Heartsteel

sandwich

It's not heavy anymore. I mean — me — I'm not heavy anymore.

My dad left about forty-five minutes ago to pick Nilsa up from school and then take her to pick up some Subway sandwiches for the three of us on their way back to our apartment. That was around the same time that I started feeling it...I mean, stopped feeling it. The heaviness that's been plaguing me, impeding me, since my 'successful' heart transplant a week ago. It's suddenly just gone. Gravity isn't fighting me anymore.

I'm in my bedroom, dressed in only pale-blue shorts and a violet, front-zip bra, staring at myself in an arched full-length mirror next to my wardrobe.

The flab of my lower belly fat looks reduced a bit. I looked it up five minutes ago; most people lose about ten percent of extra weight in the weeks after their surgery. Who knew there was an upside to such risky surgery? Well, besides 'living', I guess.

My hands fiddle with the hemovac's tubes sticking out of my tummy, which are concealed by a dense wrapping of gauze. They don't feel as disturbing as they did when I first woke from surgery, though I get a pang of nausea if I mess with them too much. I withdraw my hands before they linger too long, and then rest my thumbs on either side of the grey pouches' waist strap around me.

Grey...mystical grey...like Doctor Fadel's eyes — his glowing ey-

No. Stop it. That wasn't real. Stop bringing it up.

I screw my eyes shut, tangle my hands in my raveled hair (I've been neglecting it for weeks now, and it seriously needs a comb and good shampooed wash).

My eyes open and I lock them with the mirror once again. I pull out my hands, though it takes a minute to free them from the kinky coils, then I gently bring one to the elevated skin that is the dreaded incision site. Most of it is hidden behind my bra, but the upper-half of it is still visible. It's a mini, frail mountain on my chest, one that feels like it could split open at any moment and leave me an upright corpse with my foreign heart on display. I can't touch it for too long, if I do it leaves my insides unsettled somehow.

The jingle of keys snatches my attention. I back away from the mirror towards the twin bunk bed against the wall behind me. Nilsa sleeps over often, but it was only last year that me, dad, and Nilsa realized how useful — and pricey — a bunk bed could be.

I grab the black t-shirt that I left on the lilac comforter and throw it on just as I hear the front door swing open. Nil's voice resounds through the unit, and the sound of plastic bags shuffling gets louder.

"Yeah, yeah don't worry, mom," Nilsa says into her phone.

She pushes my already ajar bedroom door all the way till it lightly bumps into the wall, and she waddles her way in, her backpack dangling from the crook of her elbow while she presses the phone to her ear, and two white plastic bags carrying foot-long sandwiches in them secured in her free hand. I cross over to her and procure the two bags of sandwiches and then offer my hand out to recieve the phone from her next, but Nil waves me off.

"I got it, don't worry. You should get to it. 끊을게요 (keu-neul-keyo) I'm hanging up." She ends the call and gives me a look of exhaustion. This girl, who also gets up at least four times a week at six in the morning for a run. "Mom says hi."

"I could have just said hi myself," I say as Nil shuffles past me to get to the bottom bunk.

"She didn't have time. She just got to work and there's like seven delivery orders already placed." Nil discards her bag on the floor by the bed, flops onto the comforter, then extends an open-palm while aiming her ravenous gaze at the sandwiches in my hand.