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SOMEONE IS AT THE DOOR. It's a dream.

I come awake slowly as my eyes open to the dark quietness of the hotel room. Immediately, flashes of yesterday roll through my head, eating at all those places, the shopping, watching the sun set from the hotel's rooftop. The highlight however, I bought her a ring. She doesn't know yet, I'll ask her in Santorini, and she can say whatever she wants, but I'll give it to her.

Another knock directs my attention to the door. Who's there?

Beside the bed, I switch on the lamp and grab my phone, it doesn't respond when I touch it. 

Right. It was switched off before I slept. 

I squeeze the power button and it boots up in my palm. 1:05am. There's a shadow seeping in from the slit under the door. I get up, slipping into the new slides I bought yesterday. In the peep hole, I see the receptionist, Christina, the white girl with red hair and green eyes; we met her on duty in the evening when we returned to the hotel. 

What does she want this early?

I open the door to find out. "Christina, it's kind of really late."

"Sorry about the troubles," she says, quite nervously. 

I peek out of the door frame, looking down the hallway at Boma's room, two doors from mine. The door is shut but there's light leaking out from under. 

Why isn't she sleeping?

Back to the receptionist, I smile, urging her to state her purpose. "Miss Lawson called the front desk, she couldn't reach your cell—"

"Yeah, I switched it off."

"Well she needed me to reach you on the intercom to ask you to come see her immediately. . ."

Come see her immediately, it's one in the morning, why would Boma do that? 

"I did call, but you didn't take it so I presumed you would have been asleep and had to come up myself."

"Did she say why?"

"No, she didn't specify."

I button up my pyjamas. "Did she sound distressed?"

"I'm not sure, but it felt urgent."

I walk out of my room, taking quick steps while Christina follows behind me. I would have disagreed that there's anything wrong but I also can't deny the nag in my mind. She did sound stressed, and she had that nasty cough again after we got back. I insisted against the walking, but she just gets so stubborn sometimes, it's impossible to go against her.

At the door, I knock. "Boma?"

She doesn't respond. I knock again, harder. She still doesn't answer. Something is wrong. I hear my heart as it picks up speed. "Is there a way to get in?"

Christina nods and hands me her keycard. I swipe it impatiently. The beep follows the green light that tells us the door is unlocked. I'm afraid of being too late or of being right that she's not fine. Maybe she's pranking me.

I suck cold air through my teeth and turn the knob.

JESUS!

My heart jumps out of my throat when I see her on the floor, beside the bed, her hair tossed over her face.

"Call for help!" I yell at Christina and rush to Boma. I pull her up against my chest and move my ears to her mouth, I don't think she's breathing. "Boma?" She's unresponsive.

JESUS! 

Christina goes on in the background. "118. We have an emergency. Splendid Venice Star Hotels . . . a guest . . . yes tourist . . . young female . . . she's totally unresponsive . . . Thank you!"

My fingers find Boma's wrist; there's blood sputtered on her palm. I feel faint drumming against my thumb. 

Pulse! PULSE! Thank God. 

I look back at Christina, telling her to check Boma's backpack for her travel documents and medical records, then to help me grab my phone and wallet from my room. She runs across the room, picking up the items, then out to get those from my room while I try to do what little CPR I can.

"The ambulance is here!" Christina returns, handing me the documents and the backpack. I shove everything in the backpack and fling it over my shoulder. Then lift her and rush out of the room.

We take the elevator to the archway. It doesn't seem fast enough.

Once out of the elevator, there are blue siren lights flashing around the dock with a big boat, almost the size of a small ferry. It looks made of metal, painted in bright yellow with red and black stripes around the edge.

Three men approach me with a stretcher: one of them is a thin man wearing blue scrubs, there are greying black hairs on his beards, with small round glasses resting on his sharp nose. The other two are tall muscular men, dressed in white short sleeved shirts and black trousers. They assist me in laying Boma on the stretcher, her tee-shirt is too short so I take off my pyjama shirt and wrap her with it.

"You will die of the cold," the man in scrubs hands me back my shirt. "We have electric blankets to warm her up." he smiles. His accent is less Italian and somehow, that comforts me more than it should.

In the boat, they waste no time in attaching things: wires, tags, an oxygen mask over her face. I watch as they take readings: temperature, heart rate, blood pressure. I hear one of the guys say it's too low and they have to elevate her legs. 

God. Bo. Please. Don't do this. Not now. I'm not ready. Please. 

"What's the situation here?" The man in scrubs asks me.

"She has sickle cell disease, and uhmm, her heart is weak and she had a cough after our tour yesterday." I rummage through the back pack and hand him her medical records.

He looks through it and instructs the other guys to administer something into the drip. "Sickle cell disease is quite common here, especially among people with mixed african heritage. She must have reacted to the cold and maybe the stress, however, I'm more than a little worried about her lungs and heart. We will be at the hospital, San Marco Memorial, shortly and we'll run elaborate tests. Get her out of danger if we can."

I just keep nodding, trying to keep my eyes dry, watching as the little electronic line on the heart monitor barely makes peaks; usually they spike. I remember the last time, after prom, when I had to go through this. It doesn't get easier.

°°°°°

The boat docks behind the huge marbled building that looks like something out of the early 1600s. Nurses rush towards us, rolling a gurney. The men lift the stretcher out of the boat and transfer it to the gurney, after which the nurses roll her away. At this point, I realise that the man in scrubs is most likely a doctor while the other two are paramedics. The doctor asks me to follow them and I do. Passing glass doors, bright white lights, white tiled floors, wafts of antiseptic and beeping noises everywhere. 

A nurse tells me I can't proceed any further and they disappear with Boma into a white door with a neon sign blinking AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.

I wait. Standing and pacing because I can't sit and cry. I've even given up on tears, I'm in shock. This can't be it, she still has one or two months. She's fine. She'll wake up. I'll give her the ring we still have a little more time.

°°°°°

Thirty slow minutes later, I'm still pacing when I see the doctor walking back to me. I rush up to him and he puts his hand on my shoulder. 

"We should speak in my office." he says and I follow him. We walk about ten quick steps to a white door. He opens and lets me in first before he enters. "Have a seat please. I'm doctor Salvadore." he takes the head chair.

I sit but it's hard to relax.

"Nigerians?" he asks. I nod, yes. "Alright," he writes something on the paper. "I'm guessing you are aware of the dangerous state of her heart and lungs?"

"Yes." 

"Well compared to her last scans and assessment, she has gotten a lot worse. Seems as if she's putting an extra amount of stress on her body." He takes off his glasses and leans forward. "Is she awaiting transplant, or is she undergoing end of life care?"

"Her doctors at home say transplant is a long shot. But you haven't told me how she is."

"For now, we stabilized her but it seems . . ."

I stop listening as my face drops to my hands, followed by a deep breath.

"How much longer will you be in Venice?"

"We were supposed to leave for Greece tomorrow."

"Hmm." He writes something on the paper again. "She's 17?" I nod. "What is your relationship with her?"

"She's my girlfriend."

"What about her parents?"

I have to call her Mom. "They're on honeymoon in Paris."

"It's not advisable that you continue with your plans of going to Greece. I would advice that you let them know what has happened and then get her home to her family as soon as she's awake."

Boma will not like this at all. She won't get to tick Santorini and Taj Mahal off her list. I really wanted her to do everything. I failed her.

"About transplants, what is it like here?"

He folds his lips, thinking. "In every country, transplantation is a long shot. The available organs are nothing compared to the pool of waiting patients on the list."

I nod. Then shrug, she's going home to die, that's it. I'm now supposed to completely accept that and wait.

"However," he says. "There's this new facility in Spain. They specialize in global matching for people in need of transplants. I can enter her into the database and then we wait for a miracle donor to show up."

"That's possible?"

"It's also a long shot. Most people die on the waiting list before there's ever a match."

Long shot. Waiting. Miracle. Die. Match.

"I understand. If there's even a little chance, I'd like to take it."

He smiles gently, sliding the piece of paper he'd been writing on towards me, a pen on it. He has already filled out some details: blood group, disease status, genotype, country, age, transplant required: Heart-lung transplant.

I look back at him. He says, "fill in the rest of the details."

Recipient Name:

Sponsor's Name:

Sponsor's nationality:

Can you cover the costs of organ transplantation?

Earnings per annum: less than 60,000 euros. More than 100,000 euros. Tick as appropriate.

I write her name, then her mom's name as sponsor, yes for coverage, and I tick more than 100,000 euros as earnings, before handing it back to the doctor. He excuses himself and I'm left alone.

I pull my phone out. It's a few minutes past 2am. There's no time difference between Paris and Venice so they would probably be asleep, but she has to know.

"Ivan?" I missed her voice.

"Good morning mom."

"Morning son, is Bomate okay?"

"There was an incident—"

"What happened?"

"She had a crisis and we're at the hospital."   

She's silent.

"Is she okay?" Tee's voice booms me to full consciousness.

"Yes, she's stable but we'll be aborting the rest of the trip. The doctor says she's gotten a lot worse and needs to be with her family." I hear her mom sobbing, Tee is silent. "I'm sorry about your honeymoon."

"We'll be on the next flight home," he says. "Errm, is she awake?"

"I have not been able to see her yet."

"Call us when she's awake."

"I will."

He hangs up just as the doctor returns. "How long does she need to stay? Since we need to return home."

"We have a 24-hour admission policy for international patients so by tomorrow, you can be well on your way."

"Can I see her now?"

"Si," he says. "Come with me."

I walk with him through electronic doors until we get to the open ward. A nurse stands over her, adjusting the drip. When she sees us, she nods and walks away. I sit next to Boma and take her hand. It's dry. I'll never get used to seeing her this way. Face without emotion, eyes closed away from me, lips shut and dry, not in her own clothes, not breathing by herself, not aware that I'm here.

The doctor examines her before patting my shoulder and leaving us alone. So I sit here, waiting for her to wake up and kiss me and tell me that she'll never leave and that we'll be together forever.