Nerd Girl(17)

“Why not?” she asked accusingly. “You were with him for almost six hours. There was this mutual unspoken attraction between the two of you and you’re telling me that the topic of relationships never came up?” She looked at me incredulously.

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. Besides, I didn’t want to bring up Andrew. Nothing is a bigger damper on a conversation than bringing up your ex. No thank you. I was NOT going to go there.”

With one eyebrow raised, Anna speculated, “Maybe he’s in a similar situation; in between relationships? Maybe he felt it was impolite to bring up an ex, just like you. Or maybe he has a girlfriend and she’s the one that stood him up that night, and he just didn’t want to tell you. Or maybe he’s gay?”

“Okay, just stop it, Anna. I don’t think he’s gay.” I rolled my eyes at her once again. I was getting irritated now. “I don’t think he’s the type to cheat on someone, either. He seemed like such a responsible and honest person.”

“How would you know? You’ve dated two guys now that have cheated on you, and you had no clue.”

I cringed at the truth of her words and looked away. Her insensitivity was really starting to piss me off. Sisters “Well, there’s no point in discussing this further. It’s done. We shared one dinner together and it was lovely. I’ll never see him again, so that’s just how it is. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how cute was he?” Anna asked with a gleam in her eye.

“Definite ten,” I said without hesitation.

“On your scale or mine?”

“Mine, of course.”

“Then a solid eight.”

“Anna!” I scolded, offended.

She looked at me defensively with wide eyes. “What? It’s nothing new that you and I have always had different taste in men.”

I decided to ignore her. “He’s almost eight years older, though. I’ve never dated anyone that old before. Do you think that would be a problem?”

“So you admit it! You do want to date him.”

I sighed in defeat. “Okay, yes, I guess I do,” I finally admitted, both to myself and her. “But I have no way of finding him, so it’s just wishful thinking.” I kept telling her this not-so-minor detail, but she’d clearly decided to ignore it.

Anna leaned in closer and narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you know what I think?”

“What do you think, Anna?” I mocked boredom.

“I think you subconsciously did it on purpose,” she said, pointing her finger at me accusingly. She knew me so well. Before I could respond to her accusation, she shifted her flow of thought and whined, “Oh Jules, why did you let him get away?” She looked as sad as I felt that night after Ryan had walked away from me. “You know, you’ve got to put yourself out there again. You’re such an amazing person and sometimes I think you have no idea. This is the first person that’s piqued your interest since Andrew and … I get it. You need some time to get over him, but it’s been three, almost four months now. Andrew broke your confidence, but you need to get it back. What better way to do that than finding someone new to replace him?”

I was reminded of how much I loved my sister. Despite her occasional craziness, I knew she had my best interest at heart. “You’re right. I know,” I said with sad resignation.

I looked up at Anna and saw renewed energy on her face. Oh goodness, here we go.

“Julia, you’ve got to find him. I can feel it. I can sense it. He’s your destiny.” This was classic Anna. She was such a drama queen. “Okay, let’s think for a moment,” she continued. “Is there really no way for you to find or contact him again? There’s got to be some way.”

God love her for trying. I decided to humor her. “I could go through the MS GAL, which is the company global address list, and try to locate all the Ryans that work out of the Redmond office, then narrow it down to those that work in marketing.” Anna still looked hopeful, so I had to burst her bubble. “In a ninety thousand person company, that would probably narrow it down to hundreds of people. I think that would be pretty ridiculous to attempt and I doubt I’d have much luck.”

Anna’s eyebrows creased and she was now frowning.

“Besides, I already tried that.” I looked up at her sheepishly. There were exactly 654 Ryans in the MS GAL. “He’s probably forgotten about me anyways. There’s a reason he didn’t want my phone number. If I chased him down, I’d be stalking him. He’d think I was a freak.”