[ mark / eduardo ] all your tomorrows start here
all your tomorrows start here
This oneshot/series of drabbles was inspired by the short story Strange Little Girls by Neil Gaiman and I wrote most of it during school. It doesn't make much sense and isn't much of a story but this is what I do in math class. Muah.
after
You try not to think about it.
You try not to but you do, you simply can’t help it, the times when an echo of that voice will whisper through the back of your mind.
The hardest part about love, the part about it that is even more torturous than hate is that love does not disappear. You can let go of a grudge, you can forget about someone you dislike. You can let go of hurt, and anger, and and even the bloodiest wounds heal over a matte of time. But love isn’t like that, love doesn’t leave.
You hear he’s left the country. By the time word gets to you though, he’s been gone for some time already.
You wonder where he is now. You wonder if he’s happy. You wonder if he’s found someone else. You hope he has, you hope he’s content.
He is happy, though. You wouldn’t know this, but as you pull around our shoulders jacket that’s a little to big for you but that would have fit around his frame perfectly, he’s out in the world. He’s out there, and he is with a nice guy, and they’re sitting at a table in some little cafe and he’s smiling and the other guy is smiling, and he is not thinking of you anymore. But you would have no way of knowing that. And that’s alright. Maybe it’s best if you didn’t know. Maybe he wouldn’t want you to know. Or maybe he wouldn’t care, one way or the other, because he is happy, and happy is something he could never quite achieve when he was with you. You know this.
birthday
You buy the card - a simple, plain card with a photo of half dozen colorful balloons tied with a ribbon, though you can’t remember a single time you saw him and a balloon anywhere near each-other.
You don’t add anything to the inside. You don’t put a return address on the envelope, you just write -M under the generic inside inscription and you drop it in the mailbox. It is not your place to provide anything else. It’s enough.
conflate
It’s a quarter past three in the early morning and you’re still awake, as per usual. You’ve been forcibly kicked out of your own office, but, curled around your laptop and nursing a beer, you have not stopped working.This is a routine for you; time is meaningless, just notches on a circle on the wall. Just one of the limitations you’re trying so hard to shed.
You wake up with the sun in your window and the imprint of laptop keeps in your cheek.
decaff
He is a buisnessman, and he is a good one. He will not forget what you did to him, but eventually, when he understands, he will forgive you. But you’ll never know this, because he’ll never tell you.
He buys coffee in the mornings, the same order every day. The people in the shop know him by name, they know the time he comes in. It’s the same one every morning. They have his drink waiting for him just before he walks in the door.
He works, though not attached to his job. It pays the bills well enough. He lives in an apartment, a very nice place.
He rarely laughs, but if asked, he would say he is happy. If one were to ask about you, he would not reply with bitterness.
He has a single drink and goes to bed, tangled with the limbs of another. Someone he feels affection for, but does not love. Someone who’s not you.
It could have been you.
empty
The jacket has lost its scent but you wear it anyway because its your only link to him. He left it with you, long ago, back in your old dorm room and when he’d never asked for it back, you’d kept it. You wear it, and it gives you the illusion of being less lonely.
faking it
“Mark, you need to eat.”
“You’ve been at your laptop for ten hours.”
“Did you even sleep last night? Or shower?”
They all come to your desk, putting on a face of concern, but you know they’re not really worried about you. They’re reciting the lines expected of them, or maybe they would care if they lost the head of the company, but Wardo was the only one who actually cared for you. He was the only one you’d listen to, the only one you’d do anything for, but now that he’s gone, nothing matters.
gentleman
They meet at the coffee shop, the same one he visits every morning. The man is a dollar short and he offers to cover it for him. They talk, and the connection is there immediately, kind of the way it was with you, but this one will be different.
happiness
He’s getting there. After twenty-four years, he’s finally getting there.
irony
You have Facebook, you have millions of dollars to your name. But you’re not any happier than you were when you were making Facemash in your dorm room with Eduardo by your side. In fact, you decide, you might even be less happy.
The somewhat surprising part of it is that by cutting him out of the company, cutting him out of your life, you allowed him to have the life he’d always dreamed of, the life he never would have had centered around Facebook. You hurt him, you betrayed him, you damaged him for good but he may be even better off now than he would have been. You’ve done him a favor and one day he might even thank you for it.
kissing
You do it with anyone, anywhere, just to distract yourself, exchanging the taste of alcohol on your lips. Bodies are easy to figure out; it's a given that if you touch a guy like this, he'll react like this. a + b = c and everything is easy.
You wish it were that easy to figure yourself out.
lullaby
He falls asleep to the sound of the cars outside, through the cracked window. The noises of the traffic are similar to Los Angeles, but slightly different here, roads made of something else. They run over the pavement with a high, musical humming rather than a low woosh, the world rushing by while they lie safe in their bed. There’s another sound, of breathing, of soft plesant snoring close to his ear and they remind him he isn’t alone.
moving on... or just moving
You made the choice. You hadn’t realized that you were, but it was Facebook over Eduardo and you’d never expected it would come to this. But that’s what happened, and while Facebook is still your child... Eduardo is your baby. Or he was. You’d give it all up to have him again.
They leave, one by one, all those that were there in the beginning; Chris, Dustin - they leave. They move to places like Chicago and New York to pursue other careers. You don’t try to stop them, but you bid them a smiling farewell and when you wish them luck, you mean it sincerely.
Everything must end, everything must go on.
Interns come and go, and even the people you see every day remain only faces. You rather prefer it that way. Because people are only good for hurting you, and you, yourself, don’t do anything but hurt people. You keep yourself in isolation, for them as much as for yourself.
You find your sanctuary in coding, in what used to be the warmth of his arms. Coding can’t hold you, can’t hug you and can’t kiss you, but code has only one answer and an infinite number of tries to get it right. It has a structure, a predetermined outcome and there is always an undo button, or even better, a delete button. It is predictable, it is always the same. In that, it is safe.
party
Ten million members.
You do not celebrate.
reflection
Whenever it rains, you will think of him. You’ll remember him standing soaked on your doorstep and you’ll wonder if it was then that it all began to fall apart, or if it had started long before then.
Occasionally, you’ll hear a voice that sounds like his, or you’ll see hair that looks like his peeking out over the top of the crowd. And every time, your head will turn, and you’ll hold your breath, but it will never be him.
You’ll hear the name Eduardo Saverin occasionally as he raises his own company. You’ll wonder what he thinks when he hears your name as it’s mentioned more and more in the coming years.
You’ll wonder if it was worth it.
sex
It's not the same.
together
He becomes they and you becomes youandhim. He is sweet, quirky, kind and genuinely loyal, but he’s still no Wardo.
They laugh and go to concerts and parks together. They make love in the apartment they share. He and you kiss and drink and fuck until you pass out. You don’t feel any love for him, but he relieves some of the pain.
And there are many hims to come, but none will be the last. None will be good enough.
None will be Wardo.
uxorial
Then, the worst of all, is her. She is beautiful, she is wealthy and she is good in bed, for a girl. She’s necessary, for Facebook, for your image. You’ll marry her, you’ll say vows you don’t mean and she will be yours but you won’t be hers.
zero
Someday, you will see him again. Just one time, at an airport by pure chance. You’ll be with your fiancee, he, alone. You will not ask what he is doing at LAX, but you’ll say his name. And for a split second you’ll see that old spark in his eyes. And then you won’t. He’ll study you, as if trying to asses just how much, if any, you’ve changed since you last met. It will be more than he knows.
“Eduardo,” you’ll say, because nicknames are not your place anymore.
“Mark,” he’ll echo. And that will be all.
You’ll stand in line to check your bags together. You will be civilized. And once more, you will leave. You will drift apart again, and after that, you won’t meat again.
You will continue to think of him, but he will not think of you.
He will be happy. And that is a better revenge than taking six-hundred-million dollars from you.
He will not look back, but you will.