Page 49 of Fair Trade

Don’t piss her off during that time of the month or you’ll get traded, boys!

Can we schedule the games around her cycle so we can make sure our players win all our home games?

Can’t wait to see how the trades go when she’s on maternity leave.

That last one cut even deeper.

To suffer this unpredictable limbo every couple of months and not know whether my body will ever let me carry my own child is cruel beyond measure.

For me, it isn’t the pain, unpredictable timetables, weight fluctuations, or even the stray hairs that need to be plucked from a random part of my body that makes me hate having PCOS.

It’s the mental gymnastics it puts me through while it holds the keys to my future tightly in its clutches.

You’ve got the dream job and the paycheck that helps provide for your family, so suck it up.

I let out a sigh of relief at the sight of my office door.

A couple more steps, and I’ll be able to pop pain meds and be good as new. Or as good as the first day of my period can be. Which is never great.

I dig into my purse as I open my door, hoping I didn’t forget to pack the extra strength pills, when a deep voice pulls me from my thoughts.

“There you are, Luisa,” he says, looking awfully too comfortable as he sits in my chair.

My mind goes blank as it tries to reconcile the vision in front of me.

He smirks as his eyes rake over my body slowly, burning me up inch by inch. But when he reaches my comfy shoes, all playfulness is swiftly replaced by a menacing scowl.

“Get the hell out of my chair, Lucifer.”

And just like that, the devil is back in town.

twenty-two

I raise a browat Luisa’s tone.

I wasn’t expecting a warm welcome, but this isn’t exactly what I envisioned either.

I lasted a measly three days before I succumbed and emailed Luisa directly. I kept it professional, not wanting to stir the pot too soon.

She responded by cc’ing Marla and her entire team, asking them to take the lead on a simple question that she could have answered with a few words.

But I’ve made my bed and had to lie in it.

Alone. Unless you count Delilah, but she’s known to be quite the bed hog, so I regularly send her down to her massive custom-made dog bed before I’m able to actually fall asleep.

Which has been a rare occurrence. And when I do drift off, my dreams of Luisa have been replaced with nightmares. Ones with her dressed in white, marrying someone whose face I can’t see and, therefore, can’t punch.

I had my reasons for leaving. I must have. Though I can’t remember a single one worthy of keeping me away for so long.

Daisy certainly hasn’t been any help, frequently posting pictures with Luisa while at away games, smiling from ear to ear.

I’ve tried to discreetly ask my sweet sister about Luisa, but that led to a surprising response. One that included “Get your head out of your ass and fix whatever you did to my friend.”

So here I am, back with my tail between my legs, trying to figure out how to erase the past month from Luisa’s memory and somehow ease my way back into her good graces.

That is, until I spot her footwear.

She’s wearing black sneakers, something she only dons when she’s on her period. A fact I’ve read time and time again since I spent an outrageous amount of time rereading our old emails.