Page 78 of Rescuing Mary

She smiled. “Okay. I’ll text before I come over. Thanks, Truck. I’m sorry that I’m so bitchy sometimes. I…it’s just how I am.”

Truck leaned forward and put his forehead on hers. Their breath mingled together and he could feel the warmth of her body against his. Her fresh smell was sharper this close and he reveled in it. “I like how you are, Mary. And your bitch doesn’t bother me. I know what’s under her.”

“What?”

“My Mary,” Truck said simply.

She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. They stood like that for a long moment before Truck reluctantly pulled back.

Mary looked up at him and nodded. “I’ll see you later then.”

“You will. And, Mary?”

“Yeah?” She paused with her hand on the doorknob.

“It’s going to be okay. Whatever you need to tell me, I’ll treat you with care.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded. “I know. I’m just scared you’re gonna be pissed enough to not want to do this anymore.”

“Nothing will make me pissed enough to not want to do this,” he gestured between them with a hand, “anymore.”

“We’ll see,” Mary said.

“Yes, we will. Later. Drive safe.”

“I will. Later, Truck.”

Truck stared at the door after it closed behind her. Another image came to him then, of Mary sitting on the couch. She looked ashen—and was completely bald.

* * *

He leaned over her with a bowl of soup and said, “You have to eat, Mary.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t care. You’re going to eat this.”

“I’m just going to throw it up later, Truck. Let it go.”

“No. Eat.”

She sighed and took the bowl from his hands. “Okay, but I’m going to say I told you so later when you’re holding me up as I puke.”

“Deal.”

Truck leaned down and kissed her pale, bald head…

* * *

Then the vision blinked out and he was once again staring at the door of his apartment.

“Son of a bitch,” he swore. His headache had returned with a vengeance, but he knew without a doubt that his memory was coming back. The blips and spurts were annoying and confusing, but with each and every one, he understood more and more what Mary meant when she’d said their relationship had been complicated.

He hoped like hell she was going to explain everything that evening. He was beginning to make his own deductions, based on the things he’d been remembering lately, but he hoped he was wrong.

His stomach clenched and he prayed as hard as he ever had before that whatever had been wrong with Mary was in the past. He couldn’t have found her, again, only to lose her now.

Mary wasn’t surprised when Jennifer announced the new direction the bank wanted to take with the machines as tellers instead of humans. She said that all but five of the tellers would be laid off in the next month or so. Everyone would receive two months’ severance pay, and help would be available applying for unemployment benefits if anyone needed them.