest child of the Xavier family to play little schemes to get his attention, which never worked as she is pretty sure now that Lorenzo probably saw her as another crazy fan girl. All of Lorenzo's friends then knew she was crazy about him, except Lorenzo himself, because he always acted like they were casual acquaintances whenever they met in public. After all, he could not ignore her openly since she was a daughter of the Xavier family.
Her heart was broken when she found out that Lorenzo had gotten married abroad and later had two children from a close friend of Lorenzo's who was also close to her. It was after that her teenage fantasy was broken, and she got over her crush. She dedicated her time to her career, so you can indirectly say that what she has been able to achieve today was all thanks to him.
Lorenzo was a little surprised, but it didn't show on his as he still had a stern expression. No wonder her face seemed familiar, but he could remember her name was Diana before, why is it Brenda now? He remembered her as one of the girls who always pestered him back then, she made sure she was on good terms with all his friends so that she could be close to him. Then all his friends always joked about her being his number one fan, talking about how much she liked him, but honestly, he never observed it or more like he would rather not pay attention to it as it wasn't relevant to him. He always made sure to put a gap between them so that Diana or Brenda, whatever name she goes by, would realize how he was uninterested in her.
" I think I remember you, but I thought your name was Diana." He stated his confusion. Brenda, who realized where the confusion, was coming from, immediately stated. " Yes, my middle name was Diana, but my first name is Brenda. I was popular by my middle name Diana because there were countless girls in school that went by the name Brenda." Lorenzo hummed in understanding. Viviana was staring at both adults during their exchange, it made her wonder what her father was like in his teenage age was he similar to Theo's personality.
" Okay, since we have exchanged all pleasantries we can get back to the agenda of the day." Her professional voice declared, but before she could proceed, Viviana voiced out one last question. " Miss Xavier, are you related to Kyle? The patient opposite my room." Brenda wasn't shocked that Viviana knew Kyle, since their rooms were opposite each other. She just hopes Kyle's recent attitude, which Gloria informed her about doesn't harm Viviana. She understands why he is behaving like a deviant now, but it still doesn't justify it.
" Yes, I am related to Kyle. He is my elder brother's son, my nephew. I guess you guys have already met before. So now back to Viviana's case." She answered Viviana, satisfying her curiosity. Brenda opened the file in her hands and brought out some scan and x-ray results along with written results. "These are Viviana's recent results after she started taking treatment here at the hospital."
" As you can see, so far, the only organ badly affected are her lungs, and we can't do a transplant surgery because we don't have a complete understanding of her CFX case as each individual's case is different from the other and Viviana's lungs are not too damaged, yet she can still manage them as long as she strictly uses her respirator. …"
" Since Viviana has been diligent in her treatment, it seems that her body is responding positively. If things continue like this you won't have to stay in the hospital every day but just come for your weekly tests and to refill your drug dose, but I would still advise even if it comes to that stage, staying at the hospital would be better because CFX has a bad habit of its symptoms flaring up when you least expect it. I know the other doctor has already given you a good image of everything. I am pretty sure Viviana was having some symptoms which she mistook as cold, since the results indicate the mutation started 3 months ago during last autumn."
Viviana also remembered the strange cough she had during autumn last year. " One thing I would be honest about is that this will be a hard fight, and we would try our best." She finally encouraged Viviana. Lorenzo didn't say anything, as he was kind of already informed about this from other doctors.
" Mr. Marino, we would appreciate it if you support Viviana emotionally the best way you can during this period. We just pray, no matter what, Viviana won't get to the last stage." She told Lorenzo. Thereafter, she spoke more about other tests and results. Casper also shed some light on his thoughts, and it turned out he was an excellent doctor.