Page 74 of Rescuing Mary

“What?” Mary asked in shock.

“You heard me. We’ve already had this conversation, but it seems as if we need to have it again. I want to know where my kick-ass friend went. The girl who never let anything get her down. Who was like one of those fucking weird Weeble toys.”

“Huh?” Mary couldn’t get over the fact that the shoe was on the other foot, and Rayne was being a bitch to her.

“You know…Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down. Mary, I’ve always admired you because when the shit hits the fan, you don’t stand there and cry about it. You deal. But you are not dealing with this cancer situation at all.”

Now Mary was getting mad. “You don’t understand.”

“Bullshit. I do.”

“No, you don’t. You haven’t almost fucking died—twice. You haven’t had your tits try to kill you so you had to chop them off. You’ve got a killer fucking body with beautiful curves that your man loves to put his hands all over. I’m still too skinny, I’m flat as a board. Excuse the fuck out of me for wanting Truck to keep looking at me the way he does now. Without pity.”

“He’s never once looked at you with pity,” Rayne fired back. “If you’d open your eyes and see him, you’d know that. He loves you, Mary. Not your body, not your boobs.”

Mary wanted to keep the bitch up, but couldn’t. She wanted to believe Rayne, so fucking badly, but she was scared. Scared that the second she let down her guard, Truck would come to his senses. Or he’d remember everything. How awful she’d been to him when she was sick. How he’d seen her at her lowest. How he thought she’d married him only for his insurance when the fact of the matter was that she’d married him because she loved him.

She needed to apologize to Truck. To tell him she hadn’t meant to blab about his continued headaches. “I need to talk to Truck,” she told Rayne.

Rayne’s voice gentled. “Tell him about the cancer,” Rayne urged. “It’s eating you alive, Mare.”

“I’ll think about it,” Mary told her.

Rayne leaned forward and hugged her, hard. “You do that,” she said. “Call me tonight, bitch. I’ll give you the update on Emily and the baby.”

Nodding, Mary knew she didn’t deserve a best friend like Rayne. They might fight, but they always made up and never held grudges. She loved that about their friendship.

Mary took a deep breath and walked over to where Truck was standing talking to Ghost. “Truck?”

He turned to her, and she almost flinched at the frustrated look on his face. Ghost stepped away, giving them some privacy.

“I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “It just popped out.”

Truck ran a hand over his jaw and nodded.

Mary swallowed. In the past, Truck would’ve immediately told her it was okay and let her off the hook…thus making it easy to keep being a bitch, because she didn’t suffer any consequences from it. But now that she had to own up to what she’d done, and he wasn’t giving her an automatic out, it hit home just how much she’d taken advantage of his easygoing nature.

Feeling uncomfortable, and knowing she needed to retreat to lick her wounds, she bit her lip. “I need to get going,” she said.

Truck simply stared down at her.

Shifting awkwardly, Mary knew she was doing what she always did—running—but couldn’t help it. “I’ll talk to you later.”

When Truck didn’t respond, just continued to look at her with that disappointed expression on his face, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Tell Annie bye for me,” she whispered, then turned and headed for the exit.

Truck watched in frustration as Mary left. She was keeping something from him. Something big. And he hated it. He believed her when she’d said she hadn’t meant to tell the others about his headaches, and he’d already forgiven her for that. But he’d wanted her to explain why she’d felt the need to change the subject earlier.

He wanted to find the nurse Mary had been talking to and demand she tell him about the appointment Mary had missed, but he knew she wouldn’t talk to him. It was frustrating as hell.

“You sure you’re all right?” Ghost asked for the tenth time.

“I’m fine,” Truck said…again. “Enough.”

“It’s been three weeks,” Coach said. “The headaches should be receding.”

“The doc also said there was a chance they wouldn’t. That it would take longer for the bruises on my brain to heal,” Truck told his friend.

“Are you remembering anything more?” Beatle asked.