3 Two*

Her face wasn't as bright as I'd hoped. I instinctively knew I'd have to give up confessing to her. I also made a mental note to remember to never drink more than two glasses of wine because I always speak my heart out when I'm almost drunk.

When my uncle took the board from her hands to look at the results, I hadn't expected that his face would get more severe. I guess Dawn's condition is way worse than the nurse had expected. My uncle's expression told me she is not the best case for surgery or cancer treatments. However, I'm — at most times — wrong, assuming things to be worse than the current situation when it comes to reading my uncle's face. It's because I keep forgetting that my uncle's face is always severe when it comes to talking with his patients.

Considering that, I decided that maybe the situation is the same as the nurse had predicted. So when my uncle spoke, I suspected that he'd say she needs to get medical cancer treatment.

"Dawn... From the information your tests provided and what you and your parents told me, the situation seems a bit worse than I had predicted. It looks like you have cancer, which is a part of what I had been thinking. However, I had only expected it to be only at the lungs, making it somewhat easier for receiving chemotherapy and possibly leading to full recovery."

By now, I started to think about the worst-case scenario. Dawn officially had cancer, but in a stage that can't be cured perfectly, so in stage IV or over. This means that the survival rate for her with the disease was at most 20%.

"According to the MRI, CT, PET, and bone scans we did with you, cancer has already spread to the fluids around your lungs, which isn't the best case for therapies. I would have to assert that it is best if you focus only on healing for now because I'm not even sure if the medicine will work well with you. Since you have close relatives that have suffered from cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and asthma, I guess genetics could have played a role in this diagnosis."

I can tell that he is using the computer screen to explain the situation with her lungs, but the only thing I can see is her expression and it's not good. Since I'm still working with Excel, I can't see much of that either.

The auditory signal I could receive were just my uncle's voice explaining Dawn's current state. The more I listened to it, however, I began to suspect that she may only have a life expectancy of two years at most. I hoped what I'm suspecting isn't true, though. I still hoped maybe I could still confess to her about having a crush on her. I know I should've given up on that way earlier, but I just can't help hoping.

"So, to sum it up, your cancer is small-cell lung cancer and is currently in stage IV. The tumour has made its way to the fluids around your lungs. The percentage of you living after five years is 10%. Due to your family history involving diseases related to the lungs, there might be a chance that you may not even be able to live the five years I have predicted. Of course, this is just a probability, so this may improve if you receive enough care for the time we do the chemotherapy. I recommend you to stay in this hospital for a bit, and if the tumour doesn't respond well to the therapy, I would then recommend you to move to a hospice, to stay for the time you live."

Things were definitely in the worst-case scenario. My uncle would never recommend moving to the hospice before the treatments began. I've only seen him say it to one patient who was at the final stage of a type of thyroid cancer. This patient ended up moving to the hospice after about two weeks, concluded that the chemotherapy doesn't work at all.

By now, I've finished working with Excel, so I was able to see Dawn's face. She was very white, and I could easily tell that she had lost a lot of weight. Her face has lost the pinkish glow I love and became slightly greyish.

Dawn let out a deep breath and said, "Could I move to the hospice right away? My aunt that died from cystic fibrosis told me that most of the family didn't respond well to chemotherapy. This isn't just about my mum's side: my dad's family members also didn't respond well to it, either."

"Well, even at the hospice, they'll still do the chemotherapy. If you want to, I can reserve a spot for you at the hospice. It'll take about a week to make space for you, and it'll be close to nature. Would you need to request a nurse for your stay? They have nurses there as well, but it isn't personal, so it might be difficult to receive personal care if there are too many people in need of it." My uncle nodded and started typing on the keyboard, probably connecting the doctor at the hospice he knew.

Dawn looked slightly upwards to meet my eyes with her brown eyes that always remind me of cinnamon, and asked the query I'd never expected.

"Could I go with Lucas?"