The next summer, in addition to working off the rest of her baby weight, Mary had continued her wrestling training. She worked with Ted, Cody, and Cody's older brother, Dustin, who went by Goldust in the ring. As the months went by, it really began to show that Mary was catching on much quicker than her boyfriend and best friend. At the end of August of 2000, right before the boys needed to go back to school, Mary had made a very hard decision. After playing outside for a while Cody took eight month old Marcus inside as Mary and Ted sat out on the porch together.

"I can't keep doing this to you," Mary finally said after a few minutes of silence.

"What do you mean?" Ted's face went pale, fearing the worst.

"You are about to start your junior year, Teddy Bear. You shouldn't be doing that with a girlfriend who's..." Mary sighed, biting her lip.

"But Mare, I love you," Ted attempted to pull his girlfriend into his arms.

Mary froze up, biting her lip. "There's that, too."

Ted quickly pulled away from her, dropping his hands into his lap. "I wondered if this was going to happen."

"You deserve better, Ted. You deserve a girl who isn't afraid to have fun, and isn't raising a baby. It's better this way. I think that deep inside, you know that," Mary swallowed visibly, fighting back tears.

"So this is it then? We're breaking up?" Ted took a deep breath, covering his face with his hands for a moment.

"We're still going to be friends, Ted. We've known each other too long to just give up everything like that. You can even still be in his life. I will always love you," Mary slowly stood up.

Ted stood up as well, pulling Mary into his arms, "I will always be there for you."

"I know. So I'll see you around," Mary nodded as she returned the hug.

Ted smiled softly as he pulled away, his tears filling his eyes. "We'll figure something out."

Mary walked inside after watching Ted walk away. Dusty and Cody watched on as Mary walked up the stairs, tears streaming down her cheeks. Cody went to follow her, but his father held him back.

"Just give her a few minutes. There are a number of traits that Maryanne doesn't share with other girls, but this is still her first break up," Dusty rubbed his son's shoulder.

Cody nodded, sitting back down with Marcus and finished feeding him his bottle. After the infant was sound asleep in his arms, he stood up, putting the bottle in the sink and made his way upstairs. He knocked softly before walking into Mary's bedroom. He saw that she was still sobbing softly, so he just laid her sleeping son into her arms and quietly left the room.

A few hours later, Mary walked into Cody's room, Marcus now wide awake. She set him down on a blanket that Cody kept in his room with a few toys and sat down next to her best friend.

"Do you regret it?" Cody looked over to her.

Mary nodded, taking a deep breath. "I will probably regret it for a long time, but I know that it was for the best."

"I'm sure that he understands," Cody attempted to reassure her.

"Yeah, of course," Mary brought her knees up to her chest. "I just know that it's not fair to him to be playing daddy at his age. Especially when it's not even his kid."

"So he's going to be 'Uncle Ted'?" Cody looked over to her, chewing on his bottom lip.

Mary nodded again, "I just feel like it's for the best." She repeated that reasoning, as if she was attempting to convince herself. "It hurts, but there are other reasons why I ended things."

"Can you share them with me?" Cody looked to the screen as he restarted his video game.

"It's kinda personal," Mary bit her lip.

"Sex?" Cody asked innocently. He had just recently turned fourteen, and wasn't ready for that personally, but he knew that his best friends had been together for a quite a while.

Mary visibly shuddered, hugging her knees closer to her chest. "Part of me wants to."

Cody paused his game, setting down his controller as he turned to look at his female best friend. "Look Mare, I get it. You and Ted had been together for two years. You love each other. I'm sure that there is a part of you that feels like since it was already taken from you physically, that you may as well be okay with just doing it."

"And I can't bear to put him through my mental struggle when it comes to that. I trust him completely, but it's been getting worse lately," Mary sighed.

"How has it been getting worse?" Cody coaxed his friend on.

"I want to say that it took a while for what happened to me to really settle into my psyche," Mary explained. "For months, I was more than okay with cuddling with him every night. We even made out a couple of times. Now, it's gotten to the point where if he just simply touches me, I freeze up."

Cody took a deep breath and exhaled sharply, "I think that I agree with you. Ted is a great guy, but coming from a teenage guy, it would be hard to not touch my girlfriend. You know... if I had one."

Mary laughed softly, "you know, you're too cute to not have a girlfriend."

"Maybe someday," Cody shrugged.

…

Over the next six months, Mary became more and more focused on her work. She was breezing through all of her high school classes, and at almost sixteen, she was nearly ready to get into the ring as a professional. At the same time, she made a promise to herself. She would finish high school, and go through developmental before forcing her way into the big leagues. She had the rest of her life to be a big star in the wrestling world. She could take her time. There was no rush.

Yes, I just spent a whole chapter on Mary and Ted's breakup. If you've read any of my other stories with Mary in them, you'll know how important this is to the story.