Someone Like You

Chapter 7 - He's Just Not That Into You

I wish that I could have been nonchalant about the whole thing, but I wasn't. I was a big, fucking mess.

I checked my phone constantly, hoping that he would text or call. I would sneak off to my desk in between patients, and at every other conceivable break in the day, to see if he had sent me something. If another friend texted or called I would lunge at my phone in a frenzy of crazed excitement, and then be unable to hide my disappointment in the tone of my response when I realized it wasn't him.

I would wake up before my alarm went off at the ass-crack of dawn and scramble for my phone frantically in the dark to see if he had emailed or texted. I would hit refresh on my phone absentmindedly during meals and while watching television so that I would know the moment he got in touch.

He never did.

By mid-day, my phone would be out of power and my inbox would still be empty.

I put my phone right by my bed, and on one occasion, had gotten a text from my bank at 10:30 at night that had roused me from sleep thinking that it was from Andy. When I saw that it wasn't, I almost threw my phone across the room in frustration, but didn't, because, then, how would I know if he texted?

By Friday morning, almost a week since Andy's departure, I had more or less resigned myself to the life of a spinster, surrounded by dogs (I had never really been much of a cat person), smelling vaguely of kibble, dried herbs and prunes.

Zack and Sarah could tell that I was completely crestfallen that he hadn't gotten in touch. To their credit though, they made no excuses for him, and did not feed me bullshit lines about possible reasons why he hadn't called. In fact, the opposite, they urged me to move on. I was a great catch and if he couldn't see it blah, blah, blah...

I wanted to poke out their eyes with the blunt end of a spork.

As the days passed, Sarah kept reminding me of my promise to go on a double date with her and Sean, Dave's buddy from work. I tried to back out, but Sarah wouldn't hear of it. If Andy wasn't interested, then I needed to find someone else who was.

At 6:30 in the morning on Friday she texted me:

Don't even fucking think about backing out on me tonight.

At 12, she sent this:

What shoes are you wearing tonight? I'm so excited to see you!

And at 4:57, she sent this:

I will stop being your friend if you cancel on me, so don't even bother to call if that's what you're planning on doing

By 6:16, her tone had become slightly more concerned:

Why aren't you texting me back? Is everything OK? Only serious injury or death will get you out of this date tonight and you can't die because you owe me $40.

I replied:

I'll be there. I'm wearing black flats. I am never paying you back.

We met up at Trio, one of my favorite restaurants near 9th and 9th. I arrived first and pulled out my book, the latest in The Sun and The Moon series by one of my favorite authors, Leslie McAdam. I had one final chapter, which was likely to contain a lot of sex, so I probably should have known better than to have read it before a date, but I couldn't help myself. I finished the book, and a glass of wine, just as Sarah & Dave arrived, Sean a few minutes later.

Once they had sat down and ordered drinks, we got to chatting. Dave and Sean were co-residents in internal medicine and so the conversation naturally drifted toward that topic. Sean seamed easy going. He wasn't beautiful in the way that Andy was, but he wasn't unfortunate looking either.