Page 51 of Rescuing Mary

Mary sighed. She wanted to believe him, but she knew how stubborn he was. Truck used to hate not knowing what she was thinking, which happened all the time because Mary was just as stubborn as he was. She didn’t like to talk about her feelings or about the shit that she’d been through.

Closing her eyes, Mary decided to just get it done. “When I was fifteen, I met a boy. He was so nice to me. He stood up to bullies for me, and he made me feel so pretty and wanted. We dated for a while and one day, he told me he loved me. I was so happy. I told him I loved him back. I thought we’d get married and I’d live happily ever after. I slept with him. Gave him my virginity.” Mary ground her teeth together and tried to calm herself down to finish the story.

It was Truck’s hard grip on her knee that did the trick. She opened her eyes and saw the hard, furious look on his face, and weirdly, it made her feel better that he was upset for her. She reached down and picked up his hand and held it in both of hers while she finished. “The next day, he broke up with me. Told me I’d held out longer than he’d thought I would, considering I was the town whore’s daughter, and that he was moving on to the freshmen cheerleaders who would sleep with him without all the dramatics. That was the last time I ever told a guy that I loved him.”

She bravely looked up and met Truck’s gaze. It was as if he could read her mind. Knew what she was trying to say without saying it. “That guy didn’t deserve your love,” he said after a beat.

“Duh.”

“I’m sorry you went through that, Mare. That sucks.”

Mary beat the tears back at the endearment. Had something deep inside him really remembered her as he’d claimed? She cleared her throat and said, “He was the first man to hurt me, but he wasn’t the last. I tried to prove my mom wrong time after time, but eventually I realized she was right. All the men I dated were using me for one thing or another. Some wanted something tangible—a place to live, for example—but others just wanted sex or to try to make an ex jealous. I didn’t want to admit that Mama was right, but I didn’t really have a choice.”

“If it makes you feel any better, my childhood wasn’t exactly idyllic,” Truck said. “Although at least my parents didn’t flaunt their affairs in front of me.”

Mary sat up straighter. Truck had never talked about his family. Ever. She’d even asked Rayne to ask Ghost about it, and she’d reported back that Ghost didn’t know much about Truck’s life before he’d joined the Army. He never talked about his parents. Even to the men who were like brothers to him.

Truck looked away from her uneasily. “Although you probably know that already.”

“I don’t,” Mary said, holding his hand tighter when he tried to pull away from her. “You never talked about your family.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, probably because I don’t like to even think about my parents anymore.”

“What’d they do?”

Truck sighed. “They kept me fed and clothed, but they were never very loving. I started growing in middle school. I grew so fast, they had to keep buying me new clothes so I didn’t show up to school in high-water pants. I was super skinny, no matter how much I ate. I was a beanpole and the other kids definitely noticed.

“My dad wanted me to play basketball since I was so tall, but I was also uncoordinated back then. I didn’t make the team, not that I was surprised. After that, it was as if my dad gave up on me. He wasn’t interested in anything I did. If I couldn’t succeed in sports, he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to me. Neither him nor my mom wanted to hear about the bullying I went through. I learned to take it. If I pretended the words didn’t hurt, then they usually gave up taunting and teasing me.”

“I don’t understand why kids are so awful,” Mary said quietly. “I really don’t.”

“It didn’t help that my sister was super popular and beautiful.”

Mary jerked back and stared at him in surprise. “You have a sister?”

Truck nodded. “I guess I never told you that either, huh?”

She shook her head. “No. I had no idea. How old is she? What’s her name? Where is she now? I take it you aren’t close?”

Truck pressed his lips together. “Mercedes. But she hates that name. She always went by Macie. And once upon a time, we were extremely close. She’s almost five years younger than me. She was going into ninth grade when I graduated and left for boot camp. I haven’t talked to her since the night before I left.”

“Why? If you were so close, what happened?”

“I’m honestly not sure. We had a fight the night before I left for basic training. I didn’t like the boy she was dating, and she thought I was being too overprotective. We yelled at each other, and then I left. But I wrote her. I figured she’d get over it. I guess she never did, because I never heard from her again.”

Mary tightened her hand on his. “Truck…something had to have happened. I mean, you were both so young. She never wrote you back?”

He shook his head. “No.” His voice lowered. “It hurt. It had been us against the world—and our parents—for so long, and it felt as if she’d abandoned me when I left. Even when I got this,” he fingered the scar on his cheek, “I never heard anything from her. I wrote her for years. I think I was around thirty when I finally gave up. I had begged her to contact me, told her that whatever it was I’d done, I was sorry. Told her that I loved her and wanted her to be a part of my life. I thought about hiring a private detective to try to find her after I got hurt, after I realized just how awful my parents were, but after I thought about it for a while, it was more than obvious she didn’t want to be found. Didn’t want me in her life.”

“Do you… Never mind.”

“What?”

Mary paused, then asked the question that was on the tip of her tongue. “Is she still alive?”