I heard a woman’s voice speaking to a doctor. Muffled, distant. I couldn’t quite make out the words, only the strained edge of emotion beneath them. My head ached. My body felt heavy. When I finally opened my eyes, she was there.

She sat beside my bed, hands clenched together, eyes red and tired. She looked at me like she knew me. Like she was waiting for something.

I didn’t know her.

They told me I had an accident. A head injury. Memory loss. That she was my wife. Five years, they said. But none of it felt real.

At home, she lingered—setting meals on the table, folding my clothes, moving through the space as if it belonged to both of us. I watched her warily, a stranger invading my life. She never spoke much, never forced anything. But her presence suffocated me.

I avoided her. Ignored the way she watched me when she thought I wouldn’t notice. Ignored the way something in her posture shifted whenever I pulled away.

One night, as I lay in bed, I heard her quiet breathing beside me. Steady, fragile. I turned my back to her and stared at the ceiling.

Somewhere in the dark, a part of me wondered if I had once loved her.

But if I did, that man was gone.