10-22-01 - 7:25 p.m.

The challenge is off. It's just...off.

Rob came home and I sucked on a strawberry and made eyes at him and went about like I had planned. It seemed to be working somewhat. He said, "Wow, someone missed me." Then he took a shower.

When he was done, he came in here with a towel around his waist and a smaller one draped casually across his tattooed shoulder and looked at me. I smiled and before I could say a word, he announced, "I didn't tell you, but for a while now I've been seeing a doctor and it turns out I can't have kids."

Keep the mood light, I told myself, just keep the mood light...

"Well of course not, you floozy. You need a uterus and ovaries and all that good stuff."

He grinned courteously, a forced grin, unnatural, unnerving. Looked away, around, back. "I'm serious."

My jaw fell. He's 20.

"You're 20, Rob, how can you be infertile?"

"The doctor said he thinks it's hereditary."

"But you're not adopted!"

"Jake's sterile, too. Dad told me."

Uncle Jake, Rob's favorite uncle. Adopted kids...but that was because he thought it was for a good cause, because he didn't want to bring any kids into an already overpopulated world when there were so many kids without proper homes already. Not because he couldn't produce them himself!

"You've been tested? How can they test you without an egg?"

"It's some problem with sperm. He explained it, but it's complicated. Do you want to go talk to him tomorrow?"

"Yes...no, I don't know. I have to see Janet tomorrow. Do your parents know this?"

"Yeah, I told them."

It doesn't make any sense. I mean, sure we've had unprotected sex plenty of times and I've never even been worried, but that's because I'm lucky. It's because I take birth control and I have emergency contraceptives, "morning-after" pills. It was never his doing.

"You're sure you've been thoroughly tested?"

"Like you wouldn't believe."

"I'm so sorry." I kept apologizing. I know it's not my fault and of course there's nothing I can do to make his sperm work, I just suddenly felt the need.

How can it be hereditary to some and not others within the same family? He's only been 20 since June, how can he be sterile this soon? Could it have been some sickness he had when he was little that I somehow didn't know about? I didn't know him till I was seven. I need to buy a book on the subject. Educate myself. Give the man a hug. He's still a man, still my best friend, still completely perfect in his own way.

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