Dante and I had a long talk last night. He gave me gas money and told me to drive. I thought we were going somewhere. By the time we were near the other end of the Marikina River (the side beside a mall), he told me to stop.

“I should have known that was what it meant, Keebs,” Dante said. Cryptic. Not very typical. This worried me.

“What meant what?” I asked. He  had been gone for days. And honestly the lack of friendly banter and random headlocks in broad daylight did start to get to me by day 4. I’ve been messaging him and he’d been answering in what I realized now was mock engagement.

“The deal. At Starbucks. Remember that night?”

I had driven Dante to where he and the guy who ran him over last month were supposed to meet. I didn’t really think much of the meet-up but I did find it weird that I insisted to come. I mean, I’m cool, I don’t do that, but that night I was the needy, clingy girl friend who had to know where he was going.

“Guy looks like a salesman. I had to know what he was getting you to buy.”

Dante laughed. Good times. He started stroking the dashboard absently and then his left arm. We both knew body language and what self-stroking meant. He stopped when he probably remembered this. I knew because he checked if I’ve been watching him.

“He was doing the buying.” His tone grew silent.

“What were you selling?”

He didn’t answer. Not immediately. Fact was he never really answered the question for the rest of the trip. What he told me was this, “Do you know what happens when we’re not paying attention to what’s happening in front of us? The way we’re breathing, the thoughts we’re thinking, the automatic lies we’re making?”

This was not Dante. At all.

“They win,” he continued. “They win and accidents happen, likelihoods happen, the statistics roll out like studied game plays.” He appeared to not like this very much.