Muscle Memory of the Heart

He hasn’t had his morning coffee in weeks.

The old place—brick walls, checkered floor, string lights that stay up all year—used to be his favorite. Used to be theirs. She hasn’t set foot inside in months, not officially. But she walks past it nearly every morning now, pausing just long enough for the barista behind the counter to glance toward the window, curious.

She never comes in.

She doesn’t know why.

Thomas knows exactly why.

He watches from a parked car across the street, hidden behind the safe anonymity of tinted windows and yesterday’s newspaper. Her pacing is almost unconscious, a pull beneath the surface she can't name. Like muscle memory—but of the heart. He knows it like breath.

It’s been eight months since he made her forget him. Since he wiped every memory clean—of their years together, of who he is, of what he did to keep her safe.

And still, she finds him.

Not directly. God no. That would be too dangerous. If she remembers him—really remembers him—then it all comes back. The files. The names. The night she ran. The people still looking for her, long after the world declared her dead.

So Thomas stays away.

Mostly.

He changed his gym. He changed his grocery store. Switched to a new bank, got a haircut, started taking the train instead of his car. But still, some mornings, like this one, he finds her standing across the street from the coffee shop, staring at it like it holds some unspeakable truth.

Once, he tried going in before her. She walked in two minutes later, ordered his usual without knowing why, and stood at the counter holding the cup like it had betrayed her.

He left before she turned around.

He hasn’t been back since.

But the world is small when your heart still wanders in it.

She shows up at the museum every other Thursday. The one with the Monet exhibit they used to sneak into after hours. She lingers too long at Water Lilies, never knowing she once kissed him for the first time there. She hums when she walks the gallery halls—quiet, distracted.

The tune is always the same.

He stopped listening to the radio because of that. Emotional tinnitus—sharp, unpredictable, and always ringing at the worst time. A certain lyric hits and suddenly his lungs forget how to work. Once, in the cereal aisle, he heard a song they'd danced to in the kitchen and had to duck into the bathroom until the ache passed.

He misses her laugh. He misses her questions.

He misses how she used to call him Tommy when she was tired, or teasing, or scared. No one else ever has.

He remembers the last time she said it, voice slurred from adrenaline and fear, bleeding out on the floor of that safe house in Prague.

“Tommy?” she said, like she was trying to make sure he was real.

He gripped her hand tight and kissed her temple, already knowing the choice he’d have to make before sunrise.

The implant was untraceable. The memory wipe experimental. The cover story airtight.

He burned every trace of them, rewrote every document, erased every image. It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do.

And it shattered him.

She lives in a new apartment now. Same city. Close enough to walk to places she doesn’t realize they used to go together. The bakery that made her birthday cake three years running. The park bench where he first told her the truth. The river walk where they danced in the rain like idiots.

And she always looks confused.

Never lost. Just… like she’s arrived somewhere without knowing how or why.

The doctors told him this might happen. That some emotional bonds go deeper than memory. That love, in rare cases, echoes through amnesia.

He didn’t believe them.

He believes them now.

He knows she dreams. Knows it because she calls her sister sometimes, sobbing, asking why she wakes up crying from dreams about someone she doesn’t know. Someone with kind eyes. Someone who always leaves.

She paints now. He didn’t know she could.

Her canvases are full of shadows and doorways and outstretched hands. A man’s silhouette in the background of nearly every piece. She says she doesn’t know who he is. Says it’s just a figure of imagination.

He wants to believe that.

He almost does.

Then, last week, she showed up at the library on 14th Street. The one with the little corner room they used to sit in when she wanted to feel normal again. She walked right past the shelves and sat at the same table. Third chair in. Left side.

She pulled out a notebook, wrote for a while, and when she got up to leave, she looked over her shoulder.

Right at the security camera.

He stared at the feed for hours.

She knows.

On some level, she knows.

So he runs now. Avoids his own favorite places. Eats in his car. Sleeps in hotels on the edge of town. Switches phones every three days.

Because he knows what happens if she remembers.

They will come.

The people who buried the story. The ones who ordered the wipe. The ones he worked for, once upon a time. They won’t let her live with the knowledge. Not a second time.

And she’s getting too close. Every week, closer. Every week, more attuned. Every week, another thread pulled from the tapestry he stitched to keep her safe.

He almost gave in last night.

She was standing under the awning of the diner at 3AM. The rain was soft, misting through the orange streetlight. She didn’t look scared.

She looked... waiting.

He walked right past her. Hoodie up, steps slow. She glanced at him like she felt something. Her breath caught.

He didn’t look back.

But she whispered it.

“Tommy?”

Barely audible. Like a reflex.

Like a prayer.

And his heart stopped in his chest. Just for a beat.

She remembered his name the way the body remembers songs. Half a lyric. The shape of a step. A phantom pain. A phantom love.

He didn’t stop walking.

But the illusion is cracking.

And he knows what happens when it breaks.

He gave up everything to save her life.

He just never expected she’d keep finding the pieces.