TSN: Preliminary (2/2)
For warnings see Part 1.
Mark recruits Dustin. He is willing, enthusiastic, and at that point so bored with his current major of English Lit that he teaches himself coding over the course of one weekend and declares his love for Computer Science.
Mark estimates he has two months tops before he gets bored again and moves on, but by then thefacebook should be up and running and so he throws himself into the code while Eduardo hovers around the edges of his vision and makes vague noises of encouragement and support and sometimes disapproval when Mark is once again skipping class or hasn't slept or eaten anything but fish and sugar in two days.
Dustin is somewhat less devoted but still of surprisingly great help, and in between breaks provides additional entertainment like leaving notes from Eduardo or bringing Mark food from the dining hall that he says Eduardo asked him to bring Mark so he won't die of scurvy. Unlike his three previous majors Dustin hasn't grown bored of Eduardo yet and still thinks he's hilarious.
(Except for when Chris is listening, then it's for practice because how can their Mark learn to be a real boy when he can't even make a construct of his own mind happy, baby steps, Christopher, baby steps.)
There's a reason Dustin usually is his favorite. After Eduardo.
Though Chris loosens up a bit too, ironically having less of a problem with Eduardo when Mark increasingly ignores him in favor of staying wired in and coding, and he has to admit Eduardo is fun to have around, especially when it comes to Billy (who still randomly shows up at their door and they have yet to figure out why) seeing one of Eduardo's notes and wondering at Eduardo's continued mysterious absence.
Eventually Billy takes to complaining that he's beginning to think Eduardo doesn't even exist because he always seems to just miss him. The first time this happens, Dustin ruins two hours worth of code by keysmashing to the point where he undoes said code and then saves accidentally, Chris literally chokes on his own spit, and Mark pretends he's wired in but smirks at Eduardo who stands leaning against his desk, body open and hips canted towards Mark. Eduardo honest to God pouts at the statement and says that he knows that but he doesn't like Billy saying it. Mark's eyes flit across the room and take everything in, Billy's cluelessness, Dustin's silently choking laughter and Chris fruitless attempts to hide his own amusement on the one side and Eduardo by himself on the other, standing out in his dark suit and his now newly stiff and unrelaxed posture, and suddenly Mark is uncomfortable and wishes Billy would shut up about this already.
A couple of weeks later, Dustin tells Billy how the last time he was over Eduardo dropped by and Billy, high as a kite and smoking up Mark's valuable work environment, made a complete fool of himself, climbing all over him and pawning at him to make sure he was really there. Billy actually believes him even though Dustin is a horrible actor and from then on assumes Eduardo is avoiding him and going out of his way to make sure they don't meet because he thinks Billy is crazy, always guiltily hunching his shoulders when someone mentions Eduardo in his presence.
This also makes for a much more quiet suite when Billy is around, and once memorably Chris uses this when he has to learn for an exam, casually dropping Eduardo's name in the conversation, and the next day sends Eduardo a text to thank him.
Mark is tempted to mark the date in his calendar but Eduardo waves it off.
*
Mark decides to put Eduardo on the masthead. More so, he decides to make Eduardo his CFO.
It's frustrating that Eduardo can't actually do anything of course; there are times when it would make everything easier to have a real business major (econ, business, it's more or less the same anyway how Mark sees it) to take care of business, and maybe provide some of the startup money, but that would mean letting someone else in and Mark's not ready to do that, not ready to give away even a part of this to someone he can't trust. So Mark gets 70%, and Eduardo 30, with Eduardo's 30% including Mark setting up his page for him, putting his name right below Mark's, and even if only in name giving him the job of CFO.
It actually looks better that way, like a serious company with delegation, task sharing, and everybody who is doing something actually qualified for it, and having Eduardo's name up there will make it less likely for people to dismiss thefacebook as another one of Mark's little projects like Coursematch or Facemash. Eduardo lends credibility, and, on the day of the launch, his address book. He deserves something for that.
*
Mark initially thought that once thefacebook was online it would demand less of his time, but he soon finds out he was wrong. Thefacebook is amazing, and people join up en mass. It grows, faster than any of them could have imagined, and it keeps commandeering most of Mark's attention.
But it's good, it's so good.
People begin to know his name, they recognize him in the halls and try to strike up conversations with him even though in between the few classes and lectures he still attends, Mark is always busy now, he codes and codes and codes and barely even has time for Eduardo who in turn grows more absent, sticking around less and less and always ready to disappear with a mumbled excuse about course work or some event or the other.
Then they meet Christy.
It's at the Bill Gates lecture, something that is for once relevant to Mark's interests, and Mark instinctively wants to be annoyed when someone tries to get his attention from one row behind him, but then he turns around to glare and there's this girl. She's clearly not part of the social circles Mark usually moves in, pretty and fashionable in clothes that probably cost more than Mark's entire wardrobe, with careful make-up, dark hair and dark eyes that are fixed on Mark like a hunter on his prey, but in a good way, like she actually likes what she sees. Her blouse is open deep enough that he can catch a glimpse of her bra, unbuttoned further than Eduardo's shirts ever are, and Mark looks at her and there's something there, something he sees that he wants.
Mark takes her in for a second, her expectant smile, her posture, everything about her that screams 'high maintenance'. He opens his mouth, closes it because girls like that don't talk to him, and if they do they stop again quickly enough because he doesn't compliment them sufficiently or mince his words or whatever, but she looks at him like she wants him and is interested. She's attractive without being perfect and her skin is not tan but darker than his own pasty complexion and her hair looks like it would smell like the hair product aisle of a drug store and she is real, she is someone he could reach out and touch, and he wants, he wants to touch, but his mind is a maelstrom of asshole and stairmaster and the number of friends Eduardo has on Myspace and dark eyes and skin that is forever just out of reach.
He leans back, listens to Bill Gates with one ear, and lets Eduardo talk to her.
*
Her name is Christy and she wants Mark them Eduardo to facebook her.
"She said 'facebook me' and we can go for a drink later. Which is stunningly great for two reasons. One, she said 'facebook me'. Right? And the other is, you know, she wants to have drinks later. Have you ever heard so many different good thing packed into one regular-sized sentence?"
*
They do meet for drinks, only 'drinks' turns out to be code for a blowjob in the pub's dingy bathroom, and Mark wonders for a moment if he was supposed to know that, if that's a thing people say, but then Christy pushes the door close behind them and presses Mark up against it and moulds her body to his.
She tastes sticky-sweet, of lip-gloss and alcopops, and it's not bad but also not good. Then she drops down and crouches between his legs though, and how Christy tastes isn't important anymore. Mark feels his pulse speed up and sweat begin to pearl on his upper lip, Christy's mouth wet and hot on his dick, then around it, and it's slick enough with spit that he doesn't notice the lip-gloss at all.
Now it's good, it's so good, but he's not sure what to do with his hands, if he should put them in her hair or leave them curled in fists by his side, is there some kind of bathroom stall blowjob etiquette he isn't familiar with, and he bites his lips because what if someone hears him, but Christy is making soft sounds, squelching and pornographic, and hums, high and girly, everything somehow too obscene to listen to. Mark looks down at her head where it is bopping up and down in front of him, her long hair moving back and forth in a counter rhythm, and suddenly it's too much, all too much, and he has to close his eyes and let his head fall back against the door.
He wants this and needs this and doesn't want it at all, and he doesn't know what to do but he does know he doesn't want to have to listen to the noises Christy is making, he thinks maybe he should be making some noises of his own but isn't sure, and he really wishes Eduardo were here, he should be, that's what he's there for, besides, Eduardo was the one talking to Christy earlier, and Eduardo would be good at this, he'd know how to behave.
Through the closed lids of his eyes and the wall of the stall, Mark can see how Eduardo would look like this, with Christy on her knees before him, no, first with her standing and attacking his mouth, licking in and nipping, the way she did with Mark when he didn't open up to her right away, and Eduardo would let her in and take, would open up and welcome her until both their lips are red and shiny with shared spit and the remains of her lip-gloss, and, yes, okay, this is good, this works. Christy moves down then, rubbing her cheek against the faint dark stubble that has grown on Eduardo's jaw and throat since that morning, brushes her lips over his Adam's apple and lets them rest there for a moment to feel him swallow, then dip down into the hollow at the back of his throat that's always, always visible in the v of his unbuttoned shirt collar but that no one can touch, licks there to taste the salt of his skin, and then she drops down.
Mark can hear Eduardo's belt buckle, the rustle of fabric, and then Eduardo's sharp intake of breath, surprised and loud enough to Mark's ears to drone out the wet sucking going on between his own legs. Eduardo probably knows exactly where to put his hands because he doesn't seem to worry for one second about whether or not to make noises and how loud, he just does, he hums appreciatively, he moans and groans and bites back words that almost escape, and his breath hitches on this high note Mark has never heard from him before and that vibrates in his bones when Christy tongues at his slit. Mark is still biting his lips, or again, hard enough that he begins to taste blood under the lingering flavor of Christy and sweet. When they come, Eduardo does not say Mark's name because he'd never but he makes this loud, shuddering noise that sounds like it's being ripped out of him in a way that makes Mark bite his lip harder and stutter out a breathy hum, nails digging hard enough into the palms of his hands to leave little halfmoon-shaped indentations.
Christy licks her lips as she stands up, again so obscene Mark wants to pull a face even though he's still high from his orgasm, but Eduardo ushers him out while Christy freshens herself up.
Then they are standing in front of the bathroom door, side by side, close enough that their shoulders almost brush and Mark is half-convinced he can feel the heat radiating off Eduardo, and Eduardo beams at him, color high in his cheeks, eyes, shining, and lips still red and swollen from kissing.
"We have groupies." Eduardo looks bright and happy and Mark can't help but smile back and stare at his mouth that is so close and there and he wills Eduardo to lick his lips like Christy did because he thinks that if Eduardo did it, it wouldn't look obscene at all, it would look hot, even if it had been Eduardo on his knees before Mark if would look hot to see him lick his lips, it would look good enough for Mark to want to lean over and place his lips on Eduardo's, tease them open to chase the taste of himself on Eduardo's tongue which would have been inexperienced but talented.
But he wills and wills and Eduardo doesn't and even if he did, Mark wouldn't lean over and Eduardo would never taste of him, so he looks away and his eyes land on Erica who sits there at a table and hasn't even noticed Mark. He goes over to her mainly to get away from Eduardo but she doesn't listen to him, she doesn't understand, she blows him off and talks about not wanting to be rude as if that's not exactly what she is doing to him, and that is how he winds up taking Christy home with him and tells his friends that thefacebook is going to expand, get some attention through articles in school newspapers, including B.U.'s Bridge, move to Yale and Columbia.
Eduardo suggests Stanford.
Mark is fine. He's got this under control.
*
Mark is busy. Mark is so busy, it feels like he has to do everything by himself (and for the most part he does), even though Dustin and Chris are now officially part of the company, and there's Christy with whom he keeps meeting up because she's hot and willing and ambitiously clever and there, and if Mark only texts her using Eduardo's phone that doesn't mean anything, his own is lost somewhere in his room with a dead battery and he can't be bothered to look for it. But the point is, thefacebook is growing and changing and there's so much going on, with the site, in Mark's life, everything is moving so fast, and between it all, he hardly has time for Eduardo anymore.
*
For the most part Mark can handle it all, the responsibility, the stress, but at some point it all comes together, thefacebook, balancing his course work even though he more and more thinks maybe he should just quit, Chris, Dustin, Christy, fucking everything, and then there's that letter from the Winklevosses. Mark deals with that too, he goes to student council and deals with that shit and deals with the latest glitch with the photo uploads and deals with Christy who thinks she needs to tell him her life story and how she comes from a conservative family and gets the whole double life thing and having one persona for fun and play and one for work and what does she even know, nothing, she doesn't know anything about him and Eduardo.
Fuck. Even though she was right there.
So Mark deals with everything and then ignores Christy's text and tries to code away the lag in the profile page loading, but now he's back thinking about that night which he always tries not to because what's the point and Mark has stuff to do, he doesn't need this, but it's too late, and now he's reliving it in Technicolor and Dolby-surround.
It happened in a dirty pub bathroom, because Eduardo might consider himself a nice guy and try to be a gentleman and polite and shit but he's also a young healthy male and those just don't say no to blowjobs by pretty girls, and how Eduardo was so much more vocal than Mark, how this didn't surprise Mark because unlike Mark's own annoyingly touchy-feely family Eduardo's parents are rather distant and he doesn't ever initiate contact with anyone (even though he hovers tantalisingly close all the time always almost touching), Eduardo is probably touch-starved. Mark always figured he'd be incredibly responsive. And so of course it didn't take long until Eduardo started to make those noises, like he was dying, like no one had ever done that for him before, and how Mark still isn't sure if what pushed him over the edge were those sounds of Eduardo's or the hint of teeth grazing his dick. The noises run through Mark's mind on repeat and keep him from wiring in, and no matter how high he cracks up the volume of his music it can't drown them out. He doesn't get anything done and it's all too much, it's building up and Mark is just trying to keep up, squaring his shoulders and clenching his jaw.
Mind over matter fails him again though, and eventually he saves, frustrated, takes off his headphones and texts Christy to meet up, because he's buzzing with enough nervous energy he's practically vibrating (she should appreciate that) and needs to relieve some tension.
*
New York and Sean Parker happen. Christy's there, and Eduardo isn't, Eduardo is just Mark's absent CFO who couldn't make it, and while they are waiting, Mark thinks about having him there because Mark is getting nervous and he doesn't want to be so it'd be good to push that on Eduardo, but then Sean arrives and he blows Mark's mind.
He's everything Mark wants to be. He's cool and clever and doesn't give a fuck and people know who he is, he gets Mark, he gets what thefacebook is about, even better than Eduardo, and when does anyone ever get Mark better than Eduardo, and best of all? He acts like Mark blows his mind too.
*
Eduardo loathes Sean. He warns and cautions and nags, but Mark is done with that, he's ready, it's time to go big or go home and Mark won't end the party at eleven just because Eduardo's nervous.
*
Then the Crimson publishes an article. Not about Facebook (Sean's idea, and it does sound better), not about Mark. About Eduardo. Eduardo is livid, he's defensive one moment and lashing out the next, he's acting out like he suddenly forgot he's supposed to be the calm and sensible one in their relationship, and before Mark knows it they are fighting, with Mark pushing and Eduardo for once, for the first time, pushing back, and Mark doesn't understand what's going on.
It's the first time he thinks he might have to get rid of Eduardo. He hasn't seen that coming.
Mark knows someone has planted the story, but that isn't the point. Mark can't have something like this connected to Facebook.
In a way it is Eduardo's fault. Eduardo, who is social and somehow has ended up being friendly with all the right people despite no one ever having even seen his face (and doesn't anybody care about stranger danger and being careful about making friends on the internet anymore?) and keeps getting invitations to parties even though he never shows up, who is in his own way as clever as Mark but at the same time is everything Mark is not. Eduardo, who got punched by a final club, would get punched by half a dozen final clubs in a heartbeat if he ever actually went somewhere. Whose email address book is five times as big as Mark's, and unlike Mark's list of CS geeks, AEPi losers, and a couple of random acquaintances his motley collection ranges from other econ majors to chess affictionados,from girls who wanted to fuck Eduardo to guys who wanted to be him. (Mark could relate, in both regards) from girls who had a thing for exotic named to guys trying to figure out if Eduardo would make a good addition to their clubs. (Eduardo doesn't even really care about the final clubs; he's always been telling Mark not to take them so seriously.) Whose name people know the way they know Mark's by now even though Eduardo has never done anything to deserve their attention.
But Eduardo has never been in the cafeteria with his stupid chicken. He'd just posted a picture of it online and complained that the bird wouldn't shut up because it'd seem like fun at the time, one of the things the pledges had to do and Eduardo had gotten punched after all.
So it isn't really Eduardo's fault. Okay, Mark knows that. And at first he did tell him to just forget about it.
But Facebook is important, and Mark has put Eduardo on the masthead because it looks better to have someone who does econ as CFO than having the programmer try to do it himself, and because Eduardo is was is his best friend. Only now Mark has so many other things to think of but Eduardo, and Eduardo is behaving like an ass, and then Eduardo starts to complain about Sean Parker again.
"The drugs, the girls…" He's sitting there on Mark's bed and flailing, letting himself fall back like he owns it, blanket and pillow and everything.
"We don't know any of that is true." They don't. Eduardo is being irrational. He is overreacting. Sean hasn't done anything to him, and he acts as if Sean's mere existence offends his senses when Sean is the one who's actually bringing something to the table and has connections. Mark can't have that. Eduardo trying to boycott Sean. Eduardo harming Facebook.
"You can read about it!"
"I can read about you torturing birds. Since when does reading about something make it-"
-real.
Screw it. Mark doesn't have time for this.
Eduardo has to get with the program.
That's what he is there for, after all.
*
Eduardo doesn't get with the program. When Mark tells him that he's been talking to Sean and that they are going to Palo Alto for the summer, he refuses.
He says he has to stay in New York and do an internship, and looks pained while talking about his father. Which is bullshit, Eduardo doesn't have a father, Mark made all of that up.
He also says he'll look for advertisers in new York, which is even more bullshit. Because, ads. Mark doesn't want ads, Mark doesn't need ads, ads would kill Facebook, and he's told Eduardo that, but Eduardo doesn't do what Mark wants, Eduardo refuses to be what Mark wants, like that's not the only reason he even exists. But Mark lets it go, lets him go and goes to California himself because it's not like Eduardo can actually go and screw things up for him.
*
Mark doesn't need Eduardo.
Mark.
Shit. Mark doesn't need Eduardo. He's known that, of course, has always known it, but in the last few years he has grown so used to always having Eduardo around making things easier that it almost feels like he forgot along the way and is only remembering it again now. He doesn't need Eduardo.
*
Fuck Eduardo. Except it would change things, if Mark could do that, but he can't, and so he goes to Palo Alto and lives in a house with Dustin and his interns because Mark has interns now, and he had to figure it all out by himself, insurance, payment, expenses, everything, because it's not like Eduardo ever was of any use. Instead, Sean shows up at Mark's door and takes him out and talks to him about making it big and taking chances and, like, The Life. With parties and not having to compromise and Victoria's Secret models, and Sean sticks around, Sean does what Eduardo never could, he keeps everything running, makes sure Mark can focus on his code. He creates this bubble around Mark, this prefect space for him to exist in and work and do his thing and sometimes enters with food and papers that need signing or decisions that Mark has to make himself, and he sets up meetings for Mark, with people Mark should know, with people that could be useful, and with people that could be the investors Mark needs. No matter what Eduardo said, Sean is a mostly decent guy; he never says a bad word about Eduardo, only wonders what Mark's CFO is doing that's more important than being with his company.
So that's how it goes, Facebook explodes, and Mark feels like he's constantly high even though he never is anymore (contact high aside), he works and works and works and sometimes sleeps and he lives and breathes Facebook, it's like he's spending almost all his time in this headspace where he can just create, and it's exhilarating and scary at the same time because he doesn't ever want to stop and sometimes thinks he couldn't stop if he wanted to.
*
Mark doesn't need Eduardo. He's always had his uses, yes, but these days there are less of those than ever. And he realizes what's going on. He's self-aware enough to know he's been using Eduardo as a safety blanket over the last few years, because reality was lacking and in hindsight maybe Mark wasn't ready to take it on himself. But he has grown, he has changed, and he's not hiding in his room anymore and waiting for everybody around him to suddenly and miraculously recognize his value. He went out and took chances and did things, he's doing stuff now, he is changing the world, and it doesn't matter if somehow he still ends up spending most of his time locking himself away and coding because now he's coding out there and people know what he's doing.
And Mark can do this.
But maybe it would be nice to still have Eduardo here. Just in case.
*
Dustin is trying to reenact his zipline ride without an actual zipline, jumping into the water again and again while their off-duty intern rewatches the film of his original ride and tries to mime that Dustin should move in more of a glide jump while Mark stands in the pool, far enough to the side to not end up hit by any of Dustin's limbs but close enough to get doused by splashing water, for the sole purpose of critiquing Dustin's posture and egging them on.
Mark likes this. He likes California, he likes Palo Alto, he likes their cheaply ready-furnished house with the broken chimney that he'll never get the security deposit back for, he likes working by a pool and watching people pretend to zipline and having people who are not Billy over, having girls over, for bong parties, and going clubbing with underwear models and Sean, who makes everything he does look so easy and relaxed and cool and who actually does do things, fun things and useful things, and who knows people, useful people, and organizes around Mark, taking some of the burden off his shoulders.
He likes this whole crazy, hectic, chaotic, synergetic summer. He feels like he fits, here.
Maybe that's why he only wonders, objectively, what Eduardo would look like here, if he could be made to fit, without actually putting effort into picturing him. Ultimately he can't imagine Eduardo here - he could imagine him be here, but he just can't see how it would work. He can't imagine Eduardo out of his suits when there's the faintest excuse to wear dark and formal and tailored, and being in California for business would for Eduardo be reason enough to stay put-together at all times.
He wades a bit to the side and leans back against the edge of the pool, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back, face turned towards the sun that burns red through his lids and works away at his skin's eager defenses against its rays, even through layers of sunscreen and t-shirt.
Then he tries.
Mark in California is not like Mark before California, so if Eduardo were here, he could by that same reasoning be different too, to a certain degree.
Eduardo could be more relaxed, easier. He should be, really. He's Brazilian. He's supposed to flourish in the sun and heat - he's definitely spent enough time wrapping coats around himself and wincing and bitching about the cold in New York and Massachusetts, he owes it to Mark to rip off take off his clothes and change into trunks in the bathroom and then jump into the pool, in a stretched, elegant dive that would have him cross half the pool underwater to surface in front of Mark, waves parting to reveal dark hair glossy with water and tan skin. Tan from the very beginning, not like Kevin who burnt lobster-red on their second day and then turned brown a week and a disgusting skin-peel-off later, because Eduardo tans as well as waxes, even though no one ever sees his body has ever seen his body before now, not like. Not like.
The edge of the pool digs into his back through his shirt and Mark shifts, resting his forearms on the wet stone and letting them take some of the weight.
Mark has never seen Eduardo's body before, not like.
He clenches his hands and tries to browbeat the construct of Eduardo into a pool setting, groomed and primmed and body a streamlined flash of gold under the water with interrupted by the narrow strip of dark of a pair of simple black square cuts, slightly over-the-top and tempting like an expensive commercial. The pieces will not come together though, and the details Mark calls to the forefront of his mind keep slipping through his grasp every time he reaches for another one to join them together to form the comprehensive whole.
Eduardo and how Mark feels about Palo Alto seem incompatible, at least in regards to adapting Eduardo for Palo Alto. He is too stiff.
It makes sense. Now that Mark thinks about it, it does make sense.
Eduardo, carefully crafted flaws aside, embodies what Mark four years ago had assumed was cool and still young but considered grown-up, what Mark, when he was in his teens, just a kid who thought he knew everything, had assumed he should aspire to be like. Eduardo is how Mark thought someone had to be for people to like them and to look at them and see them without looking down on them.
Four years seems half a lifetime away now though, and this ideal of Eduardo represents is fundamentally different from the way of life, of being, that Sean is now exemplifying to Mark. Sean is demanding and refuses to back down, he allows himself to be arrogant and people just smile and take it. He shows off and owns it, all of it, the good and the bad, his genius and accomplishments while openly standing by his flaws and lows, and yet he still enjoys himself, who he is, insists on enjoying himself.
Sean makes people play by his rules instead of playing by theirs. And succeeds while doing so.
This is an ideal that now, in direct comparison, feels much more suited for appropriate for Mark and a better example to emulate.
Mark wants to be like Sean. Eduardo he just wants.
*
He wakes up with the hot touch of phantom fingers echoing on his skin and gasping into his pillow, into a mouth that isn't there anymore, hips pressing into the wet, sticky friction of his boxers and the mattress in a last few desperate, erratic humps before the rush of blood in his ears and the lighting tension making his sleep-disoriented limbs taut and twitch ease and oversensitivity creeping in halts his movements.
Mark rolls his head to the side, twice heavy with sleep and the hum of post-orgasmic lethargy, and takes a deep breath, two, three, swallowing and moving his tongue over his lips, trying to lick away the sour flavor of sleep, when the flashback hits him, quick and fleeting, already fading in intensity and coherency but still cohesive enough that the full sensual assault provokes another futile twitch of his spent dick and a helpless push into the resistance of the mattress.
Eduardo.
Fucking Eduardo.
Not literally. But kissing him. Rather, Eduardo kissing him. In the pool. Mark up to his chest in water, leaning against the ledge, and Eduardo rising up like a vision, light all around him and all over him and everything bright and blinding. Eduardo in front of Mark, fingers hot in Mark's hair, tugging, stroking down even hotter to cup his face, glide over his chest and stomach, burning holes into Mark's hips underwater pulling Mark against him in time for Eduardo to press his mouth over Mark's and push in, demanding, taking, tangible, alive, a revelation of firm touch and appreciative groans and golden light and a taste of chlorine and something Mark can already not remember anymore but that he knew to be Eduardo on his tongue…
A frustrated, desperate, hungry sound grows in the back of Mark's throat, and he swallows it down and turns over, lying on his back next to the spot where wetness has soaked into the sheets. He's still wearing his boxers though, and they and the gummy mess in them turn with him, a slowly cooling and increasingly uncomfortable reminder of the fact that he just came in his pants like a teenager.
Humiliation rises up in him but fails to take hold as the significance of having had a wet dream about Eduardo sinks in and sends his pulse racing again in an entirely different manner.
Mark cannot have this. It's not okay, it's unsettling, it's… it's not having control. Dreaming about something that while awake and consciously trying he cannot make Eduardo do is not having control, and Mark needs to have this under control.
Mark needs to be in control. Not Eduardo. Mark can't have this.
He gets up, pads through the dark hallway into the bathroom and takes a shower that probably wakes half the house because the plumbing is shit, but he doesn't care. There's a coil of apprehension sitting heavy in his stomach that he can't wash away together with the come gumming his pubes.
Afterwards he doesn't go back to sleep, instead he settles down with his laptop on the couch in the living room, in between takeout containers, and checks everybody's code from the last two days.
He stays there as the house eventually wakes up around him, while people walk past and around him, sitting down and getting up again and eating leftover Chinese. He doesn't go out all day, only moves towards the glass doors once to close them and lock out the sounds of people moving in water.
Mark can't lose control.
*
It's the night before Sean and him have a meeting with a potential investor, an important one, not like the one with Case Equity and Manningham. This could be just what they need. Sean is nervous, and that's making Mark nervous too. So Mark sits in the living room to distract himself because he just came down from a coding spree and knows he can't go on another one right now if he doesn't just want to fall asleep in front of everybody tomorrow but should get some rest, spends some time watching two girls he doesn't think he's ever seen before take hits while Sean jitters around, wishes he could go sit outside where it's quiet but it's pissing, and decides to indulge himself.
It's time to rein Eduardo in again. Mark won't try to change Eduardo to fit his new specifications of how he'd like him to be, that was a miscalculation and ultimately what caused Mark to lose his grasp on him to begin with; Eduardo as a system is too set for drastic changes, less adaptable than Mark himself. Eduardo is different from Mark's new life, but that doesn't mean Mark has to give him up completely. Eduardo remaining set in his ways can be a reassurance just as much as a drag, a comforting weight to ground Mark, and a counterpoint allowing him to slow down and breath every once in a while compared to Sean's enabling and pushing. Having Eduardo here will stop Mark from feeling like he's always just one step from spinning out of control.
"Mark, I've been calling your cell!" Eduardo looks stropping wet because it's raining hard enough that even the distance from the road to the door would have left him drenched. His posture and the slant of his mouth speak of him being tired and cranky and more than a bit upset ; Mark has been neglecting him though so Eduardo's frown isn't unexpected. He stands there in his soaked black coat, in a room full of people and yet separate from them, set apart by more than his for warm Californian summer rain inappropriate attire as they party around him and don't notice his misery, as if the parts of him that made him Mark's counterpart can't help but not fit in here where Mark is finally feeling like himself.
He also looks good. Like, really good. If he could get Eduardo to stay until the weather lets up he'd at least take off his jacket and roll up the sleeves of his shirt so Mark could watch the play of muscle under his skin, sun glinting off the dusting of fine hairs on his arms that Mark knows are there but that have the potential to be so much better in the sun, and somehow he thinks having Eduardo here would make everything calmer and less extreme. It's a bit of a surprise how genuinely happy he is to see Eduardo, but he rolls with it, gets up, and leads Eduardo into the hallway, closing the door and giving them some privacy, before he turns and waves at him in greeting, an aborted fistpump that wouldn't have landed anyway and so will have to make do as a wave.
"Mark, what happened here? What is that outside? What is he doing here?"
"Wardo." Mark needs Eduardo to wait and listen. "Wardo, you have to take a look at some of the stuff we've set up. You have to see the wall. Wait, let me get my laptop, you've got to see the wall."
Mark is excited now, because it is good to have Eduardo here, Eduardo who will look at the wall and at Facebook and at everything Mark has done and tell him it looks really good and smile at him and make him relax and sleep. He turns and shuffles into his room, mind buzzing with anticipation and the kind of wired exhaustion that is the other side of tired, almost falling over someone's abandoned power chord because he doesn't watch where he's going, then leans over his laptop and wakes it up from sleep mode, ready to show Eduardo the wall, but Eduardo's eyes are fixed on the post-it on the side of Mark's screen reminding him of the meeting tomorrow.
"What's this?" Eduardo sounds confused, and Mark looks between him and the post-it. It's as self-explanatory as he remembers.
"Sean set us up a meeting for tomorrow with Peter Thiel. He runs a two-"
"Why is Sean Parker setting up meetings?" It's less confusion now and more anger, the anger Mark has grown used to over the last few weeks in Harvard, and somehow this isn't turning out the way Mark wanted.
"Thiel may want to make an angel investment." He wants Eduardo to be happy for him, why can't Eduardo ever just be happy for him anymore?
"I don't care if he's an actual Angel, why is Sean setting up business meetings?"
Jealousy turns out to be a good look on Eduardo, but it's pointless and so Mark tries to turn the conversation away from Eduardo's dislike of Sean. Maybe they should first talk about what Eduardo has been up to since they last saw each other (nothing). "How's the internship? How's Christy?"
"How's.. Jesus, Mark." Eduardo drags a hand through his hair, the wet strands clinging to his fingers and then standing on end like they've been treated with too much of a glossy gel and then styled by a three-year-old. Mark's fingers twitch to smooth them down, or at least trace that drop of water that's been set off by the motion and is now making its way down the side of Eduardo's face as he talks, over the thin skin on his temple, past his cheek, trailing down the edge of his jaw until it hangs quivering just below his chin.
"The internship, I quit the internship, I told you about that!" Mark honestly can't remember, he hasn't spent much time with Eduardo's pages lately, Facebook or otherwise.
"And Christy's crazy." She is that, Eduardo's phone has been ringing with incoming texts for weeks until it must have sunk in that Mark wasn't going to answer.
"Is that fun?" It's a barb, but Mark can't resist. If Eduardo's so unhappy Mark is busy with something other than him, maybe he should hang around Christy who does seem to have an overabundance of attention she desperately wants to lavish on one of them.
Christy could lick away that drop of water.
"No, I mean she's actually psychotic."
Well, at least Eduardo is now upset at someone else. "Still, it's nice you have a girlfriend."
"I do not want that guy representing himself as part of the company." Or not. This used to be so easy, why can't Eduardo be easy again?
"Wardo, you have to move out here, this is where it's all happening." Eduardo opens his mouth but Mark can tell he'll keep going on about Sean and so he just talks over him. "The connections, the energy, Wardo, you have to be here, now. I'm afraid if you don't stay with me you are going to get left behind." Because that's it, isn't it? If Mark can manage just fine when Eduardo's not there then maybe someday soon he'll stop bringing Eduardo back. "I need- I want you out here." Because Mark doesn't need him, but he still wants him. He doesn't want to want him, not with Eduardo so contrary, but he does.
"What did you just say?" Eduardo's mouth hangs open on the last syllable, and that drop finally falls. Mark watches it soak into the fabric of Eduardo's jacket.
"It's moving faster than any of us ever imagined and-" Mark keeps on talking, because he doesn't want to give up Eduardo, he likes Eduardo, likes him a lot, even like this.
"What do you mean, get left behind?" Eduardo's voice gets all high and pressed at the end of the question, like he knows the answer (he does, what Mark knows Eduardo knows and vice versa) but doesn't want to be right.
"-and Sean even thinks that-"
"Sean is not a part of this company!" Eduardo almost yells it.
"No, you aren't!" Mark doesn't yell, barely raises his voice, but Eduardo flinches like Mark cut him, and Mark, Mark keeps going because there's nothing else he can do, he can't reach out, he can't pull Eduardo in and touch him and Eduardo can't touch him either, so what's the point. He wants and he can't and so he's finally going to end this now. "You are not my CFO, you are not doing any work, you know nobody, you don't bring in any money. We have over 300.000 members, we are in 160 schools, Sean put us in five schools in Europe. We need more servers, more programmers, more money. And Sean set up the Thiel meeting tomorrow. Sean has been setting up meetings all over town, and you are not here!"
Mark still can't remember having raised his voice, but he's breathing heavily as he looks around his empty room with its dry floor.
Eventually he digs up Eduardo's phone from the pile of cables and gadgets at the back of his desk and plugs it in to charge it.
*
He calls Christy, for the first time since… For the first time. So far he's only ever texted her.
Though mostly she texted him. 47 texts. Very mature. She really is a psycho.
Mark lets her yell at him for a while because he figures he owes her that much and he's not a total ass, he lets her scream at him about Silicon Valley sluts (that, if they exist, Mark hasn't met yet - he'll ask Sean), and about not changing his relationship status (which he did - Eduardo's that is) and how he's the worst thing that ever happened to her, Mark, Eduardo, however he calls himself today.
Then he breaks up with her.
He almost throws the phone out of the window after but in the end doesn't.
Just because he's done with Eduardo doesn't mean he can't keep the memories. Because Eduardo was good, and Facebook might be his masterpiece but Eduardo was his first, and he can't bring himself to throw that away like it meant nothing.
*
Thiel wants them. He wants Mark. He's going to start them off, start off, with half a million dollars.
He's just got one question: "Who's Eduardo Saverin?"
Later that night, when it's all still sinking in, Mark stands by the pool and through dirty glass doors watches the celebration take off while the surface of the water lies calm and final at his side.
*
Mark signs the new contracts writing Eduardo out of the company himself, with his left hand, the same way he signed everything that brought Eduardo into Facebook in the first place. Eduardo's signature looks like the barely legible sprawling scrawl of someone both used to signing their name and to handling said name like a pen-made fingerprint, more a seal than a word, a far cry from Mark's own childlike autograph that betrays its owner's preference of pixels over ink. As far as everybody else is concerned Eduardo is nothing but some acquaintance of his who does econ and who was there for the beginning of Facebook but wasn't ready to leave school and graciously or stupidly decided to step aside and who'll next term simply fail to re-register. College. It happens.
Mark is fine. He's not lonely because he's got friends and co-workers and Facebook, and Eduardo wasn't ever there to begin with anyway.
Mark's got everything under control.
*
Until he doesn't. Until they reach a million members and Sean crashes, publicly and spectacularly and just like Eduardo said he would, the drugs, the girls, paranoia.
Mark sits alone in his big, wonderful, empty office while everybody else is celebrating or getting questioned by the cops, tells Sean that he'll take care of it, and then hangs up when Sean tries to accuse Eduardo of having framed him. It makes him think if the stupid chicken, and about how upset they both were, how they thought that was a scandal.
He needs to call his lawyer, or Facebook's lawyer, legal, he's got a whole department. He needs to do that, and Chris, he needs to call PR, do damage limitation.
But he just sits there clutching his phone, looks around the empty, empty office and suddenly feels so young and overwhelmed and alone again, responsibility and loneliness settling on his shoulders like a heavy blanket that might just suffocate him, and he wants Eduardo, desperately.
He needs Eduardo.
Eduardo with his smiles and his warm eyes and softly-accented words, his constant support and the nagging and cautioning who in the end even yelled at Mark, who started to yell at Mark ironically enough just when everybody else began to be too afraid to tell Mark no, and he needs Eduardo.
So he sits and tries and tries to conjure him up again, beginning with the details and connecting them to a whole or trying to start with the general shape of him and fill in meticulously coiffed hair and expressive hands, but every time he thinks he's got a grasp on it, just before it goes from an image to being Eduardo, it dissolves again with the echoes of not real not here not a part of this.
(Facebook never smiles at him. Facebook never gets him to smile back at it. Facebook never looks at him as if he hung the moon and stars, which considering that he created it he kind of did in a sense. So much for making Eduardo realistic, flawed and imperfect, full of weaknesses and issues. Somehow in the end he still turned out inexplicably perfect, way too perfect, because Mark has tried, has met people who are real and tangible and range from Erica's girl next door charm to Sean's level of irresistible charisma, but in the end Mark still can't imagine anyone real ever coming close to Eduardo.)
Mark hangs limply in his chair until his phone starts ringing again.
Eduardo is not real, he never was and he never will be (but he felt so real and now he never will again) and Mark wanted to do this on his own. He'll cope. He's got Facebook.
He raises the phone to his ear and answers but he can't find the strength to sit up.
*
Still, Mark copes.
He's maybe not okay, but getting there.
*
Chris graduates, comes, and goes again. Dustin stays. Sean goes and comes back in irregular intervals. Mark grows into his role as CEO, he learns how to be around people. He also learns how to be alone again. He sometimes is set up or hit on, and he learns healthier ways to handle that too, to reject, and sometimes to be open. He also learns to be enough for himself without having someone to validate him by judging or approving.
He's okay-ish.
Sometimes though, when it's so late it's almost early and the empty office floor stretches out like a desert before him, Mark looks around and thinks maybe he already passed his peak when he was 19, that even though he's comfortable and settled and established now he didn't even notice it when it happened, that his time came and went without him realizing. Sometimes Mark stares at those numbers next to his name, five-fucking-million friends, his kingdom in code just a keystroke away while he sits in his silent palace, and thinks it's ironic that in hindsight, those hectic, harried, desperate few months when he thought he had nothing were the time when he had everything.
*
Narendra and the Winklevosses try to drag the past up again, but mostly they just frustrate him.
Dustin tells him that they've repeatedly tried to contact Eduardo (and Dustin still checking Eduardo's accounts every now and then makes him smile; he can do that now, smile at the memories) to ask him if he wants to join their lawsuit, in various degrees of color depending on whom the message is from, and that their lawyers then tried to subpoena him. It must grate them that they can't track down the elusive Eduardo Saverin who dropped out of school years ago without leaving a forwarding address with anyone (and where on campus did he even live?) and hasn't been heard of since. They also change lawyers twice, and Mark suspects their inability to find Eduardo has something to do with that, as if other lawyers would have more success. There's one email from Narendra in which he implies that Mark might have something to do with Eduardo's disappearance and is now keeping him from giving testimony, and surely they can work something out. The message has a somewhat sinister feel to it and Dustin and Mark check again that no one can see that they are accessing Eduardo's email from the Facebook offices after that, just to be safe.
Mark's own lawyers merely inform him that apparently legal counsel of Narendra-Winklevoss was unable to summon and depose Mr. Saverin so Mark need not worry about that.
Mark assumes that means that no one has bothered to contact Christy at least because he is pretty sure she would have loved to tell everybody that in bed Mark had her call Eduardo's name.
He assumes it also means that Chris and Dustin, when they have to give their own depositions, cover for him and lie under oath, which… means something. He's not sure what, but it seems important.
It's almost fun until the actual sessions start.
*
Mark will develop an ulcer if he is forced to listen to these spoilt wannabes any longer. He can't do anything to keep them from suing him, but the more of their self-pitying monologues he has to listen to the more their audacity grates on his nerves.
Sometimes he thinks it's nothing short of absurd.
He is being sued over Facebook by the Winklevosses and their sidekick.
They are sitting there, flanked by lawyers, and force him to sit here too, because they either honestly think they deserve a part of his company or because they are sure they can cheat their way into it.
Either way, they are wasting his time. And their own. Presumably not the lawyers' as they do get paid to sit here and listen to their complains, but mostly his. His time is at least the most valuable here, and that is not arrogance talking but simple mathematics - his current networth, his age, the subsequent amount of money one hour of his time is worth. No one else in this room comes even close.
But it's not about the money. People always think that, but with Mark it's never been about the money.
Facebook is his, all his. He put in all the work, he made the sacrifices, he took the risks.
And, yes, he was the one with the idea. Facebook is nothing like the dating site they had thought of, it's an entirely different concept, and he didn't use any of their code (as if - Mark wants his site to not crash).
The point is, they have no claim to any of his work.
When it comes down to it, Eduardo did more for Facebook, and Eduardo wasn't even real.
Eduardo would have more reason to sue Mark, and a better case. Eduardo was there when Facebook happened. Well, he wasn't, he never was, Mark knows that, but that's not the point either.
Mark thinks he wouldn't mind so much if it were Eduardo suing him. Not that it wouldn't still be a complete waste of time because aside from providing his name Eduardo did absolutely nothing as CFO (how should he have), but Eduardo would at least have grounds.
And.
And he wouldn't mind seeing Eduardo again.
He is fine, but, he misses him.
Not like you miss a person, no, Mark knows Eduardo never was one. He misses him like you miss some important part of scenery you have grown used to, something that's always been there, that is part of normal and okay.
He misses him like home. The feeling of it.
Mark has friends, he's got Facebook, he's not alone or ignored, and he's successful. It's just that without the direct comparison to Eduardo, without filtering through him, reality seems to lack substance sometimes, color, the way a picture can sometimes show its subject more clearly than nature.
So Mark doesn't miss Eduardo per se, he just misses having him around.
Things were different with Eduardo around.
Not better, no; Mark thinks for a while back then he wasn't in a very good place. Just, more.
If he lets his mind wander while he is locked in that room and has to pay at least partial attention to this legal farce, so what. He's not allowed a computer, and there's only so much doodling and planning he can do before the urge to go and write the code now before he loses it becomes too strong (he walks out once; his lawyers strongly advise him to not do it again unless they grant that it's an emergency).
It's not like there's any harm in it. He's tried to conjure Eduardo up again and again after he sent him away and it never worked. He had the construct, he had all the parts, but he simply couldn't get Eduardo to manifest because it made no sense of him to do so, to be with Mark, not after Mark got rid of him so thoroughly.
He remembers him, when someone moves a certain way, or laughs like him, when someone mentions chickens, he remembers him every time he finds himself in a dingy pub bathroom (he avoids the stalls), and when it rains. But he never manages to get a look at his face, only blurry glances out of the corner of his eye. Light ovals in the shadows, or the dark back of his head, still moving from Eduardo turning away, taunting Mark that this time he almost managed to see.
And while Mark doesn't care anymore because he's over Eduardo, he's left that part of his life behind, it still makes him wonder, even worry, makes deep in his stomach churn uncomfortably, at the thought that maybe the reason he can't picture Eduardo anymore is that he's really forgotten the details of what he's supposed to look like. The thought, it doesn't scare him, not quite, but it saddens him. Because if that's the case then that means Eduardo is gone for good. No photos, digital or otherwise, no people who've met him, no nothing.
Eduardo only ever truly existed in Mark's head, and if he's not there anymore then he might as well have never even been existed, fleeting and figmentive as said existence may have been.
So what if everybody keeps throwing Mark weird looks wondering why he's staring into empty space. He's an eccentric genius with little people skills, he gets to behave oddly and doesn't care if they look at him like he's a freak. Narendra and the Winklevosses already do think so and are trying to exploit him, and the lawyers, both their and his own, get paid to put up with clients who don't give a fuck, and paid well.
No one says anything after that one time though, not after Mark explains exactly how much of his attention these proceedings deserve and what he thinks of them. This is yet another reason why he's got Facebook and the Winklevosses have a bunch of second places (the part about the British prince and him reiterating how brutally close the race had been was amusing, Mark will grant them that).
So he looks and reminisces and tries to imagine, Eduardo in the early days, happy and smiling, Eduardo towards the end, tense as if he knew what was coming (and he probably did know; Mark knew) and angry, so quick to lash out. Mark tries to picture that, he works of the construct he has, the remembered twists and turns and looks, and projects that anger into an empty chair across the room that almost looks like someone placed it there for that very purpose. It makes sense. Mark kicked him out, those years ago, Eduardo has reason to be angry. Though, no, it was years ago. Mark himself isn't angry anymore, it's unlikely that Eduardo would be.
Eduardo, if he were here, would mostly be hurt.
Which Mark would be okay with. If Eduardo only ever looked at him hurt, with pain and distrust in his eyes he still wouldn't complain because Eduardo would still be there to look at him.
So this way it makes sense. Eduardo has more reason to sue than the Winklevosses, Eduardo Mark actually wouldn't mind to have to waste time looking at, and if Eduardo were here he'd look broken.
And then something clicks.
*
Besides, it's just a way to pass the time during the deposition meetings, that's what Mark would say if anyone asked.
But no one asks. Because this time he doesn't tell anyone.
"I was your only friend. You had one friend."
Mark turns so he has a better view of Eduardo's chair.
Mark recruits Dustin. He is willing, enthusiastic, and at that point so bored with his current major of English Lit that he teaches himself coding over the course of one weekend and declares his love for Computer Science.
Mark estimates he has two months tops before he gets bored again and moves on, but by then thefacebook should be up and running and so he throws himself into the code while Eduardo hovers around the edges of his vision and makes vague noises of encouragement and support and sometimes disapproval when Mark is once again skipping class or hasn't slept or eaten anything but fish and sugar in two days.
Dustin is somewhat less devoted but still of surprisingly great help, and in between breaks provides additional entertainment like leaving notes from Eduardo or bringing Mark food from the dining hall that he says Eduardo asked him to bring Mark so he won't die of scurvy. Unlike his three previous majors Dustin hasn't grown bored of Eduardo yet and still thinks he's hilarious.
(Except for when Chris is listening, then it's for practice because how can their Mark learn to be a real boy when he can't even make a construct of his own mind happy, baby steps, Christopher, baby steps.)
There's a reason Dustin usually is his favorite. After Eduardo.
Though Chris loosens up a bit too, ironically having less of a problem with Eduardo when Mark increasingly ignores him in favor of staying wired in and coding, and he has to admit Eduardo is fun to have around, especially when it comes to Billy (who still randomly shows up at their door and they have yet to figure out why) seeing one of Eduardo's notes and wondering at Eduardo's continued mysterious absence.
Eventually Billy takes to complaining that he's beginning to think Eduardo doesn't even exist because he always seems to just miss him. The first time this happens, Dustin ruins two hours worth of code by keysmashing to the point where he undoes said code and then saves accidentally, Chris literally chokes on his own spit, and Mark pretends he's wired in but smirks at Eduardo who stands leaning against his desk, body open and hips canted towards Mark. Eduardo honest to God pouts at the statement and says that he knows that but he doesn't like Billy saying it. Mark's eyes flit across the room and take everything in, Billy's cluelessness, Dustin's silently choking laughter and Chris fruitless attempts to hide his own amusement on the one side and Eduardo by himself on the other, standing out in his dark suit and his now newly stiff and unrelaxed posture, and suddenly Mark is uncomfortable and wishes Billy would shut up about this already.
A couple of weeks later, Dustin tells Billy how the last time he was over Eduardo dropped by and Billy, high as a kite and smoking up Mark's valuable work environment, made a complete fool of himself, climbing all over him and pawning at him to make sure he was really there. Billy actually believes him even though Dustin is a horrible actor and from then on assumes Eduardo is avoiding him and going out of his way to make sure they don't meet because he thinks Billy is crazy, always guiltily hunching his shoulders when someone mentions Eduardo in his presence.
This also makes for a much more quiet suite when Billy is around, and once memorably Chris uses this when he has to learn for an exam, casually dropping Eduardo's name in the conversation, and the next day sends Eduardo a text to thank him.
Mark is tempted to mark the date in his calendar but Eduardo waves it off.
*
Mark decides to put Eduardo on the masthead. More so, he decides to make Eduardo his CFO.
It's frustrating that Eduardo can't actually do anything of course; there are times when it would make everything easier to have a real business major (econ, business, it's more or less the same anyway how Mark sees it) to take care of business, and maybe provide some of the startup money, but that would mean letting someone else in and Mark's not ready to do that, not ready to give away even a part of this to someone he can't trust. So Mark gets 70%, and Eduardo 30, with Eduardo's 30% including Mark setting up his page for him, putting his name right below Mark's, and even if only in name giving him the job of CFO.
It actually looks better that way, like a serious company with delegation, task sharing, and everybody who is doing something actually qualified for it, and having Eduardo's name up there will make it less likely for people to dismiss thefacebook as another one of Mark's little projects like Coursematch or Facemash. Eduardo lends credibility, and, on the day of the launch, his address book. He deserves something for that.
*
Mark initially thought that once thefacebook was online it would demand less of his time, but he soon finds out he was wrong. Thefacebook is amazing, and people join up en mass. It grows, faster than any of them could have imagined, and it keeps commandeering most of Mark's attention.
But it's good, it's so good.
People begin to know his name, they recognize him in the halls and try to strike up conversations with him even though in between the few classes and lectures he still attends, Mark is always busy now, he codes and codes and codes and barely even has time for Eduardo who in turn grows more absent, sticking around less and less and always ready to disappear with a mumbled excuse about course work or some event or the other.
Then they meet Christy.
It's at the Bill Gates lecture, something that is for once relevant to Mark's interests, and Mark instinctively wants to be annoyed when someone tries to get his attention from one row behind him, but then he turns around to glare and there's this girl. She's clearly not part of the social circles Mark usually moves in, pretty and fashionable in clothes that probably cost more than Mark's entire wardrobe, with careful make-up, dark hair and dark eyes that are fixed on Mark like a hunter on his prey, but in a good way, like she actually likes what she sees. Her blouse is open deep enough that he can catch a glimpse of her bra, unbuttoned further than Eduardo's shirts ever are, and Mark looks at her and there's something there, something he sees that he wants.
Mark takes her in for a second, her expectant smile, her posture, everything about her that screams 'high maintenance'. He opens his mouth, closes it because girls like that don't talk to him, and if they do they stop again quickly enough because he doesn't compliment them sufficiently or mince his words or whatever, but she looks at him like she wants him and is interested. She's attractive without being perfect and her skin is not tan but darker than his own pasty complexion and her hair looks like it would smell like the hair product aisle of a drug store and she is real, she is someone he could reach out and touch, and he wants, he wants to touch, but his mind is a maelstrom of asshole and stairmaster and the number of friends Eduardo has on Myspace and dark eyes and skin that is forever just out of reach.
He leans back, listens to Bill Gates with one ear, and lets Eduardo talk to her.
*
Her name is Christy and she wants Mark them Eduardo to facebook her.
"She said 'facebook me' and we can go for a drink later. Which is stunningly great for two reasons. One, she said 'facebook me'. Right? And the other is, you know, she wants to have drinks later. Have you ever heard so many different good thing packed into one regular-sized sentence?"
*
They do meet for drinks, only 'drinks' turns out to be code for a blowjob in the pub's dingy bathroom, and Mark wonders for a moment if he was supposed to know that, if that's a thing people say, but then Christy pushes the door close behind them and presses Mark up against it and moulds her body to his.
She tastes sticky-sweet, of lip-gloss and alcopops, and it's not bad but also not good. Then she drops down and crouches between his legs though, and how Christy tastes isn't important anymore. Mark feels his pulse speed up and sweat begin to pearl on his upper lip, Christy's mouth wet and hot on his dick, then around it, and it's slick enough with spit that he doesn't notice the lip-gloss at all.
Now it's good, it's so good, but he's not sure what to do with his hands, if he should put them in her hair or leave them curled in fists by his side, is there some kind of bathroom stall blowjob etiquette he isn't familiar with, and he bites his lips because what if someone hears him, but Christy is making soft sounds, squelching and pornographic, and hums, high and girly, everything somehow too obscene to listen to. Mark looks down at her head where it is bopping up and down in front of him, her long hair moving back and forth in a counter rhythm, and suddenly it's too much, all too much, and he has to close his eyes and let his head fall back against the door.
He wants this and needs this and doesn't want it at all, and he doesn't know what to do but he does know he doesn't want to have to listen to the noises Christy is making, he thinks maybe he should be making some noises of his own but isn't sure, and he really wishes Eduardo were here, he should be, that's what he's there for, besides, Eduardo was the one talking to Christy earlier, and Eduardo would be good at this, he'd know how to behave.
Through the closed lids of his eyes and the wall of the stall, Mark can see how Eduardo would look like this, with Christy on her knees before him, no, first with her standing and attacking his mouth, licking in and nipping, the way she did with Mark when he didn't open up to her right away, and Eduardo would let her in and take, would open up and welcome her until both their lips are red and shiny with shared spit and the remains of her lip-gloss, and, yes, okay, this is good, this works. Christy moves down then, rubbing her cheek against the faint dark stubble that has grown on Eduardo's jaw and throat since that morning, brushes her lips over his Adam's apple and lets them rest there for a moment to feel him swallow, then dip down into the hollow at the back of his throat that's always, always visible in the v of his unbuttoned shirt collar but that no one can touch, licks there to taste the salt of his skin, and then she drops down.
Mark can hear Eduardo's belt buckle, the rustle of fabric, and then Eduardo's sharp intake of breath, surprised and loud enough to Mark's ears to drone out the wet sucking going on between his own legs. Eduardo probably knows exactly where to put his hands because he doesn't seem to worry for one second about whether or not to make noises and how loud, he just does, he hums appreciatively, he moans and groans and bites back words that almost escape, and his breath hitches on this high note Mark has never heard from him before and that vibrates in his bones when Christy tongues at his slit. Mark is still biting his lips, or again, hard enough that he begins to taste blood under the lingering flavor of Christy and sweet. When they come, Eduardo does not say Mark's name because he'd never but he makes this loud, shuddering noise that sounds like it's being ripped out of him in a way that makes Mark bite his lip harder and stutter out a breathy hum, nails digging hard enough into the palms of his hands to leave little halfmoon-shaped indentations.
Christy licks her lips as she stands up, again so obscene Mark wants to pull a face even though he's still high from his orgasm, but Eduardo ushers him out while Christy freshens herself up.
Then they are standing in front of the bathroom door, side by side, close enough that their shoulders almost brush and Mark is half-convinced he can feel the heat radiating off Eduardo, and Eduardo beams at him, color high in his cheeks, eyes, shining, and lips still red and swollen from kissing.
"We have groupies." Eduardo looks bright and happy and Mark can't help but smile back and stare at his mouth that is so close and there and he wills Eduardo to lick his lips like Christy did because he thinks that if Eduardo did it, it wouldn't look obscene at all, it would look hot, even if it had been Eduardo on his knees before Mark if would look hot to see him lick his lips, it would look good enough for Mark to want to lean over and place his lips on Eduardo's, tease them open to chase the taste of himself on Eduardo's tongue which would have been inexperienced but talented.
But he wills and wills and Eduardo doesn't and even if he did, Mark wouldn't lean over and Eduardo would never taste of him, so he looks away and his eyes land on Erica who sits there at a table and hasn't even noticed Mark. He goes over to her mainly to get away from Eduardo but she doesn't listen to him, she doesn't understand, she blows him off and talks about not wanting to be rude as if that's not exactly what she is doing to him, and that is how he winds up taking Christy home with him and tells his friends that thefacebook is going to expand, get some attention through articles in school newspapers, including B.U.'s Bridge, move to Yale and Columbia.
Eduardo suggests Stanford.
Mark is fine. He's got this under control.
*
Mark is busy. Mark is so busy, it feels like he has to do everything by himself (and for the most part he does), even though Dustin and Chris are now officially part of the company, and there's Christy with whom he keeps meeting up because she's hot and willing and ambitiously clever and there, and if Mark only texts her using Eduardo's phone that doesn't mean anything, his own is lost somewhere in his room with a dead battery and he can't be bothered to look for it. But the point is, thefacebook is growing and changing and there's so much going on, with the site, in Mark's life, everything is moving so fast, and between it all, he hardly has time for Eduardo anymore.
*
For the most part Mark can handle it all, the responsibility, the stress, but at some point it all comes together, thefacebook, balancing his course work even though he more and more thinks maybe he should just quit, Chris, Dustin, Christy, fucking everything, and then there's that letter from the Winklevosses. Mark deals with that too, he goes to student council and deals with that shit and deals with the latest glitch with the photo uploads and deals with Christy who thinks she needs to tell him her life story and how she comes from a conservative family and gets the whole double life thing and having one persona for fun and play and one for work and what does she even know, nothing, she doesn't know anything about him and Eduardo.
Fuck. Even though she was right there.
So Mark deals with everything and then ignores Christy's text and tries to code away the lag in the profile page loading, but now he's back thinking about that night which he always tries not to because what's the point and Mark has stuff to do, he doesn't need this, but it's too late, and now he's reliving it in Technicolor and Dolby-surround.
It happened in a dirty pub bathroom, because Eduardo might consider himself a nice guy and try to be a gentleman and polite and shit but he's also a young healthy male and those just don't say no to blowjobs by pretty girls, and how Eduardo was so much more vocal than Mark, how this didn't surprise Mark because unlike Mark's own annoyingly touchy-feely family Eduardo's parents are rather distant and he doesn't ever initiate contact with anyone (even though he hovers tantalisingly close all the time always almost touching), Eduardo is probably touch-starved. Mark always figured he'd be incredibly responsive. And so of course it didn't take long until Eduardo started to make those noises, like he was dying, like no one had ever done that for him before, and how Mark still isn't sure if what pushed him over the edge were those sounds of Eduardo's or the hint of teeth grazing his dick. The noises run through Mark's mind on repeat and keep him from wiring in, and no matter how high he cracks up the volume of his music it can't drown them out. He doesn't get anything done and it's all too much, it's building up and Mark is just trying to keep up, squaring his shoulders and clenching his jaw.
Mind over matter fails him again though, and eventually he saves, frustrated, takes off his headphones and texts Christy to meet up, because he's buzzing with enough nervous energy he's practically vibrating (she should appreciate that) and needs to relieve some tension.
*
New York and Sean Parker happen. Christy's there, and Eduardo isn't, Eduardo is just Mark's absent CFO who couldn't make it, and while they are waiting, Mark thinks about having him there because Mark is getting nervous and he doesn't want to be so it'd be good to push that on Eduardo, but then Sean arrives and he blows Mark's mind.
He's everything Mark wants to be. He's cool and clever and doesn't give a fuck and people know who he is, he gets Mark, he gets what thefacebook is about, even better than Eduardo, and when does anyone ever get Mark better than Eduardo, and best of all? He acts like Mark blows his mind too.
*
Eduardo loathes Sean. He warns and cautions and nags, but Mark is done with that, he's ready, it's time to go big or go home and Mark won't end the party at eleven just because Eduardo's nervous.
*
Then the Crimson publishes an article. Not about Facebook (Sean's idea, and it does sound better), not about Mark. About Eduardo. Eduardo is livid, he's defensive one moment and lashing out the next, he's acting out like he suddenly forgot he's supposed to be the calm and sensible one in their relationship, and before Mark knows it they are fighting, with Mark pushing and Eduardo for once, for the first time, pushing back, and Mark doesn't understand what's going on.
It's the first time he thinks he might have to get rid of Eduardo. He hasn't seen that coming.
Mark knows someone has planted the story, but that isn't the point. Mark can't have something like this connected to Facebook.
In a way it is Eduardo's fault. Eduardo, who is social and somehow has ended up being friendly with all the right people despite no one ever having even seen his face (and doesn't anybody care about stranger danger and being careful about making friends on the internet anymore?) and keeps getting invitations to parties even though he never shows up, who is in his own way as clever as Mark but at the same time is everything Mark is not. Eduardo, who got punched by a final club, would get punched by half a dozen final clubs in a heartbeat if he ever actually went somewhere. Whose email address book is five times as big as Mark's, and unlike Mark's list of CS geeks, AEPi losers, and a couple of random acquaintances his motley collection ranges from other econ majors to chess affictionados,from girls who wanted to fuck Eduardo to guys who wanted to be him. (Mark could relate, in both regards) from girls who had a thing for exotic named to guys trying to figure out if Eduardo would make a good addition to their clubs. (Eduardo doesn't even really care about the final clubs; he's always been telling Mark not to take them so seriously.) Whose name people know the way they know Mark's by now even though Eduardo has never done anything to deserve their attention.
But Eduardo has never been in the cafeteria with his stupid chicken. He'd just posted a picture of it online and complained that the bird wouldn't shut up because it'd seem like fun at the time, one of the things the pledges had to do and Eduardo had gotten punched after all.
So it isn't really Eduardo's fault. Okay, Mark knows that. And at first he did tell him to just forget about it.
But Facebook is important, and Mark has put Eduardo on the masthead because it looks better to have someone who does econ as CFO than having the programmer try to do it himself, and because Eduardo is was is his best friend. Only now Mark has so many other things to think of but Eduardo, and Eduardo is behaving like an ass, and then Eduardo starts to complain about Sean Parker again.
"The drugs, the girls…" He's sitting there on Mark's bed and flailing, letting himself fall back like he owns it, blanket and pillow and everything.
"We don't know any of that is true." They don't. Eduardo is being irrational. He is overreacting. Sean hasn't done anything to him, and he acts as if Sean's mere existence offends his senses when Sean is the one who's actually bringing something to the table and has connections. Mark can't have that. Eduardo trying to boycott Sean. Eduardo harming Facebook.
"You can read about it!"
"I can read about you torturing birds. Since when does reading about something make it-"
-real.
Screw it. Mark doesn't have time for this.
Eduardo has to get with the program.
That's what he is there for, after all.
*
Eduardo doesn't get with the program. When Mark tells him that he's been talking to Sean and that they are going to Palo Alto for the summer, he refuses.
He says he has to stay in New York and do an internship, and looks pained while talking about his father. Which is bullshit, Eduardo doesn't have a father, Mark made all of that up.
He also says he'll look for advertisers in new York, which is even more bullshit. Because, ads. Mark doesn't want ads, Mark doesn't need ads, ads would kill Facebook, and he's told Eduardo that, but Eduardo doesn't do what Mark wants, Eduardo refuses to be what Mark wants, like that's not the only reason he even exists. But Mark lets it go, lets him go and goes to California himself because it's not like Eduardo can actually go and screw things up for him.
*
Mark doesn't need Eduardo.
Mark.
Shit. Mark doesn't need Eduardo. He's known that, of course, has always known it, but in the last few years he has grown so used to always having Eduardo around making things easier that it almost feels like he forgot along the way and is only remembering it again now. He doesn't need Eduardo.
*
Fuck Eduardo. Except it would change things, if Mark could do that, but he can't, and so he goes to Palo Alto and lives in a house with Dustin and his interns because Mark has interns now, and he had to figure it all out by himself, insurance, payment, expenses, everything, because it's not like Eduardo ever was of any use. Instead, Sean shows up at Mark's door and takes him out and talks to him about making it big and taking chances and, like, The Life. With parties and not having to compromise and Victoria's Secret models, and Sean sticks around, Sean does what Eduardo never could, he keeps everything running, makes sure Mark can focus on his code. He creates this bubble around Mark, this prefect space for him to exist in and work and do his thing and sometimes enters with food and papers that need signing or decisions that Mark has to make himself, and he sets up meetings for Mark, with people Mark should know, with people that could be useful, and with people that could be the investors Mark needs. No matter what Eduardo said, Sean is a mostly decent guy; he never says a bad word about Eduardo, only wonders what Mark's CFO is doing that's more important than being with his company.
So that's how it goes, Facebook explodes, and Mark feels like he's constantly high even though he never is anymore (contact high aside), he works and works and works and sometimes sleeps and he lives and breathes Facebook, it's like he's spending almost all his time in this headspace where he can just create, and it's exhilarating and scary at the same time because he doesn't ever want to stop and sometimes thinks he couldn't stop if he wanted to.
*
Mark doesn't need Eduardo. He's always had his uses, yes, but these days there are less of those than ever. And he realizes what's going on. He's self-aware enough to know he's been using Eduardo as a safety blanket over the last few years, because reality was lacking and in hindsight maybe Mark wasn't ready to take it on himself. But he has grown, he has changed, and he's not hiding in his room anymore and waiting for everybody around him to suddenly and miraculously recognize his value. He went out and took chances and did things, he's doing stuff now, he is changing the world, and it doesn't matter if somehow he still ends up spending most of his time locking himself away and coding because now he's coding out there and people know what he's doing.
And Mark can do this.
But maybe it would be nice to still have Eduardo here. Just in case.
*
Dustin is trying to reenact his zipline ride without an actual zipline, jumping into the water again and again while their off-duty intern rewatches the film of his original ride and tries to mime that Dustin should move in more of a glide jump while Mark stands in the pool, far enough to the side to not end up hit by any of Dustin's limbs but close enough to get doused by splashing water, for the sole purpose of critiquing Dustin's posture and egging them on.
Mark likes this. He likes California, he likes Palo Alto, he likes their cheaply ready-furnished house with the broken chimney that he'll never get the security deposit back for, he likes working by a pool and watching people pretend to zipline and having people who are not Billy over, having girls over, for bong parties, and going clubbing with underwear models and Sean, who makes everything he does look so easy and relaxed and cool and who actually does do things, fun things and useful things, and who knows people, useful people, and organizes around Mark, taking some of the burden off his shoulders.
He likes this whole crazy, hectic, chaotic, synergetic summer. He feels like he fits, here.
Maybe that's why he only wonders, objectively, what Eduardo would look like here, if he could be made to fit, without actually putting effort into picturing him. Ultimately he can't imagine Eduardo here - he could imagine him be here, but he just can't see how it would work. He can't imagine Eduardo out of his suits when there's the faintest excuse to wear dark and formal and tailored, and being in California for business would for Eduardo be reason enough to stay put-together at all times.
He wades a bit to the side and leans back against the edge of the pool, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back, face turned towards the sun that burns red through his lids and works away at his skin's eager defenses against its rays, even through layers of sunscreen and t-shirt.
Then he tries.
Mark in California is not like Mark before California, so if Eduardo were here, he could by that same reasoning be different too, to a certain degree.
Eduardo could be more relaxed, easier. He should be, really. He's Brazilian. He's supposed to flourish in the sun and heat - he's definitely spent enough time wrapping coats around himself and wincing and bitching about the cold in New York and Massachusetts, he owes it to Mark to rip off take off his clothes and change into trunks in the bathroom and then jump into the pool, in a stretched, elegant dive that would have him cross half the pool underwater to surface in front of Mark, waves parting to reveal dark hair glossy with water and tan skin. Tan from the very beginning, not like Kevin who burnt lobster-red on their second day and then turned brown a week and a disgusting skin-peel-off later, because Eduardo tans as well as waxes, even though no one ever sees his body has ever seen his body before now, not like. Not like.
The edge of the pool digs into his back through his shirt and Mark shifts, resting his forearms on the wet stone and letting them take some of the weight.
Mark has never seen Eduardo's body before, not like.
He clenches his hands and tries to browbeat the construct of Eduardo into a pool setting, groomed and primmed and body a streamlined flash of gold under the water with interrupted by the narrow strip of dark of a pair of simple black square cuts, slightly over-the-top and tempting like an expensive commercial. The pieces will not come together though, and the details Mark calls to the forefront of his mind keep slipping through his grasp every time he reaches for another one to join them together to form the comprehensive whole.
Eduardo and how Mark feels about Palo Alto seem incompatible, at least in regards to adapting Eduardo for Palo Alto. He is too stiff.
It makes sense. Now that Mark thinks about it, it does make sense.
Eduardo, carefully crafted flaws aside, embodies what Mark four years ago had assumed was cool and still young but considered grown-up, what Mark, when he was in his teens, just a kid who thought he knew everything, had assumed he should aspire to be like. Eduardo is how Mark thought someone had to be for people to like them and to look at them and see them without looking down on them.
Four years seems half a lifetime away now though, and this ideal of Eduardo represents is fundamentally different from the way of life, of being, that Sean is now exemplifying to Mark. Sean is demanding and refuses to back down, he allows himself to be arrogant and people just smile and take it. He shows off and owns it, all of it, the good and the bad, his genius and accomplishments while openly standing by his flaws and lows, and yet he still enjoys himself, who he is, insists on enjoying himself.
Sean makes people play by his rules instead of playing by theirs. And succeeds while doing so.
This is an ideal that now, in direct comparison, feels much more suited for appropriate for Mark and a better example to emulate.
Mark wants to be like Sean. Eduardo he just wants.
*
He wakes up with the hot touch of phantom fingers echoing on his skin and gasping into his pillow, into a mouth that isn't there anymore, hips pressing into the wet, sticky friction of his boxers and the mattress in a last few desperate, erratic humps before the rush of blood in his ears and the lighting tension making his sleep-disoriented limbs taut and twitch ease and oversensitivity creeping in halts his movements.
Mark rolls his head to the side, twice heavy with sleep and the hum of post-orgasmic lethargy, and takes a deep breath, two, three, swallowing and moving his tongue over his lips, trying to lick away the sour flavor of sleep, when the flashback hits him, quick and fleeting, already fading in intensity and coherency but still cohesive enough that the full sensual assault provokes another futile twitch of his spent dick and a helpless push into the resistance of the mattress.
Eduardo.
Fucking Eduardo.
Not literally. But kissing him. Rather, Eduardo kissing him. In the pool. Mark up to his chest in water, leaning against the ledge, and Eduardo rising up like a vision, light all around him and all over him and everything bright and blinding. Eduardo in front of Mark, fingers hot in Mark's hair, tugging, stroking down even hotter to cup his face, glide over his chest and stomach, burning holes into Mark's hips underwater pulling Mark against him in time for Eduardo to press his mouth over Mark's and push in, demanding, taking, tangible, alive, a revelation of firm touch and appreciative groans and golden light and a taste of chlorine and something Mark can already not remember anymore but that he knew to be Eduardo on his tongue…
A frustrated, desperate, hungry sound grows in the back of Mark's throat, and he swallows it down and turns over, lying on his back next to the spot where wetness has soaked into the sheets. He's still wearing his boxers though, and they and the gummy mess in them turn with him, a slowly cooling and increasingly uncomfortable reminder of the fact that he just came in his pants like a teenager.
Humiliation rises up in him but fails to take hold as the significance of having had a wet dream about Eduardo sinks in and sends his pulse racing again in an entirely different manner.
Mark cannot have this. It's not okay, it's unsettling, it's… it's not having control. Dreaming about something that while awake and consciously trying he cannot make Eduardo do is not having control, and Mark needs to have this under control.
Mark needs to be in control. Not Eduardo. Mark can't have this.
He gets up, pads through the dark hallway into the bathroom and takes a shower that probably wakes half the house because the plumbing is shit, but he doesn't care. There's a coil of apprehension sitting heavy in his stomach that he can't wash away together with the come gumming his pubes.
Afterwards he doesn't go back to sleep, instead he settles down with his laptop on the couch in the living room, in between takeout containers, and checks everybody's code from the last two days.
He stays there as the house eventually wakes up around him, while people walk past and around him, sitting down and getting up again and eating leftover Chinese. He doesn't go out all day, only moves towards the glass doors once to close them and lock out the sounds of people moving in water.
Mark can't lose control.
*
It's the night before Sean and him have a meeting with a potential investor, an important one, not like the one with Case Equity and Manningham. This could be just what they need. Sean is nervous, and that's making Mark nervous too. So Mark sits in the living room to distract himself because he just came down from a coding spree and knows he can't go on another one right now if he doesn't just want to fall asleep in front of everybody tomorrow but should get some rest, spends some time watching two girls he doesn't think he's ever seen before take hits while Sean jitters around, wishes he could go sit outside where it's quiet but it's pissing, and decides to indulge himself.
It's time to rein Eduardo in again. Mark won't try to change Eduardo to fit his new specifications of how he'd like him to be, that was a miscalculation and ultimately what caused Mark to lose his grasp on him to begin with; Eduardo as a system is too set for drastic changes, less adaptable than Mark himself. Eduardo is different from Mark's new life, but that doesn't mean Mark has to give him up completely. Eduardo remaining set in his ways can be a reassurance just as much as a drag, a comforting weight to ground Mark, and a counterpoint allowing him to slow down and breath every once in a while compared to Sean's enabling and pushing. Having Eduardo here will stop Mark from feeling like he's always just one step from spinning out of control.
"Mark, I've been calling your cell!" Eduardo looks stropping wet because it's raining hard enough that even the distance from the road to the door would have left him drenched. His posture and the slant of his mouth speak of him being tired and cranky and more than a bit upset ; Mark has been neglecting him though so Eduardo's frown isn't unexpected. He stands there in his soaked black coat, in a room full of people and yet separate from them, set apart by more than his for warm Californian summer rain inappropriate attire as they party around him and don't notice his misery, as if the parts of him that made him Mark's counterpart can't help but not fit in here where Mark is finally feeling like himself.
He also looks good. Like, really good. If he could get Eduardo to stay until the weather lets up he'd at least take off his jacket and roll up the sleeves of his shirt so Mark could watch the play of muscle under his skin, sun glinting off the dusting of fine hairs on his arms that Mark knows are there but that have the potential to be so much better in the sun, and somehow he thinks having Eduardo here would make everything calmer and less extreme. It's a bit of a surprise how genuinely happy he is to see Eduardo, but he rolls with it, gets up, and leads Eduardo into the hallway, closing the door and giving them some privacy, before he turns and waves at him in greeting, an aborted fistpump that wouldn't have landed anyway and so will have to make do as a wave.
"Mark, what happened here? What is that outside? What is he doing here?"
"Wardo." Mark needs Eduardo to wait and listen. "Wardo, you have to take a look at some of the stuff we've set up. You have to see the wall. Wait, let me get my laptop, you've got to see the wall."
Mark is excited now, because it is good to have Eduardo here, Eduardo who will look at the wall and at Facebook and at everything Mark has done and tell him it looks really good and smile at him and make him relax and sleep. He turns and shuffles into his room, mind buzzing with anticipation and the kind of wired exhaustion that is the other side of tired, almost falling over someone's abandoned power chord because he doesn't watch where he's going, then leans over his laptop and wakes it up from sleep mode, ready to show Eduardo the wall, but Eduardo's eyes are fixed on the post-it on the side of Mark's screen reminding him of the meeting tomorrow.
"What's this?" Eduardo sounds confused, and Mark looks between him and the post-it. It's as self-explanatory as he remembers.
"Sean set us up a meeting for tomorrow with Peter Thiel. He runs a two-"
"Why is Sean Parker setting up meetings?" It's less confusion now and more anger, the anger Mark has grown used to over the last few weeks in Harvard, and somehow this isn't turning out the way Mark wanted.
"Thiel may want to make an angel investment." He wants Eduardo to be happy for him, why can't Eduardo ever just be happy for him anymore?
"I don't care if he's an actual Angel, why is Sean setting up business meetings?"
Jealousy turns out to be a good look on Eduardo, but it's pointless and so Mark tries to turn the conversation away from Eduardo's dislike of Sean. Maybe they should first talk about what Eduardo has been up to since they last saw each other (nothing). "How's the internship? How's Christy?"
"How's.. Jesus, Mark." Eduardo drags a hand through his hair, the wet strands clinging to his fingers and then standing on end like they've been treated with too much of a glossy gel and then styled by a three-year-old. Mark's fingers twitch to smooth them down, or at least trace that drop of water that's been set off by the motion and is now making its way down the side of Eduardo's face as he talks, over the thin skin on his temple, past his cheek, trailing down the edge of his jaw until it hangs quivering just below his chin.
"The internship, I quit the internship, I told you about that!" Mark honestly can't remember, he hasn't spent much time with Eduardo's pages lately, Facebook or otherwise.
"And Christy's crazy." She is that, Eduardo's phone has been ringing with incoming texts for weeks until it must have sunk in that Mark wasn't going to answer.
"Is that fun?" It's a barb, but Mark can't resist. If Eduardo's so unhappy Mark is busy with something other than him, maybe he should hang around Christy who does seem to have an overabundance of attention she desperately wants to lavish on one of them.
Christy could lick away that drop of water.
"No, I mean she's actually psychotic."
Well, at least Eduardo is now upset at someone else. "Still, it's nice you have a girlfriend."
"I do not want that guy representing himself as part of the company." Or not. This used to be so easy, why can't Eduardo be easy again?
"Wardo, you have to move out here, this is where it's all happening." Eduardo opens his mouth but Mark can tell he'll keep going on about Sean and so he just talks over him. "The connections, the energy, Wardo, you have to be here, now. I'm afraid if you don't stay with me you are going to get left behind." Because that's it, isn't it? If Mark can manage just fine when Eduardo's not there then maybe someday soon he'll stop bringing Eduardo back. "I need- I want you out here." Because Mark doesn't need him, but he still wants him. He doesn't want to want him, not with Eduardo so contrary, but he does.
"What did you just say?" Eduardo's mouth hangs open on the last syllable, and that drop finally falls. Mark watches it soak into the fabric of Eduardo's jacket.
"It's moving faster than any of us ever imagined and-" Mark keeps on talking, because he doesn't want to give up Eduardo, he likes Eduardo, likes him a lot, even like this.
"What do you mean, get left behind?" Eduardo's voice gets all high and pressed at the end of the question, like he knows the answer (he does, what Mark knows Eduardo knows and vice versa) but doesn't want to be right.
"-and Sean even thinks that-"
"Sean is not a part of this company!" Eduardo almost yells it.
"No, you aren't!" Mark doesn't yell, barely raises his voice, but Eduardo flinches like Mark cut him, and Mark, Mark keeps going because there's nothing else he can do, he can't reach out, he can't pull Eduardo in and touch him and Eduardo can't touch him either, so what's the point. He wants and he can't and so he's finally going to end this now. "You are not my CFO, you are not doing any work, you know nobody, you don't bring in any money. We have over 300.000 members, we are in 160 schools, Sean put us in five schools in Europe. We need more servers, more programmers, more money. And Sean set up the Thiel meeting tomorrow. Sean has been setting up meetings all over town, and you are not here!"
Mark still can't remember having raised his voice, but he's breathing heavily as he looks around his empty room with its dry floor.
Eventually he digs up Eduardo's phone from the pile of cables and gadgets at the back of his desk and plugs it in to charge it.
*
He calls Christy, for the first time since… For the first time. So far he's only ever texted her.
Though mostly she texted him. 47 texts. Very mature. She really is a psycho.
Mark lets her yell at him for a while because he figures he owes her that much and he's not a total ass, he lets her scream at him about Silicon Valley sluts (that, if they exist, Mark hasn't met yet - he'll ask Sean), and about not changing his relationship status (which he did - Eduardo's that is) and how he's the worst thing that ever happened to her, Mark, Eduardo, however he calls himself today.
Then he breaks up with her.
He almost throws the phone out of the window after but in the end doesn't.
Just because he's done with Eduardo doesn't mean he can't keep the memories. Because Eduardo was good, and Facebook might be his masterpiece but Eduardo was his first, and he can't bring himself to throw that away like it meant nothing.
*
Thiel wants them. He wants Mark. He's going to start them off, start off, with half a million dollars.
He's just got one question: "Who's Eduardo Saverin?"
Later that night, when it's all still sinking in, Mark stands by the pool and through dirty glass doors watches the celebration take off while the surface of the water lies calm and final at his side.
*
Mark signs the new contracts writing Eduardo out of the company himself, with his left hand, the same way he signed everything that brought Eduardo into Facebook in the first place. Eduardo's signature looks like the barely legible sprawling scrawl of someone both used to signing their name and to handling said name like a pen-made fingerprint, more a seal than a word, a far cry from Mark's own childlike autograph that betrays its owner's preference of pixels over ink. As far as everybody else is concerned Eduardo is nothing but some acquaintance of his who does econ and who was there for the beginning of Facebook but wasn't ready to leave school and graciously or stupidly decided to step aside and who'll next term simply fail to re-register. College. It happens.
Mark is fine. He's not lonely because he's got friends and co-workers and Facebook, and Eduardo wasn't ever there to begin with anyway.
Mark's got everything under control.
*
Until he doesn't. Until they reach a million members and Sean crashes, publicly and spectacularly and just like Eduardo said he would, the drugs, the girls, paranoia.
Mark sits alone in his big, wonderful, empty office while everybody else is celebrating or getting questioned by the cops, tells Sean that he'll take care of it, and then hangs up when Sean tries to accuse Eduardo of having framed him. It makes him think if the stupid chicken, and about how upset they both were, how they thought that was a scandal.
He needs to call his lawyer, or Facebook's lawyer, legal, he's got a whole department. He needs to do that, and Chris, he needs to call PR, do damage limitation.
But he just sits there clutching his phone, looks around the empty, empty office and suddenly feels so young and overwhelmed and alone again, responsibility and loneliness settling on his shoulders like a heavy blanket that might just suffocate him, and he wants Eduardo, desperately.
He needs Eduardo.
Eduardo with his smiles and his warm eyes and softly-accented words, his constant support and the nagging and cautioning who in the end even yelled at Mark, who started to yell at Mark ironically enough just when everybody else began to be too afraid to tell Mark no, and he needs Eduardo.
So he sits and tries and tries to conjure him up again, beginning with the details and connecting them to a whole or trying to start with the general shape of him and fill in meticulously coiffed hair and expressive hands, but every time he thinks he's got a grasp on it, just before it goes from an image to being Eduardo, it dissolves again with the echoes of not real not here not a part of this.
(Facebook never smiles at him. Facebook never gets him to smile back at it. Facebook never looks at him as if he hung the moon and stars, which considering that he created it he kind of did in a sense. So much for making Eduardo realistic, flawed and imperfect, full of weaknesses and issues. Somehow in the end he still turned out inexplicably perfect, way too perfect, because Mark has tried, has met people who are real and tangible and range from Erica's girl next door charm to Sean's level of irresistible charisma, but in the end Mark still can't imagine anyone real ever coming close to Eduardo.)
Mark hangs limply in his chair until his phone starts ringing again.
Eduardo is not real, he never was and he never will be (but he felt so real and now he never will again) and Mark wanted to do this on his own. He'll cope. He's got Facebook.
He raises the phone to his ear and answers but he can't find the strength to sit up.
*
Still, Mark copes.
He's maybe not okay, but getting there.
*
Chris graduates, comes, and goes again. Dustin stays. Sean goes and comes back in irregular intervals. Mark grows into his role as CEO, he learns how to be around people. He also learns how to be alone again. He sometimes is set up or hit on, and he learns healthier ways to handle that too, to reject, and sometimes to be open. He also learns to be enough for himself without having someone to validate him by judging or approving.
He's okay-ish.
Sometimes though, when it's so late it's almost early and the empty office floor stretches out like a desert before him, Mark looks around and thinks maybe he already passed his peak when he was 19, that even though he's comfortable and settled and established now he didn't even notice it when it happened, that his time came and went without him realizing. Sometimes Mark stares at those numbers next to his name, five-fucking-million friends, his kingdom in code just a keystroke away while he sits in his silent palace, and thinks it's ironic that in hindsight, those hectic, harried, desperate few months when he thought he had nothing were the time when he had everything.
*
Narendra and the Winklevosses try to drag the past up again, but mostly they just frustrate him.
Dustin tells him that they've repeatedly tried to contact Eduardo (and Dustin still checking Eduardo's accounts every now and then makes him smile; he can do that now, smile at the memories) to ask him if he wants to join their lawsuit, in various degrees of color depending on whom the message is from, and that their lawyers then tried to subpoena him. It must grate them that they can't track down the elusive Eduardo Saverin who dropped out of school years ago without leaving a forwarding address with anyone (and where on campus did he even live?) and hasn't been heard of since. They also change lawyers twice, and Mark suspects their inability to find Eduardo has something to do with that, as if other lawyers would have more success. There's one email from Narendra in which he implies that Mark might have something to do with Eduardo's disappearance and is now keeping him from giving testimony, and surely they can work something out. The message has a somewhat sinister feel to it and Dustin and Mark check again that no one can see that they are accessing Eduardo's email from the Facebook offices after that, just to be safe.
Mark's own lawyers merely inform him that apparently legal counsel of Narendra-Winklevoss was unable to summon and depose Mr. Saverin so Mark need not worry about that.
Mark assumes that means that no one has bothered to contact Christy at least because he is pretty sure she would have loved to tell everybody that in bed Mark had her call Eduardo's name.
He assumes it also means that Chris and Dustin, when they have to give their own depositions, cover for him and lie under oath, which… means something. He's not sure what, but it seems important.
It's almost fun until the actual sessions start.
*
Mark will develop an ulcer if he is forced to listen to these spoilt wannabes any longer. He can't do anything to keep them from suing him, but the more of their self-pitying monologues he has to listen to the more their audacity grates on his nerves.
Sometimes he thinks it's nothing short of absurd.
He is being sued over Facebook by the Winklevosses and their sidekick.
They are sitting there, flanked by lawyers, and force him to sit here too, because they either honestly think they deserve a part of his company or because they are sure they can cheat their way into it.
Either way, they are wasting his time. And their own. Presumably not the lawyers' as they do get paid to sit here and listen to their complains, but mostly his. His time is at least the most valuable here, and that is not arrogance talking but simple mathematics - his current networth, his age, the subsequent amount of money one hour of his time is worth. No one else in this room comes even close.
But it's not about the money. People always think that, but with Mark it's never been about the money.
Facebook is his, all his. He put in all the work, he made the sacrifices, he took the risks.
And, yes, he was the one with the idea. Facebook is nothing like the dating site they had thought of, it's an entirely different concept, and he didn't use any of their code (as if - Mark wants his site to not crash).
The point is, they have no claim to any of his work.
When it comes down to it, Eduardo did more for Facebook, and Eduardo wasn't even real.
Eduardo would have more reason to sue Mark, and a better case. Eduardo was there when Facebook happened. Well, he wasn't, he never was, Mark knows that, but that's not the point either.
Mark thinks he wouldn't mind so much if it were Eduardo suing him. Not that it wouldn't still be a complete waste of time because aside from providing his name Eduardo did absolutely nothing as CFO (how should he have), but Eduardo would at least have grounds.
And.
And he wouldn't mind seeing Eduardo again.
He is fine, but, he misses him.
Not like you miss a person, no, Mark knows Eduardo never was one. He misses him like you miss some important part of scenery you have grown used to, something that's always been there, that is part of normal and okay.
He misses him like home. The feeling of it.
Mark has friends, he's got Facebook, he's not alone or ignored, and he's successful. It's just that without the direct comparison to Eduardo, without filtering through him, reality seems to lack substance sometimes, color, the way a picture can sometimes show its subject more clearly than nature.
So Mark doesn't miss Eduardo per se, he just misses having him around.
Things were different with Eduardo around.
Not better, no; Mark thinks for a while back then he wasn't in a very good place. Just, more.
If he lets his mind wander while he is locked in that room and has to pay at least partial attention to this legal farce, so what. He's not allowed a computer, and there's only so much doodling and planning he can do before the urge to go and write the code now before he loses it becomes too strong (he walks out once; his lawyers strongly advise him to not do it again unless they grant that it's an emergency).
It's not like there's any harm in it. He's tried to conjure Eduardo up again and again after he sent him away and it never worked. He had the construct, he had all the parts, but he simply couldn't get Eduardo to manifest because it made no sense of him to do so, to be with Mark, not after Mark got rid of him so thoroughly.
He remembers him, when someone moves a certain way, or laughs like him, when someone mentions chickens, he remembers him every time he finds himself in a dingy pub bathroom (he avoids the stalls), and when it rains. But he never manages to get a look at his face, only blurry glances out of the corner of his eye. Light ovals in the shadows, or the dark back of his head, still moving from Eduardo turning away, taunting Mark that this time he almost managed to see.
And while Mark doesn't care anymore because he's over Eduardo, he's left that part of his life behind, it still makes him wonder, even worry, makes deep in his stomach churn uncomfortably, at the thought that maybe the reason he can't picture Eduardo anymore is that he's really forgotten the details of what he's supposed to look like. The thought, it doesn't scare him, not quite, but it saddens him. Because if that's the case then that means Eduardo is gone for good. No photos, digital or otherwise, no people who've met him, no nothing.
Eduardo only ever truly existed in Mark's head, and if he's not there anymore then he might as well have never even been existed, fleeting and figmentive as said existence may have been.
So what if everybody keeps throwing Mark weird looks wondering why he's staring into empty space. He's an eccentric genius with little people skills, he gets to behave oddly and doesn't care if they look at him like he's a freak. Narendra and the Winklevosses already do think so and are trying to exploit him, and the lawyers, both their and his own, get paid to put up with clients who don't give a fuck, and paid well.
No one says anything after that one time though, not after Mark explains exactly how much of his attention these proceedings deserve and what he thinks of them. This is yet another reason why he's got Facebook and the Winklevosses have a bunch of second places (the part about the British prince and him reiterating how brutally close the race had been was amusing, Mark will grant them that).
So he looks and reminisces and tries to imagine, Eduardo in the early days, happy and smiling, Eduardo towards the end, tense as if he knew what was coming (and he probably did know; Mark knew) and angry, so quick to lash out. Mark tries to picture that, he works of the construct he has, the remembered twists and turns and looks, and projects that anger into an empty chair across the room that almost looks like someone placed it there for that very purpose. It makes sense. Mark kicked him out, those years ago, Eduardo has reason to be angry. Though, no, it was years ago. Mark himself isn't angry anymore, it's unlikely that Eduardo would be.
Eduardo, if he were here, would mostly be hurt.
Which Mark would be okay with. If Eduardo only ever looked at him hurt, with pain and distrust in his eyes he still wouldn't complain because Eduardo would still be there to look at him.
So this way it makes sense. Eduardo has more reason to sue than the Winklevosses, Eduardo Mark actually wouldn't mind to have to waste time looking at, and if Eduardo were here he'd look broken.
And then something clicks.
*
Besides, it's just a way to pass the time during the deposition meetings, that's what Mark would say if anyone asked.
But no one asks. Because this time he doesn't tell anyone.
"I was your only friend. You had one friend."
Mark turns so he has a better view of Eduardo's chair.