The Monster In Us

12- it's game Over

On Monday, I go back up the roof for my lunch hour. I don't want to work today on my hacking and my father won't notice if just one day goes by without production so I decide to just take a sketchpad and a pencil up to the roof with me. I want to draw the city from this side because I've drawn it a million times from the top of the Renegade. It'd be an interesting change in point of view.

I don't go to the roof to see Dante but I'm not planning my lunch around him either, I'm just going at the time that is convenient for me. Which just so happens to be the time that Dante usually has his lunch too.

I don't know what I'd say to him if he shows up today, I don't know what he'll say to me. If he even says anything. He is always so damn unreadable and I don't know how to act around him. Part of me wants to get to know him more, most of me wants to punch him in the face, and a really small part of me really can't stop thinking about kissing him.

On the ledge of the building, I start drawing and although the casinos and tall buildings are in my sight, I'm still thinking about Dante, almost worrying about what he's going to say if he comes up here. Maybe he has stopped coming up here because of me, to avoid me, and that makes me feel bad because I didn't want to take his spot away from him or ruin it. I just also wanted it to be my spot, separate from his.

Just as I'm starting to really feel bad for being overly invasive in Dante's personal hideout, the door opens to the rooftop. I don't turn around to see who it is, I just keep drawing. Hoping that if it is Dante, I won't look overly eager to see him because I'm not. I'm curious but I'm mostly focused on drawing the city from the Berardi's perspective.

"I'm not doing this," Dante's voice rings out as he gets closer to me. I keep drawing.

"Doing what?" I ask him.

I see him in my peripheral vision as he leans against the ledge beside me. "This bullshit game that you're trying to play."

I finally stop drawing and turn to look at him, feeling curious yet slightly terrified. "And what would that be?"

"I don't know but it's not my thing," He informs me. "Just tell me what you want from me instead of trying to play whatever the fuck it is that you're trying because I'm not interested."

"I'm still not following," I say, taken by surprise at how straightforward he's being but also how confused I am about what he's talking about.

"You ask me out. We go out. You don't seem interested so I brush it off and move on. But then you decide that you're interested again and get jealous at the restaurant and now what? You're playing hard to get even though you are so obviously up here right now because you know that it's when I take my lunch," He explains his thought processes out loud to me. I admire his bluntness. "I don't know what you want and I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure it out. So until you're ready to just say it instead of trying to make me figure it out, it's game over."

He starts walking away from me, thinking that he's won and that this conversation is over but if he thinks that he can talk to me like that, like he's better than me and that I'm the only one guilty here, then he has a completely different thing coming.

"It's your fault," I argue back. He stops walking away and turns to look at me, curious as to what I have to say.

"My fault?"

"Yes. I told you what I wanted by asking you out. We go out. You didn't seem interested and so I let it go. You were the one jealous at the restaurant. I am up here because I have a coverage meeting at 1:30 today and I can't take a late lunch and I can assure you that it has nothing to do with you. So you can blame me all you want for your blue balls but when two people with too much pride collide, nothing gets said. And that's not my fault."