Page 35 of Rescuing Mary

She had no idea how she’d ever get Truck to love her a second time. She wasn’t like other women. She didn’t dress up, had never “simpered” in her life, and she certainly wasn’t a damsel in distress anymore.

Curling up into a ball, Mary racked her brain for ways she could get through to Truck. How she could make him remember her.

How long she lay there, she had no clue, but when there was a tentative knock on the door, she couldn’t muster up the energy to get up and answer it.

“Mary?” she heard Rayne call out.

She didn’t bother to answer.

“Mary?” her best friend said again, this time closer. She’d opened the unlocked door and entered the apartment. When she saw Mary on the floor of the dining room, she rushed over.

“Oh my God, Mary, are you okay?”

Mary looked up at her best friend and the tears she hadn’t been able to shed finally formed. “What am I going to do?” And with that, Mary burst into tears. Cried like she hadn’t cried since she was five years old and one of the nicer uncles had left.

Four hours later, Mary sat on her couch in her own apartment on the other side of town. Rayne had called the others and within thirty minutes, Harley, Casey, Sadie, and Wendy had arrived at Truck’s apartment to help her.

Emily stayed home because she wasn’t feeling that great and Annie was in school, but the other five women had systematically gone through Truck’s apartment and packed all of Mary’s belongings, and even changed the sheets on the bed and put the dirty towels and linens in the washer.

Mary was thankful, because she didn’t think she would’ve been able to do it. Wouldn’t have been able to find and pack every single thing that she’d brought over in the last few months. Definitely not as quickly as her friends had.

But a small part of her was resentful. They didn’t have to move out of their houses. They didn’t have to pretend not to know their men. They didn’t have their hearts ripped out of their chests. Their men would come home and their lives would resume as normal.

She’d tried to be nice, though. The last thing she wanted was to alienate the best friends she’d ever had, but she was at the end of her rope and wanted to be alone. To wallow in her misery.

When Mary had walked through Truck’s apartment one last time before she left, she’d broken down again. It was as if she’d never existed there. Hadn’t spent the best and worst times of her life in that apartment. She felt just as devastated as she had when she was sixteen and Brian admitted he’d only said he loved her to get between her legs.

“I’m staying,” Rayne declared after the others had left.

Mary shook her head. “No, I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay,” Rayne countered. “And I don’t care what you say, I’m not leaving.”

Mary ground her teeth in frustration. She wanted to be alone. She had to go to work the next day and needed time to push everything that had happened to the back of her mind. But she knew Rayne wasn’t going to let her do that. No matter how mean she was to the other woman or what she said.

Instead of lashing out and being a bitch—she really was trying to change—Mary sighed and put her head back on the couch. She closed her eyes and after a long moment, said quietly, “Thank you.”

Rayne picked up her friend’s hand and threaded their fingers. “You’re welcome. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but too bad. We need a plan.”

Mary shook her head but didn’t open her eyes. “There’s nothing we can do. The doctor said that Truck needs time and it wouldn’t be good to try to force his memories to come back.”

“I understand that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t subtly try to get his memories to come back.”

Mary’s eyes popped open and she looked over at her best friend. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, we activate Operation Make Truck Remember His Life.”

“I won’t do anything that’ll hurt him,” Mary said firmly.

“Me either. I know we can’t just go up to him and introduce you as his wife and tell him he loves you. We need to be sneakier about it.”

Despite her depression, Mary was interested. “I’m listening.”

“I talked to Ghost this morning about the situation, and he told me the doctor said it was okay to bring Truck to some of his old hangouts. The places he and the guys go to all the time. Restaurants, the gym and beach where they do PT in the mornings, bars, things like that. So when they do, we’ll just happen to be there. We won’t necessarily even talk to him, but maybe if he sees you enough, something will click and he’ll remember.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then you’re no worse off than you are right now. Look, I can’t imagine what you’re going through, and what I’m about to say in no way negates your feelings, but I’ve lost him too, Mare. We all have. We can’t have any get-togethers with the guys because he doesn’t know they’re married, and no one is going to leave him out of things. Truck can’t get to know baby Kate. He can’t be there when Emily has her baby. And poor Annie, she won’t understand why she hasn’t seen Truck around. We all want him to regain his memory because of what he means to us.”