Muscle Memory
A short story by yours truly.
Hi! I wrote this fiction short story for the 2026 Moore County Writers’ Competition, where I earned an honorable mention. It was so nerve-wracking to submit my work for judgment, but I think I’m more nervous about sharing it with you. Enjoy!
The dancing black circles in front of my eyes dissipate, revealing a blurry picture of brown and green. The colors morph into shapes that slowly sharpen into the edges of pinecones, the curved lines of acorns, and a sea of pine needles. But something doesn’t look right. Trunks of pine trees in the distance are horizontal and when I blink, other parts of my body return to existence.
An ache makes its presence known at the tip of my shoulder and a sharp pain slides downward to my elbow. I rotate off my left arm and lay on my back, tasting copper when I lick my lips and squint toward the sky. My right hand pulls a pine cone from underneath my tailbone, providing relief for a quick moment before I feel a pinch in the same spot. I’m fairly certain the whimpering noises I hear are mine alone.
I glance to the right and all I see is a cream-colored piece of plastic. The brightness reflecting off it burns my eyes, so I stare back into the sky when a low voice joins my pathetic song.
“Rosie, are you ok?”
Rosie. The name sounds familiar and it makes my heart patter so quickly that I can feel it in my fingertips. I’m assuming it’s mine? Fear prickles down my frame, from my temples to my toes as feet jogging closer come to a stop. Wind blows pine needles onto my face and when I wipe them off, a man is towering above, silhouetted by the sun shining behind his frame. He lowers to his knees and my body’s reflex is to cower my shoulders forward to protect myself. His eyes widen in what I think is surprise and he lifts both of his hands in the air as if to tell me he’s innocent to the cause of my current situation. Who is this man?
“I’m Samuel,” he says with a tinge of panic in his voice. “Where are you hurt?”
“I’m not sure,” I respond while examining him. His cerulean eyes are flecked with sage green and the beginnings of a beard are growing in a blend of black and grey. “Everywhere?”
“Can you wiggle your toes?”
Relief rushes through me when my toes move forward and backward in my shoes’ stiff toe beds. I nod silently at Samuel who reaches down toward me, but pauses, and his hands hover over my left arm.
“I just want to try and help you sit up. May I?”
I nod again and know that this accident hasn’t stolen my voice so I clear my throat. He puts his left hand on my bicep and his right underneath my upper back, gently pulling me forward. A gasp stumbles out of me and upon sitting up, the opaque black circles cloud my vision again.
“If you can lean toward your knees, I think it will help with the dizziness,” Samuel’s voice sounds panicky again in the distance.
I follow his instructions and true to his word, the nausea disappears.
“Stay here a moment,” he says and stands, moving behind the cream colored plastic wall to my right. He bends his knees in a squat and with a low grunt he stands, lifting the material that wasn’t a wall at all. It’s the roof of a golf cart. Two golf bags are still on the ground with clubs spilled behind me. Samuel straps each of the bags back into their cubbies on the back of the cart.
“Thank god these didn’t fall on your head,” he says and shakes his, while I take in my surroundings. I’m sitting to the right of a fairway at a golf course and close my eyes, trying to remember where I am.
“We’re at Southern Pines Golf Club,” Samuel says, once again reading my mind.
“I was getting there,” I mumble. “Are we on the 13th hole?”
“Yes!” He exclaims and a smile stretches across his face. Lines fan from the corners of his eyes and a dimple indents into his right cheek. While I don’t know how we ended up here, I do know he’s handsome … in a worn-in kind of way. He looks around my age but I also tend to categorize most people into vague age groups these days. Over 60 is in one bracket, under 30 is in another. Most children I see are babies. Everyone in between could be my age.
“Do you have any memory … of the fall?” He asks and I don’t miss his pause. Is he choosing his words carefully?
I feel foolish still sitting on the ground and evaluate how I’m going to stand up. I’m afraid to use my left hand with the ache still lingering and rotate onto my right side. I put pressure on my right hand and don’t notice any pain, so I push off of it and slowly rise to a standing position. Samuel rushes to my side and lifts me the final few inches to my feet, his hand lingering on my forearm that he gives a quick squeeze. The feeling sends a shiver down my spine and I look up at him, trying to discern how or if I know this man softly gazing back down at me.
“Sorry,” he says and rushes back to the golf cart, picking up a water bottle and trash that has fallen. Certainly I would know who he was or he would say so, right? I hear Samuel muttering to himself while removing his hat, wiping sweat from his forehead before putting it back in place. The sun catches his left ring finger when he folds the bill of his cap and rays of light reflect off of it. I look away before he sees me watching him and glance down at my own hands. All of my phalanges are accounted for with no ring to be found on that finger. Well that answers something, I think.
Samuel tucks his phone into his back pocket and sits in the driver’s seat of the golf cart.
“Shall we go? I can take you to the hospital,” he says and motions his head toward the passenger side.
“What time is it?”
“4 p.m., why?”
“Then there’s plenty of time until sunset. Let’s finish,” I say and sit next to him.
“You’re hurt, I’m not going to let you do that,” he says, his eyebrows furrowing together.
“I’m fine,” I say and roll my shoulders back. The left side feels sore, but it’s not uncomfortable. “Maybe it will help me remember what happened. If I’m in pain I’ll stop and you can take me to urgent care.”
Samuel inhales through his nose and closes his eyes. I can’t tell how long he plans to hold his breath, but when he exhales and looks at me, a soft ocean nearly knocks me backward.
“You just experienced an accident,” he says, using a pause again for emphasis. “You really think it’s best to finish a round of golf?”
“I’m fine!” I say and rotate my wrists in circles for emphasis.
“So stubborn,” Samuel whispers to himself, but I don’t miss it. I also don’t miss the small smirk that lifts his left cheek.
…
Two white balls are sitting on the 13th green and we each quietly putt them into the hole before returning to the cart. A scorecard is placed on the steering wheel with “S” and “R” written on the lefthand side, our accompanying scores throughout the round scratched in pencil in the 12 following boxes.
“I don’t actually know what I had on that hole,” I say, stumped.
“You had a six there,” he says, writing a five in his row of scores. “I probably would have made par if I wasn’t so jittery.”
“Well I’m sorry for causing an inconvenience,” I quip.
He responds with a chuckle and drives us to the next tee box, his hands firmly placed at ten and two.
“Why aren’t you covered in pine needles and scratches like I was?”
“I wasn’t in the cart,” he replies, staring at the path ahead. “You punched out from the trees and I was walking to my ball in the fairway. After you hit out … It was a sick shot by the way, you skirted the trap and rolled onto the green. Anyway, you didn’t realize that my ball was behind you and took a sharp turn while gunning the gas. Hardly made it five yards before you and the cart took a tumble.”
“Is that laughter you’re trying to hold back?”
“Of course not,” he says with a cough.
“Chivalry is dead.”
We stop at the back tee box, so Samuel must be a pretty good player. When I first moved to Southern Pines I was in a long-distance relationship. I didn’t have any golf friends in town and I booked whatever tee time had an open spot. I would cross my fingers and say a little prayer in the parking lot for good luck in the draw, but I’ve played with every type of golfer. I once filled in for a foursome of a bachelor party because one of the groomsmen didn’t wake up early enough to make the tee time after a night of debauchery. More often than not, I win money games off the Rat Pack crew of 70-to-80-year-olds every Sunday morning. I’m not picky.
I love playing and I’m fairly confident in my abilities. After four years of Division 1 college golf in the Southeastern Conference, I can handle anything. So I’m not at all surprised that I’m sitting in the cart with a handsome stranger on a Friday afternoon. Well, maybe a bit surprised by that handsome bit.
But now I’m wondering if I remember how to swing a golf club. The 14th hole is a par-3 and after Samuel smoothly hits an iron shot onto the middle of the green, he drives us to my tee box. He hops out of the cart with a rangefinder before I’ve swung my legs over the seat and jogs to my tee box. I know what he’s doing. Samuel is getting my yardage for me. I don’t have a rangefinder because I always lose them and I learned how to play the game without one, stepping my yardages from a marker on the ground.
“It’s 132 yards,” he yells in my direction. “A little uphill and the wind’s in our face. I’d say your 140 club.”
“Thanks,” I respond and pull my hybrid club. Samuel stays on the tee box. He’s going to watch me hit this tee shot and nerves prickle my skin in anticipation. While I often play with people I don’t know, I still get first tee jitters and this shot feels like my first one of the day all over again.
My body begins moving on autopilot and I glide through my pre-shot routine. Muscle memory takes over when I identify my target in the distance and find a spot inches in front of me to align my stance. The waltz of the routine comes to a halt when I lift my golf club to the right and my left shoulder pivots toward the ground. A strain in the muscles between my shoulder and my tailbone stretches like a rubber band and snaps. The club falls out of my hand and I bend over, trying to massage the knot with my fist.
“Rosie!” Samuel cries and the fear in his voice startles me more than the physical pain.
“Samuel!” I scream back at him. He picks up the golf club from the ground and begins walking off the tee box. “What are you doing?”
“We’re leaving,” he says. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. I just need to take it easy.”
“So stubborn,” I hear him whisper.
“What was that?”
“Go ahead, Rosie,” he says, dully. “If you’re going to be obdurate about playing just … take it easy.”
I make a half swing this time, attempting to keep my movements small. I’m petite in height and typically try to use every single part of my body to explode through the swing. The shot is straight but lands short of the green in a bunker.
“Nice strike,” Samuel says and doesn’t wait for me to walk back to the cart. I scurry behind him, place my headcover back on my club and sit. There’s silence and I want to fill it before it lingers too long.
“So are you from the area? What do you do?” I ask, trying to prevent my anxiety.
“Not originally from here. I moved here with my girlfriend a few years ago from New York City,” he replies, looking at the cart path ahead. “I work remotely in finance. How about you?”
“I thought you were wearing a wedding band?” I ask.
“Nosy,” he smirks. “Yes, we were just dating when I moved here and got married a few months ago. So, what do you do for a living?”
“Congrats! What’s her name? What’s she like? What’s her sign?”
“Why don’t we finish this hole,” Samuel replies in a tone that tells me it’s not a question and it is the end of that discussion.
…
We’re once again sitting in silence on the drive from 15 tee to our balls in the fairway. This time the quiet affects Samuel who turns on his speaker, placing it between us. The opening notes of “Angela” by The Lumineers softly play from the cupholder and I lean back into the firm leather seat. The breeze from the cart feels like a natural fan on this warm summer evening. I open my right arm out of the vehicle to catch the air and close my eyes. If I can remember anything, it’s that this is my happy place.
My moment of peace is interrupted by my stomach growling and I hear a low chuckle from my cart mate.
“You have a protein bar in the big side pocket of your bag,” Samuel says. He must notice my eyes snapping toward him in confusion. “Relax, I didn’t search your golf bag. You shared goldfish with me earlier and told me to grab them out of there.”
“Don’t tell me to relax,” I reply. Annoyance, fear and anger are forging their way to the forefront of my mind. “I can’t remember what transpired about an hour ago and even more beyond that.”
“Sorry, sorry. You’re right. Let me get it for you.”
Samuel stops the cart and runs around back. I hear the zipper sliding down the bag and plastic being ripped apart. He sits down and hands me the opened protein bar.
“Thanks,” I mutter. “Whoever designed this packaging was seriously deranged. I have the hardest time opening them and eventually give up, using my teeth which is truly disgusting.”
“It’s not the most sanitary option.”
We each hit our approach shots and my back is starting to feel like itself again, spiraling with my rotation and recoiling upon the follow through.
“Are you really sure you’re okay?” Samuel asks after watching me stripe a five wood from 178 yards away onto the middle of the green. “I know you have a lot of power, but you hit that with violence.”
“You don’t need to worry about me, Samuel,” I say, returning to the cart and looking through every crevice of the seat for my cell phone. “Have you seen my phone?”
“Hmm, no I haven’t. Sorry,” he replies and turns on another song.
“Well, at least you have good taste in music.” I’m guessing the phone is deep in my golf bag and I’ll dig for it when we’re done. Who would I be contacting anyway? “Aside from a very solid playlist, what else can you recommend? Watching or reading anything interesting?”
“Ummm, well I don’t think you’d like my taste in books.”
“Try me.”
“I just finished reading Andy Weir’s novel Project Hail Mary. It’s about an astronaut who wakes up with no memory, his crewmates are dead and he has to save Earth from extinction.”
“At least one part of that plot feels relatable.”
That summons a hearty laugh out of Samuel that warms my core and tickles a part of my brain. A pressure builds at my temples and I can’t concentrate on anything but the pain. I shut my eyes and lean my elbows onto my quads with my head in my hands. A warm hand is gently rubbing my back and Samuel is whispering, “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Moments are flashing on my eyelids like a kaleidoscope, shifting from moving to Southern Pines, our wedding, hosting dinner parties with friends and picking up our golden retriever we named Goose. I relive our morning routine of grabbing cortados, lattes and breakfast sandwiches before arriving at the golf course. And I watch my foot hit the gas of the golf cart and the world spin while I fall out of it in slow motion. I inhale all of this life lived and resist opening my eyes out of fear that I’ll forget it again.
“Sam?” I ask, with my head still resting on my fists. “Is it you?”
“It’s me,” he says and wraps his arms around my body tight while tears stream down my cheeks. “Are you okay, Rosie? Can I take you to urgent care now?”
“I think I’m okay. Is Goose at doggy daycare?”
“He is, yes. We can leave now and pick him up if you want?”
“Let’s finish first,” I respond. “It looks like you were having a career round before I went all “Fast and Furious” on you.”
“Stubborn. So, so stubborn.”