Page 12 of Wrong Score

Autumn bursts into laughter, while Keely looks torn between amusement and sympathy.

"Oh, Ro," Keely sighs, shaking her head. "No wonder he's been extra grumpy lately."

"But that's just it!" I protest. "He's always been grumpy. I'm not the first reporter to point it out, and I doubt I'll be the last. I just don't understand how everyone seems to love him despite his prickly personality."

Our estheticians return with hot wax and Saran wrap for our pedicure spa treatment, and I get a moment to check the text that pinged in my purse earlier when we first arrived.

"How's the temperature of the wax?" my esthetician asks as she places one foot at a time in the wax and then wraps my feet.

"It's perfect. Thank you."

There's no better time for warm wax to squish between your toes than on a rainy April day in Seattle.

As Keely and Autumn confirm the wax temperatures of their own, I pull out my phone and glance at the message my sister just sent me. A picture from social media that she screenshot of my ex, Drew and his newly minted fiancé… by the look of her holding out her hand in the photo and the caption "Forever Mrs. Lansbury."

Jordan: He should have captioned it "Mrs. What-a-fucking-tool".

She means that about Drew, my ex, and the man who broke up with me after dozens of doctors' visits and one round of IVF confirmed the prognosis—I won't ever carry my own children.

Rowan: I'm happy for him.

Jordan: You shouldn't be. He doesn't deserve it.

I remember the moment I stared down at a positive pregnancy test sitting on the bathroom counter of our shared apartment. It's crazy to think that the surprise wasn't one I was instantly excited about. Drew and I had met while I was interning right out of college for ESPN, my dream job, and he was an affiliate journalist.

We bumped into each other one day in the halls of ESPN and he asked me out almost immediately. We moved in together three months later and the pregnancy test came six months after that. We hadn't even been together a year. So when I saw the test, I cringed at the idea of having to tell Drew that we hadn't been as careful as we thought. Now looking back at how it all turned out, I wish I wouldn't have regretted the possibility of being pregnant for even a second.

Two weeks later, I went to see my OBGYN expecting to get an ultrasound to confirm the gestational age and left finding out that not only was the test a false positive and I was never pregnant, but that the ultrasounds of my uterus left my OB wanting more tests. A month later, it only came with worse news. My doctor estimates that my chances of ever getting pregnant are near one percent.

"But miracles happen, Rowan," she told me.

Drew was optimistic at the time, and we decided that less than one percent means there's still a chance. We tried for nine months and then went on to try IVF. My body didn't handle the injections and hormones well and the transfer didn't take. I missed too many days at work because of feeling ill, and when it came time to offer me a full-time journalist position, they went with a different candidate.

Almost a year to the day that I found out that I wouldn't likely ever have kids, Drew moved out, stating that we'd both regret it if he stayed. But what he meant to say is that he'll regret it one day if he stays with a woman who can't give him children.

It doesn't help that Drew and I still work in the same circles. I still have to see the man at least once a month, usually in a press box.

We're cordial, and now, after so many years, I don't even flinch when I see him at an event we're both invited to.

After licking my wounds on Jordan's couch for four months, I applied for an open position withThe Seattle Sunrise. They were impressed with my internship with ESPN and my time as the editor-in-chief for my college paper, which turned from paper to digital during the time I was in charge. It was a large undertaking but one of my greatest accomplishments.The Seattle Sunrisehired me on the spot, and I've been working my way up ever since.

I decided the day I got off my sister's couch that if I'm doomed to never find a man who won't accept me without a baby, then at least I can climb to the top of my career ambitions.

I stare at the picture again, seeing the smile on her face—seeing the smile on his. My heart tightens in my chest as I feel a rush of old pain surface—the familiar ache that never quite goes away. Not the ache for him, but for what won't ever be for me.

Rowan: He was bound to move on someday.

Jordan: You're letting that asshole off too easy.

Maybe so but I just want to move on too and stop thinking about what I can't have.

I blink back the sting of tears, refusing to let them fall. Autumn and Keely are still laughing, oblivious to the inner turmoil attempting to rise to the surface. I take a deep breath and force a smile as I put my phone back down, my mind swirling.

"As I was saying. Coach Bex is harmless," Keely protests.

This isn't the first person to try to tell me that Coach Bex isn't all that bad. Reeve referred to him as a pissed-off T-rex because of his short arms, though Bex has long muscular arms so the analogy never made sense. Even Adele tried to sing his praises as he decided to take the emergency stairs instead of riding down the elevator with me after the meeting with Sam.

"Harmless? You tell that to the dozen or so players whose noses he's broken in his long career that Bexley Townsend is a docile creature, and I can guess what they'll tell you," I scoff. "The man is as harmless as a trigger-happy skunk with irritable bowel syndrome."

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