[fic] Kids That I Once Knew - 1/2
…I sort of hate myself for this. But at the same time, it was surprisingly cathartic. There is…a lot of angst. And by a lot, I mean to the point of being whiny and obnoxious and exhausting. I will most likely not be posting this on the comms, because ummm. I'm kind of ashamed of it. O_O
Now I’m going to forget this ever happened.
♥
Title: Kids That I Once Knew
Author:garnetice
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Rating: T
Word Count: 13,049
Warnings: Vague ex, bad language, bashing of my former alma mater (I love you BU. No really. You're just an easy mark), cyclical conversations, college cliches, heaploads of angst, terrible metaphors, drinking, and a large dose of bitterness. Also, it’s really unnecessarily fucking long.
Summary: Mark’s a self centered narcissist with a god complex. Eduardo’s just plain selfish. And they both always thought they were better than each other, one way or another.
Disclaimer: This is based on the movie The Social Network by Aaron Sorkin, and loosely on The Accidental Billionaires. It is not meant to represent the lives of the real Eduardo Saverin or Mark Zuckerberg in any way, shape, or form.
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Eduardo hates Boston. He hates driving down the familiar streets, under the shadow of the Prudential building, past the Commons, and all those brownstones. He hates the library at Copley and every bridge crossing the Charles, and he hates how the whole place is so stupidly small that he managed to cram a year and a half’s worth of memories onto every single street he passes.
There’s literally nowhere that he hasn’t been; the Museum of Fine Arts near Northeastern and the state building uptown and Spike’s down in Allston, where he used to love smothering hotdogs in teriyaki sauce. Whenever he’s forced to head up to Beantown, he tries to avoid Harvard altogether. It doesn’t help. He’s still been too many places, and they all remind him of one person.
Mark.
He’s got a thousand images of Mark locked up in his head. Mark wired up, wired in, hardwired to be complete freak and still, somehow, the only person Eduardo ever felt one hundred percent comfortable with. Mark knew everything about him, from childhood stories to the most embarrassing thoughts he’d ever had and it just made his complete and utter rejection of Eduardo that much worse. Which is- whatever.
Eduardo’s over it. He is. It used to make him so angry he felt like all the air was getting sucked out of his chest, so fucking pissed that he hit walls (once) and raged at random strangers (also once, and the guy spilled coffee all over Eduardo’s suit right before). Now Eduardo’s just sad. It’s a dull kind of sadness that peeks out every so often, but mostly it’s settled there in his bloodstream, its presence quiet, but known. It’s not the same as depression, as apathy, or wanting to give up. It’s just sadness. It’s just there. And Eduardo can only keep hoping it will go away.
(He isn’t a fan of looking at his face in the mirror for very long. He doesn’t want that hollow eyed boy reflecting out to look back.)
He thinks that’s all he has left, the sadness. Except, well, he's wrong.
Boston’s not the largest of cities. A person can walk from South Station to Fenway in little over an hour, if they know the general direction, and the outskirts of Brookline aren’t far from Kenmore Square.
But still. It’s a city. With skyscrapers and the mafia and like five million colleges. It’s not supposed to be hard to disappear in the crowd of a fucking metropolis. That’s what Eduardo thinks when he finds himself standing on Commonwealth Avenue, shocked and more than a little angry (more than he’d known he still had the capacity to be), eye to eye with the one person he’d fervently hoped to never see again.
(That’s a lie. Eduardo never stopped wanting to see Mark, no matter how often the sensible side of him insisted he should.)
Mark’s studying him like he’s the tricky part of an algorithm, eyes flicking over his face, his suit, his shoes, and then to the creamy beige gray spires of the building to Eduardo’s right, the brassy doors trying for gilded gold and the watery sunlight reflecting off windows, making them go a hazy black blue.
“Why the hell would you come here?” Mark asks, nose twitching.
“I-“ Eduardo blinks, because he’s still hoping this is some kind of hallucination. He knows it’s really not, because if his mind was going to dream something up, it wouldn’t be this kid; standing outside the College of Arts and Sciences of a school he didn’t even go to, surrounded by a pack of freshmen girls wearing sweatpants with cute little logos across their butts, the sound of the T rumbling by with an announcement of, “This is the green line train to Government Center. Next stop, Boston University East.”
Plus, only Mark would see that as an acceptable greeting. Eduardo likes to think his imagination would at least be nice to him.
“I have a business meeting in Allston. I was- going to get something to eat.”
“Kind of late for a business meeting, isn’t it?” Mark glances up at the sky, slate gray and quickly darkening with the threat of snow, the clouds brushing past the tips of the spires, concealing all that architectural craftsmanship. He asks, “Is it a date?”
“What?”
“Is your business meeting. A date?” Mark enunciates, and wow, Eduardo’s forgotten how annoying he is.
It’d be easier if Mark wasn’t aging well. Or if he’d gotten fat. Yeah. Eduardo would’ve gotten vindictive pleasure out of it, and then, maybe, it wouldn’t be quite as painful seeing him standing there, the same pale, scrawny, arrogant geek he was when Eduardo left him.
If anything, he’s a little paler, and Eduardo wonders if he’s getting any sun at all. He knows he’s going to have to make a conscious effort to keep from texting Dustin later and asking their mutual friend to shove Mark out into the daylight.
Some habits are harder to break than others.
Mark's cheeks are scruffy, his hair longer, curling softly around his ears, and he’s actually wearing something that doesn’t look like it came from the discount rack at Old Navy. He seems tired, but the complete opposite of hideous, which only goes to prove that there’s no justice in the world.
He still looks like Mark.
(No matter how old they get, Eduardo supposes that Mark’s always going to be nineteen to him, because no one will ever be equivocal to that shining boy genius, not even the man he’s become.)
“No,” Eduardo gives him a None of Your Business glare that he learned in grade school. Mark is not suitably impressed.
It’s really not a date. Eduardo doesn’t have time anymore to meet girls. The last person he dated had lasted a while, long enough that Eduardo realized he was only keeping her around so that he wouldn’t be alone. Because really, he doesn’t even have the time to make friends. It makes him wish he’d been better at actual socializing instead of the bullshit and petty flattery that had gotten him into the Phoenix. Brothers may be forever, but he thinks his Final Club needs to drastically redefine their definition of brotherhood. He wants real friends, people he can talk to, and he wishes he’d made them in college. Or, at the very least, chosen the ones he thought he made more carefully.
Mark asks, “Would you tell me if it was?”
Eduardo considers it.
“No. Why are you here?”
Which he feels is a valid question, because Mark hates Boston University. He used to treat the school like it was community college, and he never even deemed to acknowledge Boston College’s existence. He thought Suffolk was part of a high school, and that Emerson was for special education students. Mark always hated any academic institution that wasn’t Harvard, really, and even his allegiance to their alma mater was more than a little questionable.
Maybe it still is. Eduardo doesn’t know any more.
“I’m giving a lecture. About Facebook.”
Because obviously he’d be giving a lecture about something else, like Greek mythology.
“Okay. Enjoy that.”
“Wait- you’re leaving?”
Eduardo frowns, not at Mark, because he kind of doesn’t want to look at his stupid face, but at the freshmen girls and the kids going to class in their pajamas and the occasional harried senior. He doesn’t ever remember looking that young.
“I’ve got a business meeting,” he says. The extra emphasis doesn’t really have the same effect as Mark’s slow drawl. “You’ve got a lecture.”
"It can wait.”
“What time does it start?”
“Five minutes ago. There are other speakers besides me.”
“You shouldn’t be late. It’s bad PR.”
See? Eduardo’s being conscientious. He’s still got a stake in the company, after all. He should know. His lawyers had to fight tooth and nail to get it.
“Yeah, but- their mascot is a terrier. A fighting terrier. That’s not even a dog, that’s an underfed raccoon.”
Eduardo stares.
“You’re right. Boston University makes terrible artistic choices.”
“Right? They could have at least chosen a Doberman, or something large…with sharper teeth. Although that would falsely indicate something about the sharpness of their students, so maybe they got it right.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“Wait- you. Where were you going to eat around here, anyway? Most of these restaurants suck.”
“I- there’s an Asian supermarket down past the bridge. They’ve got all these little stalls with different kinds of- why do you care, again?”
“I know that place. It’s like, a half hour walk from here. Did you take the T?”
“Yeah.”
“So why’d you get off in front of BU?” Mark wrinkles his nose again, and Eduardo thinks maybe he’s going a bit overboard with all the school bashing. Considering he doesn’t even have a school anymore.
“I felt like walking. It’s a nice evening.”
Mark glances up at the clouds again. The sky’s darkening into an unattractive blue gray soup, burgeoning with snow that's not quite ready to fall. “It’s a crappy evening.”
“I wanted to stretch my legs.”
Mark gives him an inscrutable look. The truth is, Eduardo couldn’t stand being trapped in that metal tin of a subway car anymore. He’d been surrounded by college kids, by the reminders of who he used to be. It had made him feel prickly all over, like his skin was on too tight.
“You’re right, you know. I shouldn’t be late. Walk with me,” Mark says, and it sounds like a command. “This place makes me itch.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Afraid I’m going to jump you for a couple million dollars?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to force me to look at your face for longer than a minute.”
“Valid fear.”
Eduardo should do the smart thing and walk away. He knows he can. He’s done it three times, in Palo Alto, at the offices of Facebook, and after the depositions. But maybe it’s being here, in this stupid city they shared that makes him falter.
He follows Mark through the crowd.
Even though BU isn’t anything at all like Harvard, walking down Commonwealth among throngs of students makes Eduardo miss college. He misses running through snow storms after class, nights in darkened pubs with homemade brews, teachers who think they’re god’s gift to education, and the spontaneity of just living through it all. Back when he was a student, there was always something to do, always something he felt guilty about not doing, like studying or attending a club function or tutoring that girl down the hall in Econ. There was always something, even when Eduardo didn’t want to do anything at all other than curl up in front of a movie with a lukewarm can of Natty Ice. He’d felt like he was part of this community, where maybe he didn’t have a lot of connections, but he certainly wasn’t the only one.
Now, his life consists of work, exhaustion, and sleep. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. It’s so fucking boring.
Maybe that’s also part of why he avoids Boston. He’s never wanted to see the other kids exploring Newbury Comics or eating Indian food on Beacon Street or checking out the newest bestsellers at the Coop. It would be masochism, visiting his old haunts and watching his replacements, the ghosts of his past wearing new faces. Fuck, just sitting on the T had been torture.
“What are you going to talk about?” Eduardo asks, more out of a desire to say something than any real interest. “How you’re so good at bringing people together?”
Mark tilts his head, the line of his shoulders stiffening a bit, and immediately, Eduardo feels like maybe he’s being harsh. His anger melts the guilt away as quick as it came. Mark deserves harsh.
He’d called Eduardo exactly once since the end of their friendship, about two years after the millionth member party Eduardo never got to attend, but still long before any settlement was reached. Mark tricked him into answering, using a restricted number, asking, “Remember me? I’m in New York.”
Over ramen, like college students still, Mark had distantly told stories about how well he was doing, how the company was wildly successful (as though Eduardo didn’t read the quarterly reports). About this great party he’d gone to (like three years ago, and Eduardo had been there), and how he’d beaten his high score in that game they loved (Eduardo had been there too), and when Eduardo asked how his family was doing with that one thing, Mark asked how he’d known. And Eduardo had wondered if he even remembered that it was only two years since they’d stopped being friends (it felt like a decade).
That was- god, nearly three or four years ago now. It’s weird that the part of their relationship where they were actually on good terms was so short.
They met through AEPi, but hadn’t really become friends until the third dorm party Eduardo was invited to. He knew how to be suave and charming because his father had raised him well, but he’d found himself lost at Harvard, where everyone else was just as smart as him, if not smarter. It was intimidating, and he was ridiculously homesick. He’d finally gotten to the point where he felt more like himself, but college was already almost half way over. He’d only made a handful of acquaintances through the Harvard Investors Club, and a few tentative friends, besides his roommates, until Mark. They began hanging at the (lame) frat parties, and then they'd gone to lunch on Mark’s invitation and Eduardo’s credit card.
Eduardo instantly liked Mark. Because he was weird, and he was noticeable, and he was a bit of an asshole. He’d always been drawn to people who exuded confidence, people like his dad, and Mark- well. Mark was confident to the point of cocky when it came to a lot of things. He made a point of being condescending sometimes, but mostly, Mark just liked to tell people how wrong they were, so that they’d be better next time. He spoke before he thought, and Eduardo wanted to be able to do that. He wanted some of that self-assured jackass to rub off on him. Instead he mostly inherited the socially awkward, geeky side of Mark. Which was loveable in its own way, of course, but made it a bitch to get laid sometimes.
The night they really bonded, Eduardo’s roommate had invited him to a party, and mostly Eduardo avoided interacting with all these kids who were only two or three years older than him, but felt so much larger and more mature. When he’d mentioned it to Mark, he’d been all in. They’d gone and drank and mocked people dancing until the RA had knocked.
Mark had whispered, “If anyone asks, we’re from Northeastern.”
“Why Northeastern?”
“Because I refuse to be associated with MIT.”
Eduardo snorted, and then Mark spotted the fire escape. His hand closed around Eduardo’s wrist and he pulled him through the window as the RA crashed into the room. It was raining, and Mark wasn’t even wearing shoes, and Eduardo had forgotten his jacket, but none of it mattered. They splashed down the sidewalk towards Government Center, laughing, and they’d been best friends, ever since.
Or more like they’d had a year and a half to be best friends, and spent another six being anything but.
Eduardo doesn’t know why the memory of it surprises him anymore. Mark majored in computer science, which might as well mean he majored in douchebaggery. Eduardo learned quickly that a lot of comp sci majors have the cocky, arrogant self-confidence that comes from knowing they’re going to inherit the earth without ever needing to be told. He's not sure if that’s true of all of them, or if it’s just the IT guys he ends up meeting. Eduardo figures it’s not really important; he’s never going to be able to classify the entire socioeconomic demographic he’d need to actually develop a theory like that, and besides, he doesn’t care about everyone else. He cares about Mark.
(Or actually, he doesn’t. Not anymore. He’s trying so hard not to.)
What Eduardo does know about computer guys is that they’re used to keeping up with trends, to keeping up with the newest technology, the best of the best. Mark would never spend more than ten bucks on a pair of jeans, but he’d always been willing to shell out a couple thousand at the drop of a hat for the newest laptop, even if his was barely six months old. Eduardo knows now that he’s the same way with people; always looking for the newest upgrade.
In the end, maybe he’d thought that he was special. Irreplaceable.
He hates that he was so, so wrong.
“Eduardo,” Mark says, his voice carefully measured. They’re standing in front of the courtyard now. It’s a meager comparison to Harvard, a mishmash of architectural décor that can’t even compete with the pillars and arches and history of the Ivy Leagues.
“Yeah?”
He thinks maybe now is the time to run like hell. Mark’s face is completely blank, but Eduardo has known it was coming to this almost since the moment he appeared in front of him.
“I’m sor-“
No.
“Don’t.”
“You don’t want an apology?”
“I do, of course I do. But I don’t want to hear it when it’s not true.”
“If I could do it over, it would be different. I would…” Mark trails off, like he doesn’t actually know what he would do. “Dustin and Chris- they were never as ambitious as you are. The site’s the only way they were ever going to get any notoriety. You- you’re going to make your own destiny.”
“That’s great, dude.”
If the comment sounds biting, that’s because he means it to be, with all his heart.
“Give me a chance.”
Eduardo knows they’re drawing a crowd now, coeds ready to take over the world and high school students touring the campus and professors on their coffee break. He doesn’t care.
“I’ve given you nothing but chances.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I never learned how to tell you no, Mark.”
“Not in so many words.”
His face is blank. No anger. Just this kind of coldness that Eduardo’s heard girls call reptilian.
(It always looked more like vulnerability to him.)
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re smart enough to figure that out on your own.”
Eduardo turns on his heel, prepared to leave.
“That. That, right there. That passive aggressive shit you always choose in lieu of telling me what you think. You pressure me into doing what you want by holding something over my head or taking something away or trying, somehow to teach me a lesson. I’m not five, Wardo. I can take the truth.”
Mark was the first person to give him a nickname, and it hurts to hear it. It sounds awkward and unfamiliar and like it belongs to someone else, now. But it’s just a stupid word, and Eduardo isn’t going to let a couple of letters make him look weak.
“I told you-“
“No, you only ever tell me what’s wrong when you’ve given it plenty of time to build up. Maybe if you’d told me from the beginning how you felt about Sean-“
“I did tell you! I told you, repeatedly, I fucking told you. Maybe I do end up trying passive aggressive shit, but only because you refuse to ever listen.”
He’s seething now.
He wants to be that guy who can gracefully forgive anything, but honestly, Eduardo isn’t sure how. He tries and he tries and sometimes he can go days, or even weeks without Mark’s name flickering into his head. But the second anything goes wrong, the moment something amazing happens, his fingers trace the pattern of a familiar phone number, instinctively, and it all comes rushing back. It makes him feel fucking pathetic most of the time, which only serves to make him sadder (angrier). It’s tiring walking around, feeling like you have a knife in your back. Eduardo doesn’t like playing the victim. He doesn’t like feeling like he was stupid enough to be victimized.
(Mark looks tired too. Every empire builds its walls on the bones of the people who made it. Maybe Mark’s not so completely in control anymore.)
“I’m trying to make it up to you. Why aren’t you forgiving me?”
“I don’t know if I can. Because-“
And this is the thing that Eduardo has always wanted to say, but was never able to verbalize.
“You were my best friend, and until the day I walked into your office and got fucked, I didn’t realize how little that meant to you. But- fuck, it was everything to me.”
“Eduardo-“ Mark’s expression doesn’t change, but he doesn’t sound so certain now, either.
“I wanted to be pivotal. To you. And I wasn’t.”
Mark hates being wrong. Eduardo knows it, and he’s probably even rubbing his face in it, just the tiniest bit. It isn’t a good feeling, watching him stand there, looking like his skin’s on too tight, shifting his hands in his pockets like he’s jingling spare change.
(It isn’t exactly a bad feeling, either.)
Eduardo has to talk fast, because when Mark gets angry, he shuts down. He’ll yell, so that Eduardo can’t get a word in edgewise, or worse, follow through on his modus operandi; make a sarcastic comment and walk away.
“There I was, trying to do anything I could to help you, to make you see that you needed me, and you weren’t thinking about me at all. Except about how to beat me. You wanted to prove you were the better man, that you could win. You wanted to be ruthless. You were. Live with it, Mark.”
He’s being cruel, and he knows it, and this small, shallow part of him that’s sick of being polite, of being a pushover who obeys social niceties, wants to keep going.
(Why shouldn’t he? He can’t snap like this at his dad, but Mark? He’ll never see the guy again. Why not?)
“You were jealous that you weren’t punched for the Phoenix. That they didn’t recognize how elite you are.”
“I wanted to win?” Mark seethes, and he’s actually starting to slip now, his eyes snapping fire. “You’re the one who flaunted it over me. You were happy that you could do something I couldn’t. You were a really fucking sore winner.”
“I was happy to get chosen! It had nothing to do with you at all.”
Which probably is an even worse thing to say, because Mark’s Mark, and he thinks that most things revolve around him, and that if they don’t, they should.
Stiffly, he says, “The site’s my intellectual property.”
Eduardo’s heard this song a million times, but he can’t help but reply, “Seriously? You’re going to get all moral about shared credit? Seriously? You?”
Mark doesn’t say anything, just stares, and they’re surrounded by onlookers who aren’t being very surreptitious at all about their on-looking.
He tries to soften his voice again, but it still comes out more harshly than normal. “What is it you want from me?”
“I want us to be friends again, Wardo.”
“And I want you to understand that that’s not going to happen.”
Mark makes this disgusted noise, like he can’t believe that Eduardo wants him to rehash this entire cyclical argument. Which is understandable, considering Eduardo does not want to rehash the same, stupid argument either. All he wants to hear is that Mark was completely, utterly wrong, and it’s the one thing he knows will never be said. All he’ll ever get are half-hearted apologies and a vague sentence about things being different, maybe, if Mark could actually go back in time and convince his younger self to quit with the pride and the jealousy and all the things that come innately to a nineteen year old boy.
It’s obvious that he still thinks he did the right thing. He just doesn’t like the cost.
“I never cared about the money,” Mark says, and Eduardo wishes they could argue one point at a time, instead of all of them at the same time. He snorts, the sound meant to be derisive and cutting, but mostly it sounds weary and overwrought.
“That much is obvious. You never cared about anything but proving you’re better, smarter than everyone else on this fucking planet.”
“False. That’s not true and you- “
“Shut the hell up, Mark. You wanted to play God. Now you have to live with the consequences.”
“Any more trite clichés you want to throw in there?”
“No, I think I’m done. With all of this. And actually, don’t- don’t say that you don’t care about the money. It may have started out that way, but you cared about it enough to fuck me out of it.”
“You’re the one who thinks cash is power and success and everything. It’s not.”
“That makes me feel so much better. Thanks for the clarification.”
Mark’s glaring at him in this completely insolent manner, like Eduardo’s the one who started this entire argument. He probably believes that, too.
Eduardo’s about to turn to leave again, but in the interest of full disclosure, he forces himself to stay still and say, “You know what? Fine. I was jealous. And I was ecstatic I got my own thing. Something that would make me stand out, on my own.”
And there it is, laid bare. Mark’s a self centered narcissist with a god complex, Eduardo’s just plain selfish, and they both always thought they were better than each other, one way or another.
Mark’s mouth gapes open. Eduardo keeps talking.
“-But I always admired you. I always wanted you to do something good. You, though? You had no respect for me. At all. Not a single bit. You think I have a destiny? Just one that’s not as good as yours, right? I can do anything I want, as long as you do it bigger and greater. You’re ridiculous. I can’t- I just can’t do this.”
“Fine,” Mark says stiffly, his anger reaching its boiling point. If he still had a relatively unknown Livejournal, Eduardo’s pretty sure the Saverin name would be embroiled in some internet scandal by tomorrow. Thank god for small favors and the esteemed reputation of Facebook.
He remembers years ago, staying up and drinking beer and playing video games and telling each other how hard they were going to get pounded. Eduardo has all these memories, freeze-framed, but oh-so-hazy in his mind. He thinks it’s weird how the memories of getting fucked over and then doing it all over again at the depositions stand out so clear. How one bad thing can drown a million good things. How one individual can change your entire life.
The worst part is that they’re not even arguing about something that’s in any way relevant to who they are now. What happened helped mold Eduardo, sure, but he’s not the naive kid he used to be.
The most terrible thing about growing up is how much you come to resent the person you were before. The mistakes that a stranger with your face made, leaving you all alone with the weight and the guilt, even though you’re all changed and brand new. Eduardo feels like he’s paid a million years’ penance for something the Him that exists now wouldn’t have even done.
“Well, this has been delightful. Let’s never do it again.”
“Agreed,” Mark spits, vehement. His anger is terrifying, because he so rarely shows it. But it’s familiar, too, and Eduardo hates that even after all these years, even though he still kind of hopes Mark will get hit by a passing car, he also kind of wants to wrap his arms around him and soothe it away.
Eduardo makes it all the way back to the College of Arts and Sciences before he hears footsteps pounding on the concrete, and, “His name’s Rhett.”
“What?”
“The terrier. The mascot. His name’s fucking Rhett. How lame is that?”
“…Pretty lame.”
He doesn’t turn to look at Mark. He doesn’t want to see that dorky smile flit over his lips, not even for a second, or the way his eyes are probably all huge and sad and Mark.
“Talk to me.”
Eduardo’s perpetually tripping over himself where Mark’s concerned. He doesn’t want to, but something about the way Mark’s voice cracks makes him stop. He hasn’t heard that tone since the day Mark’s grandmother died, and he didn’t know what to say then to make it right.
(This time, maybe, he knows exactly what to say to get all that sadness to go away, but he can’t. Won’t.)
Mark continues, “You were- are my best friend, and I- I never wanted to give you up.”
Eduardo knows. Mark’s always been the kind of person who thinks he can have everything, all at once.
“I don’t know what else there is to say. You wanted me, but you wanted other things more.”
After a beat, Mark actually agrees, and even though Eduardo knows, has always known, it still stings. “You’re right.”
He nods, because he doesn’t know how else to acknowledge what Mark’s said past the lump in his throat.
“I have everything else I want. You’re all that’s left.”
Eduardo swallows his hurt. “Fanfuckingtastic.”
“No, wait. That’s not- I don’t mean it the way it sounds.”
They’ve both got pride in over abundance. Maybe that’s why neither of them can find the words to make this work.
“Not once in the past few years did you feel anything like sorry, did you?”
“Once or twice.” Mark bows his head. “Not at first. I was so pissed that you didn’t understand what I was trying to do. That you weren’t standing by me, no matter what.”
“That’s not how it works, and you know it.”
“I get that now. I overreacted. I wasn’t ready for- being tied down. Responsibility. It was you or the site, and the site seemed like less work.”
“That’s so fucked up, I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Yeah, well.” Marks sighs and says, “I told you not to join. The Phoenix. Or- I didn’t, but it’s what I meant. It’s what I wanted.”
This again.
“I know. And you cut me out of your little dynasty for daring not to listen. Congratulations. You’re better than me.”
“Wardo, you have to-“
“I don’t have to do anything. Does that make me less attractive to you?”
“Nothing could make you less attractive to me.”
Eduardo blinks. That- isn’t what he meant.
Not even a little bit.
“Listen-“ Mark continues, eyes darting up to meet his.
Eduardo wants to say no, that he isn’t going to do anything Mark asks of him, never again. But the large masochistic chunk of his being is morbidly curious. He waits.
“I miss you. I don’t like it. I don’t- if it was a game, then it’s over. I won. And I thought it wouldn’t change anything, I thought you’d get over it. And we’d still be friends. I possibly miscalculated.”
Eduardo snorts. He wants to tell him that the truth is, he misses Mark too, more than he can bear. Some days he’ll be fine, and others, he’ll be inconsolable. He’s good at covering it up, at faking it so that no one ever asks what’s wrong. He lets himself fade into the background, just like back at Harvard. Nobody ever says a word.
“-how much you liked money and me and- I guess, how much of a dick I was being. I still don’t think I did the wrong thing. At the time. For the company. I think maybe it should have been…different. Somehow. And yeah, it pissed me off that you didn’t like Sean, when he made so much sense, and you…weren’t making any.” Mark rakes a hand through his hair. “This sucks so hard.”
Eduardo’s not sure what to say. He doesn’t get why Mark’s still here, giving him these half-sincere explanations, these almost apologies. The Mark he knows doesn’t go back and apologize, he moves forwardforwardforward until he does something that completed eradicates a person’s memory of what he’s done wrong in the first place. And surely Mark knows that isn’t going to happen. Not now. Probably not ever. So why is he still trying?
For the first time, he thinks maybe the Mark of his memories is a storybook character, just like the people his mother made up when she’d read to him as a child. Because the boy he remembers is determined and steadfast and a little bit reckless, but always interesting, and now he’s wondering if all of that obscured the person Mark had always been. If Eduardo had let his judgment cloud because of the things he felt, let all the virtues he’d seen in a boy who’d deigned to become his best friend hide who the boy himself really was. If the majority of their relationship had all been in his head.
Because this is not the Mark he knows, still determined but not nearly as steadfast. If anything, Mark doesn’t seem to know why he’s here either.
“Wardo, stop looking at me like that. I’m not a child. I’m perfectly capable of understanding when I do something wrong. Sometimes it just takes a little while for it to sink in. It didn’t feel wrong at the time.”
“If it didn’t feel wrong, Mark, why did you keep it from me until the very end?”
He doesn’t seem to have an answer for that. Finally Mark says, “Because I thought you might change my mind.”
For a second, Eduardo can’t find words, but then they come, hurtful and spiteful and almost a sob.
“I hate you. I hate you so much, and it’s exhausting. I want to feel something different, now. I want to forget all of it. I hate you,” he repeats, except it doesn’t sound like hate at all. It sounds like I love you and why did you leave, why did you hurt me, and don’t go away, not ever again. Because he’s never met anyone else who’s made him feel the way Mark did. The instant connection, the way his ideas clicked differently, the weird sense of almost- completeness.
He tells himself he will, again, someday. Everyone says that nothing is ever lost for good, that real love happens more than once in a person’s life (not that Eduardo equates what he used to feel for Mark with love) and the loss of one best friend isn’t the end of the world, but twenty seven years of life is presenting him with evidence to the contrary. Maybe Eduardo will meet someone better, more interesting, more dynamic that Mark, who will fill the big gaping sense of emptiness he has in his chest when it gets too quiet and he actually allows himself to think. But he isn’t sure if he can wait another twenty years for it to happen. The world is wearing him down.
Sometimes he wonders if that’s what college is really for, and why life afterwards is nothing like it. College is the place that popular media and daydreaming high school kids imagine as this hotspot for intellectual creativity. And yeah, it can be, at times. But mostly it’s a circus for kids who want to get drunk, get laid, and spend four years of their life putting off the rest of their fucking life. If you learn a thing or two, hell, you’re ahead of the game. That’s why Eduardo chose Harvard.
(They say Harvard chooses you, but when you have as many connections as the Saverins and a childhood full of nothing but learning how to get ahead, you pretty much have your pick of the litter.)
He figured it wouldn’t be as bad. Not as many hormones. Not as much free flowing liquor. Turns out, smart kids have more pent up then all the rest of them put together. Now he thinks that maybe parents send their children away under the guise of education so that they can learn what it’s like to get their hearts broken and dreams crushed surrounded by thousands of other kids going through the exact same thing. Because nobody comes out of it unchanged. Even the boring kids, the ones who do nothing but study or play World of Warcraft for their entire scholastic career go through a transformation of sorts. One where they realize that nothing fantastic is ever going to happen to them, no princes on stallions or superheroes or playboy bunnies coming out of the woodwork to save them from the doldrums. Eduardo thinks maybe that breaks them a little too, in its own way.
He hates Mark, and he hates that he let himself get sucked into this, the drama of it all.
“That’s okay,” Mark says softly, like he expects it, and he probably does. He’s probably used to being hated. But Eduardo’s not used to seeing that expression on Mark’s face. Mark’s always unshakable. He’s the most driven person Eduardo has ever met, and he’s never needed his parents or his friends or his teachers’ approval. He knows he’s hot shit, and knowing gives him this innate amount of confidence that he probably doesn’t wholly deserve. At least, that’s what Mark’s usually like. “You deserve to hate me.”
“I don’t need you to qualify what I feel, thanks.”
Although Eduardo kind of does. He feels realer, more solid, somehow, with all of that out in the open, under Mark’s steady gaze.
“We’re never going to be able to trust each other,” Mark says, and hearing it out loud sounds like surrender.
“No, probably not. If it’s any consolation, I don’t much feel like trusting anyone. I’m going to my meeting now,” Eduardo says, because he needs to leave, he’s needed to leave since the moment he first saw Mark standing in front of him.
Why can’t he just fucking leave?
“I’ve got beer,” Mark says, and Eduardo decides that five more minutes can’t hurt.
---
Two
Now I’m going to forget this ever happened.
♥
Title: Kids That I Once Knew
Author:garnetice
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Rating: T
Word Count: 13,049
Warnings: Vague ex, bad language, bashing of my former alma mater (I love you BU. No really. You're just an easy mark), cyclical conversations, college cliches, heaploads of angst, terrible metaphors, drinking, and a large dose of bitterness. Also, it’s really unnecessarily fucking long.
Summary: Mark’s a self centered narcissist with a god complex. Eduardo’s just plain selfish. And they both always thought they were better than each other, one way or another.
Disclaimer: This is based on the movie The Social Network by Aaron Sorkin, and loosely on The Accidental Billionaires. It is not meant to represent the lives of the real Eduardo Saverin or Mark Zuckerberg in any way, shape, or form.
---
Eduardo hates Boston. He hates driving down the familiar streets, under the shadow of the Prudential building, past the Commons, and all those brownstones. He hates the library at Copley and every bridge crossing the Charles, and he hates how the whole place is so stupidly small that he managed to cram a year and a half’s worth of memories onto every single street he passes.
There’s literally nowhere that he hasn’t been; the Museum of Fine Arts near Northeastern and the state building uptown and Spike’s down in Allston, where he used to love smothering hotdogs in teriyaki sauce. Whenever he’s forced to head up to Beantown, he tries to avoid Harvard altogether. It doesn’t help. He’s still been too many places, and they all remind him of one person.
Mark.
He’s got a thousand images of Mark locked up in his head. Mark wired up, wired in, hardwired to be complete freak and still, somehow, the only person Eduardo ever felt one hundred percent comfortable with. Mark knew everything about him, from childhood stories to the most embarrassing thoughts he’d ever had and it just made his complete and utter rejection of Eduardo that much worse. Which is- whatever.
Eduardo’s over it. He is. It used to make him so angry he felt like all the air was getting sucked out of his chest, so fucking pissed that he hit walls (once) and raged at random strangers (also once, and the guy spilled coffee all over Eduardo’s suit right before). Now Eduardo’s just sad. It’s a dull kind of sadness that peeks out every so often, but mostly it’s settled there in his bloodstream, its presence quiet, but known. It’s not the same as depression, as apathy, or wanting to give up. It’s just sadness. It’s just there. And Eduardo can only keep hoping it will go away.
(He isn’t a fan of looking at his face in the mirror for very long. He doesn’t want that hollow eyed boy reflecting out to look back.)
He thinks that’s all he has left, the sadness. Except, well, he's wrong.
Boston’s not the largest of cities. A person can walk from South Station to Fenway in little over an hour, if they know the general direction, and the outskirts of Brookline aren’t far from Kenmore Square.
But still. It’s a city. With skyscrapers and the mafia and like five million colleges. It’s not supposed to be hard to disappear in the crowd of a fucking metropolis. That’s what Eduardo thinks when he finds himself standing on Commonwealth Avenue, shocked and more than a little angry (more than he’d known he still had the capacity to be), eye to eye with the one person he’d fervently hoped to never see again.
(That’s a lie. Eduardo never stopped wanting to see Mark, no matter how often the sensible side of him insisted he should.)
Mark’s studying him like he’s the tricky part of an algorithm, eyes flicking over his face, his suit, his shoes, and then to the creamy beige gray spires of the building to Eduardo’s right, the brassy doors trying for gilded gold and the watery sunlight reflecting off windows, making them go a hazy black blue.
“Why the hell would you come here?” Mark asks, nose twitching.
“I-“ Eduardo blinks, because he’s still hoping this is some kind of hallucination. He knows it’s really not, because if his mind was going to dream something up, it wouldn’t be this kid; standing outside the College of Arts and Sciences of a school he didn’t even go to, surrounded by a pack of freshmen girls wearing sweatpants with cute little logos across their butts, the sound of the T rumbling by with an announcement of, “This is the green line train to Government Center. Next stop, Boston University East.”
Plus, only Mark would see that as an acceptable greeting. Eduardo likes to think his imagination would at least be nice to him.
“I have a business meeting in Allston. I was- going to get something to eat.”
“Kind of late for a business meeting, isn’t it?” Mark glances up at the sky, slate gray and quickly darkening with the threat of snow, the clouds brushing past the tips of the spires, concealing all that architectural craftsmanship. He asks, “Is it a date?”
“What?”
“Is your business meeting. A date?” Mark enunciates, and wow, Eduardo’s forgotten how annoying he is.
It’d be easier if Mark wasn’t aging well. Or if he’d gotten fat. Yeah. Eduardo would’ve gotten vindictive pleasure out of it, and then, maybe, it wouldn’t be quite as painful seeing him standing there, the same pale, scrawny, arrogant geek he was when Eduardo left him.
If anything, he’s a little paler, and Eduardo wonders if he’s getting any sun at all. He knows he’s going to have to make a conscious effort to keep from texting Dustin later and asking their mutual friend to shove Mark out into the daylight.
Some habits are harder to break than others.
Mark's cheeks are scruffy, his hair longer, curling softly around his ears, and he’s actually wearing something that doesn’t look like it came from the discount rack at Old Navy. He seems tired, but the complete opposite of hideous, which only goes to prove that there’s no justice in the world.
He still looks like Mark.
(No matter how old they get, Eduardo supposes that Mark’s always going to be nineteen to him, because no one will ever be equivocal to that shining boy genius, not even the man he’s become.)
“No,” Eduardo gives him a None of Your Business glare that he learned in grade school. Mark is not suitably impressed.
It’s really not a date. Eduardo doesn’t have time anymore to meet girls. The last person he dated had lasted a while, long enough that Eduardo realized he was only keeping her around so that he wouldn’t be alone. Because really, he doesn’t even have the time to make friends. It makes him wish he’d been better at actual socializing instead of the bullshit and petty flattery that had gotten him into the Phoenix. Brothers may be forever, but he thinks his Final Club needs to drastically redefine their definition of brotherhood. He wants real friends, people he can talk to, and he wishes he’d made them in college. Or, at the very least, chosen the ones he thought he made more carefully.
Mark asks, “Would you tell me if it was?”
Eduardo considers it.
“No. Why are you here?”
Which he feels is a valid question, because Mark hates Boston University. He used to treat the school like it was community college, and he never even deemed to acknowledge Boston College’s existence. He thought Suffolk was part of a high school, and that Emerson was for special education students. Mark always hated any academic institution that wasn’t Harvard, really, and even his allegiance to their alma mater was more than a little questionable.
Maybe it still is. Eduardo doesn’t know any more.
“I’m giving a lecture. About Facebook.”
Because obviously he’d be giving a lecture about something else, like Greek mythology.
“Okay. Enjoy that.”
“Wait- you’re leaving?”
Eduardo frowns, not at Mark, because he kind of doesn’t want to look at his stupid face, but at the freshmen girls and the kids going to class in their pajamas and the occasional harried senior. He doesn’t ever remember looking that young.
“I’ve got a business meeting,” he says. The extra emphasis doesn’t really have the same effect as Mark’s slow drawl. “You’ve got a lecture.”
"It can wait.”
“What time does it start?”
“Five minutes ago. There are other speakers besides me.”
“You shouldn’t be late. It’s bad PR.”
See? Eduardo’s being conscientious. He’s still got a stake in the company, after all. He should know. His lawyers had to fight tooth and nail to get it.
“Yeah, but- their mascot is a terrier. A fighting terrier. That’s not even a dog, that’s an underfed raccoon.”
Eduardo stares.
“You’re right. Boston University makes terrible artistic choices.”
“Right? They could have at least chosen a Doberman, or something large…with sharper teeth. Although that would falsely indicate something about the sharpness of their students, so maybe they got it right.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“Wait- you. Where were you going to eat around here, anyway? Most of these restaurants suck.”
“I- there’s an Asian supermarket down past the bridge. They’ve got all these little stalls with different kinds of- why do you care, again?”
“I know that place. It’s like, a half hour walk from here. Did you take the T?”
“Yeah.”
“So why’d you get off in front of BU?” Mark wrinkles his nose again, and Eduardo thinks maybe he’s going a bit overboard with all the school bashing. Considering he doesn’t even have a school anymore.
“I felt like walking. It’s a nice evening.”
Mark glances up at the clouds again. The sky’s darkening into an unattractive blue gray soup, burgeoning with snow that's not quite ready to fall. “It’s a crappy evening.”
“I wanted to stretch my legs.”
Mark gives him an inscrutable look. The truth is, Eduardo couldn’t stand being trapped in that metal tin of a subway car anymore. He’d been surrounded by college kids, by the reminders of who he used to be. It had made him feel prickly all over, like his skin was on too tight.
“You’re right, you know. I shouldn’t be late. Walk with me,” Mark says, and it sounds like a command. “This place makes me itch.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Afraid I’m going to jump you for a couple million dollars?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to force me to look at your face for longer than a minute.”
“Valid fear.”
Eduardo should do the smart thing and walk away. He knows he can. He’s done it three times, in Palo Alto, at the offices of Facebook, and after the depositions. But maybe it’s being here, in this stupid city they shared that makes him falter.
He follows Mark through the crowd.
Even though BU isn’t anything at all like Harvard, walking down Commonwealth among throngs of students makes Eduardo miss college. He misses running through snow storms after class, nights in darkened pubs with homemade brews, teachers who think they’re god’s gift to education, and the spontaneity of just living through it all. Back when he was a student, there was always something to do, always something he felt guilty about not doing, like studying or attending a club function or tutoring that girl down the hall in Econ. There was always something, even when Eduardo didn’t want to do anything at all other than curl up in front of a movie with a lukewarm can of Natty Ice. He’d felt like he was part of this community, where maybe he didn’t have a lot of connections, but he certainly wasn’t the only one.
Now, his life consists of work, exhaustion, and sleep. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. It’s so fucking boring.
Maybe that’s also part of why he avoids Boston. He’s never wanted to see the other kids exploring Newbury Comics or eating Indian food on Beacon Street or checking out the newest bestsellers at the Coop. It would be masochism, visiting his old haunts and watching his replacements, the ghosts of his past wearing new faces. Fuck, just sitting on the T had been torture.
“What are you going to talk about?” Eduardo asks, more out of a desire to say something than any real interest. “How you’re so good at bringing people together?”
Mark tilts his head, the line of his shoulders stiffening a bit, and immediately, Eduardo feels like maybe he’s being harsh. His anger melts the guilt away as quick as it came. Mark deserves harsh.
He’d called Eduardo exactly once since the end of their friendship, about two years after the millionth member party Eduardo never got to attend, but still long before any settlement was reached. Mark tricked him into answering, using a restricted number, asking, “Remember me? I’m in New York.”
Over ramen, like college students still, Mark had distantly told stories about how well he was doing, how the company was wildly successful (as though Eduardo didn’t read the quarterly reports). About this great party he’d gone to (like three years ago, and Eduardo had been there), and how he’d beaten his high score in that game they loved (Eduardo had been there too), and when Eduardo asked how his family was doing with that one thing, Mark asked how he’d known. And Eduardo had wondered if he even remembered that it was only two years since they’d stopped being friends (it felt like a decade).
That was- god, nearly three or four years ago now. It’s weird that the part of their relationship where they were actually on good terms was so short.
They met through AEPi, but hadn’t really become friends until the third dorm party Eduardo was invited to. He knew how to be suave and charming because his father had raised him well, but he’d found himself lost at Harvard, where everyone else was just as smart as him, if not smarter. It was intimidating, and he was ridiculously homesick. He’d finally gotten to the point where he felt more like himself, but college was already almost half way over. He’d only made a handful of acquaintances through the Harvard Investors Club, and a few tentative friends, besides his roommates, until Mark. They began hanging at the (lame) frat parties, and then they'd gone to lunch on Mark’s invitation and Eduardo’s credit card.
Eduardo instantly liked Mark. Because he was weird, and he was noticeable, and he was a bit of an asshole. He’d always been drawn to people who exuded confidence, people like his dad, and Mark- well. Mark was confident to the point of cocky when it came to a lot of things. He made a point of being condescending sometimes, but mostly, Mark just liked to tell people how wrong they were, so that they’d be better next time. He spoke before he thought, and Eduardo wanted to be able to do that. He wanted some of that self-assured jackass to rub off on him. Instead he mostly inherited the socially awkward, geeky side of Mark. Which was loveable in its own way, of course, but made it a bitch to get laid sometimes.
The night they really bonded, Eduardo’s roommate had invited him to a party, and mostly Eduardo avoided interacting with all these kids who were only two or three years older than him, but felt so much larger and more mature. When he’d mentioned it to Mark, he’d been all in. They’d gone and drank and mocked people dancing until the RA had knocked.
Mark had whispered, “If anyone asks, we’re from Northeastern.”
“Why Northeastern?”
“Because I refuse to be associated with MIT.”
Eduardo snorted, and then Mark spotted the fire escape. His hand closed around Eduardo’s wrist and he pulled him through the window as the RA crashed into the room. It was raining, and Mark wasn’t even wearing shoes, and Eduardo had forgotten his jacket, but none of it mattered. They splashed down the sidewalk towards Government Center, laughing, and they’d been best friends, ever since.
Or more like they’d had a year and a half to be best friends, and spent another six being anything but.
Eduardo doesn’t know why the memory of it surprises him anymore. Mark majored in computer science, which might as well mean he majored in douchebaggery. Eduardo learned quickly that a lot of comp sci majors have the cocky, arrogant self-confidence that comes from knowing they’re going to inherit the earth without ever needing to be told. He's not sure if that’s true of all of them, or if it’s just the IT guys he ends up meeting. Eduardo figures it’s not really important; he’s never going to be able to classify the entire socioeconomic demographic he’d need to actually develop a theory like that, and besides, he doesn’t care about everyone else. He cares about Mark.
(Or actually, he doesn’t. Not anymore. He’s trying so hard not to.)
What Eduardo does know about computer guys is that they’re used to keeping up with trends, to keeping up with the newest technology, the best of the best. Mark would never spend more than ten bucks on a pair of jeans, but he’d always been willing to shell out a couple thousand at the drop of a hat for the newest laptop, even if his was barely six months old. Eduardo knows now that he’s the same way with people; always looking for the newest upgrade.
In the end, maybe he’d thought that he was special. Irreplaceable.
He hates that he was so, so wrong.
“Eduardo,” Mark says, his voice carefully measured. They’re standing in front of the courtyard now. It’s a meager comparison to Harvard, a mishmash of architectural décor that can’t even compete with the pillars and arches and history of the Ivy Leagues.
“Yeah?”
He thinks maybe now is the time to run like hell. Mark’s face is completely blank, but Eduardo has known it was coming to this almost since the moment he appeared in front of him.
“I’m sor-“
No.
“Don’t.”
“You don’t want an apology?”
“I do, of course I do. But I don’t want to hear it when it’s not true.”
“If I could do it over, it would be different. I would…” Mark trails off, like he doesn’t actually know what he would do. “Dustin and Chris- they were never as ambitious as you are. The site’s the only way they were ever going to get any notoriety. You- you’re going to make your own destiny.”
“That’s great, dude.”
If the comment sounds biting, that’s because he means it to be, with all his heart.
“Give me a chance.”
Eduardo knows they’re drawing a crowd now, coeds ready to take over the world and high school students touring the campus and professors on their coffee break. He doesn’t care.
“I’ve given you nothing but chances.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I never learned how to tell you no, Mark.”
“Not in so many words.”
His face is blank. No anger. Just this kind of coldness that Eduardo’s heard girls call reptilian.
(It always looked more like vulnerability to him.)
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re smart enough to figure that out on your own.”
Eduardo turns on his heel, prepared to leave.
“That. That, right there. That passive aggressive shit you always choose in lieu of telling me what you think. You pressure me into doing what you want by holding something over my head or taking something away or trying, somehow to teach me a lesson. I’m not five, Wardo. I can take the truth.”
Mark was the first person to give him a nickname, and it hurts to hear it. It sounds awkward and unfamiliar and like it belongs to someone else, now. But it’s just a stupid word, and Eduardo isn’t going to let a couple of letters make him look weak.
“I told you-“
“No, you only ever tell me what’s wrong when you’ve given it plenty of time to build up. Maybe if you’d told me from the beginning how you felt about Sean-“
“I did tell you! I told you, repeatedly, I fucking told you. Maybe I do end up trying passive aggressive shit, but only because you refuse to ever listen.”
He’s seething now.
He wants to be that guy who can gracefully forgive anything, but honestly, Eduardo isn’t sure how. He tries and he tries and sometimes he can go days, or even weeks without Mark’s name flickering into his head. But the second anything goes wrong, the moment something amazing happens, his fingers trace the pattern of a familiar phone number, instinctively, and it all comes rushing back. It makes him feel fucking pathetic most of the time, which only serves to make him sadder (angrier). It’s tiring walking around, feeling like you have a knife in your back. Eduardo doesn’t like playing the victim. He doesn’t like feeling like he was stupid enough to be victimized.
(Mark looks tired too. Every empire builds its walls on the bones of the people who made it. Maybe Mark’s not so completely in control anymore.)
“I’m trying to make it up to you. Why aren’t you forgiving me?”
“I don’t know if I can. Because-“
And this is the thing that Eduardo has always wanted to say, but was never able to verbalize.
“You were my best friend, and until the day I walked into your office and got fucked, I didn’t realize how little that meant to you. But- fuck, it was everything to me.”
“Eduardo-“ Mark’s expression doesn’t change, but he doesn’t sound so certain now, either.
“I wanted to be pivotal. To you. And I wasn’t.”
Mark hates being wrong. Eduardo knows it, and he’s probably even rubbing his face in it, just the tiniest bit. It isn’t a good feeling, watching him stand there, looking like his skin’s on too tight, shifting his hands in his pockets like he’s jingling spare change.
(It isn’t exactly a bad feeling, either.)
Eduardo has to talk fast, because when Mark gets angry, he shuts down. He’ll yell, so that Eduardo can’t get a word in edgewise, or worse, follow through on his modus operandi; make a sarcastic comment and walk away.
“There I was, trying to do anything I could to help you, to make you see that you needed me, and you weren’t thinking about me at all. Except about how to beat me. You wanted to prove you were the better man, that you could win. You wanted to be ruthless. You were. Live with it, Mark.”
He’s being cruel, and he knows it, and this small, shallow part of him that’s sick of being polite, of being a pushover who obeys social niceties, wants to keep going.
(Why shouldn’t he? He can’t snap like this at his dad, but Mark? He’ll never see the guy again. Why not?)
“You were jealous that you weren’t punched for the Phoenix. That they didn’t recognize how elite you are.”
“I wanted to win?” Mark seethes, and he’s actually starting to slip now, his eyes snapping fire. “You’re the one who flaunted it over me. You were happy that you could do something I couldn’t. You were a really fucking sore winner.”
“I was happy to get chosen! It had nothing to do with you at all.”
Which probably is an even worse thing to say, because Mark’s Mark, and he thinks that most things revolve around him, and that if they don’t, they should.
Stiffly, he says, “The site’s my intellectual property.”
Eduardo’s heard this song a million times, but he can’t help but reply, “Seriously? You’re going to get all moral about shared credit? Seriously? You?”
Mark doesn’t say anything, just stares, and they’re surrounded by onlookers who aren’t being very surreptitious at all about their on-looking.
He tries to soften his voice again, but it still comes out more harshly than normal. “What is it you want from me?”
“I want us to be friends again, Wardo.”
“And I want you to understand that that’s not going to happen.”
Mark makes this disgusted noise, like he can’t believe that Eduardo wants him to rehash this entire cyclical argument. Which is understandable, considering Eduardo does not want to rehash the same, stupid argument either. All he wants to hear is that Mark was completely, utterly wrong, and it’s the one thing he knows will never be said. All he’ll ever get are half-hearted apologies and a vague sentence about things being different, maybe, if Mark could actually go back in time and convince his younger self to quit with the pride and the jealousy and all the things that come innately to a nineteen year old boy.
It’s obvious that he still thinks he did the right thing. He just doesn’t like the cost.
“I never cared about the money,” Mark says, and Eduardo wishes they could argue one point at a time, instead of all of them at the same time. He snorts, the sound meant to be derisive and cutting, but mostly it sounds weary and overwrought.
“That much is obvious. You never cared about anything but proving you’re better, smarter than everyone else on this fucking planet.”
“False. That’s not true and you- “
“Shut the hell up, Mark. You wanted to play God. Now you have to live with the consequences.”
“Any more trite clichés you want to throw in there?”
“No, I think I’m done. With all of this. And actually, don’t- don’t say that you don’t care about the money. It may have started out that way, but you cared about it enough to fuck me out of it.”
“You’re the one who thinks cash is power and success and everything. It’s not.”
“That makes me feel so much better. Thanks for the clarification.”
Mark’s glaring at him in this completely insolent manner, like Eduardo’s the one who started this entire argument. He probably believes that, too.
Eduardo’s about to turn to leave again, but in the interest of full disclosure, he forces himself to stay still and say, “You know what? Fine. I was jealous. And I was ecstatic I got my own thing. Something that would make me stand out, on my own.”
And there it is, laid bare. Mark’s a self centered narcissist with a god complex, Eduardo’s just plain selfish, and they both always thought they were better than each other, one way or another.
Mark’s mouth gapes open. Eduardo keeps talking.
“-But I always admired you. I always wanted you to do something good. You, though? You had no respect for me. At all. Not a single bit. You think I have a destiny? Just one that’s not as good as yours, right? I can do anything I want, as long as you do it bigger and greater. You’re ridiculous. I can’t- I just can’t do this.”
“Fine,” Mark says stiffly, his anger reaching its boiling point. If he still had a relatively unknown Livejournal, Eduardo’s pretty sure the Saverin name would be embroiled in some internet scandal by tomorrow. Thank god for small favors and the esteemed reputation of Facebook.
He remembers years ago, staying up and drinking beer and playing video games and telling each other how hard they were going to get pounded. Eduardo has all these memories, freeze-framed, but oh-so-hazy in his mind. He thinks it’s weird how the memories of getting fucked over and then doing it all over again at the depositions stand out so clear. How one bad thing can drown a million good things. How one individual can change your entire life.
The worst part is that they’re not even arguing about something that’s in any way relevant to who they are now. What happened helped mold Eduardo, sure, but he’s not the naive kid he used to be.
The most terrible thing about growing up is how much you come to resent the person you were before. The mistakes that a stranger with your face made, leaving you all alone with the weight and the guilt, even though you’re all changed and brand new. Eduardo feels like he’s paid a million years’ penance for something the Him that exists now wouldn’t have even done.
“Well, this has been delightful. Let’s never do it again.”
“Agreed,” Mark spits, vehement. His anger is terrifying, because he so rarely shows it. But it’s familiar, too, and Eduardo hates that even after all these years, even though he still kind of hopes Mark will get hit by a passing car, he also kind of wants to wrap his arms around him and soothe it away.
Eduardo makes it all the way back to the College of Arts and Sciences before he hears footsteps pounding on the concrete, and, “His name’s Rhett.”
“What?”
“The terrier. The mascot. His name’s fucking Rhett. How lame is that?”
“…Pretty lame.”
He doesn’t turn to look at Mark. He doesn’t want to see that dorky smile flit over his lips, not even for a second, or the way his eyes are probably all huge and sad and Mark.
“Talk to me.”
Eduardo’s perpetually tripping over himself where Mark’s concerned. He doesn’t want to, but something about the way Mark’s voice cracks makes him stop. He hasn’t heard that tone since the day Mark’s grandmother died, and he didn’t know what to say then to make it right.
(This time, maybe, he knows exactly what to say to get all that sadness to go away, but he can’t. Won’t.)
Mark continues, “You were- are my best friend, and I- I never wanted to give you up.”
Eduardo knows. Mark’s always been the kind of person who thinks he can have everything, all at once.
“I don’t know what else there is to say. You wanted me, but you wanted other things more.”
After a beat, Mark actually agrees, and even though Eduardo knows, has always known, it still stings. “You’re right.”
He nods, because he doesn’t know how else to acknowledge what Mark’s said past the lump in his throat.
“I have everything else I want. You’re all that’s left.”
Eduardo swallows his hurt. “Fanfuckingtastic.”
“No, wait. That’s not- I don’t mean it the way it sounds.”
They’ve both got pride in over abundance. Maybe that’s why neither of them can find the words to make this work.
“Not once in the past few years did you feel anything like sorry, did you?”
“Once or twice.” Mark bows his head. “Not at first. I was so pissed that you didn’t understand what I was trying to do. That you weren’t standing by me, no matter what.”
“That’s not how it works, and you know it.”
“I get that now. I overreacted. I wasn’t ready for- being tied down. Responsibility. It was you or the site, and the site seemed like less work.”
“That’s so fucked up, I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Yeah, well.” Marks sighs and says, “I told you not to join. The Phoenix. Or- I didn’t, but it’s what I meant. It’s what I wanted.”
This again.
“I know. And you cut me out of your little dynasty for daring not to listen. Congratulations. You’re better than me.”
“Wardo, you have to-“
“I don’t have to do anything. Does that make me less attractive to you?”
“Nothing could make you less attractive to me.”
Eduardo blinks. That- isn’t what he meant.
Not even a little bit.
“Listen-“ Mark continues, eyes darting up to meet his.
Eduardo wants to say no, that he isn’t going to do anything Mark asks of him, never again. But the large masochistic chunk of his being is morbidly curious. He waits.
“I miss you. I don’t like it. I don’t- if it was a game, then it’s over. I won. And I thought it wouldn’t change anything, I thought you’d get over it. And we’d still be friends. I possibly miscalculated.”
Eduardo snorts. He wants to tell him that the truth is, he misses Mark too, more than he can bear. Some days he’ll be fine, and others, he’ll be inconsolable. He’s good at covering it up, at faking it so that no one ever asks what’s wrong. He lets himself fade into the background, just like back at Harvard. Nobody ever says a word.
“-how much you liked money and me and- I guess, how much of a dick I was being. I still don’t think I did the wrong thing. At the time. For the company. I think maybe it should have been…different. Somehow. And yeah, it pissed me off that you didn’t like Sean, when he made so much sense, and you…weren’t making any.” Mark rakes a hand through his hair. “This sucks so hard.”
Eduardo’s not sure what to say. He doesn’t get why Mark’s still here, giving him these half-sincere explanations, these almost apologies. The Mark he knows doesn’t go back and apologize, he moves forwardforwardforward until he does something that completed eradicates a person’s memory of what he’s done wrong in the first place. And surely Mark knows that isn’t going to happen. Not now. Probably not ever. So why is he still trying?
For the first time, he thinks maybe the Mark of his memories is a storybook character, just like the people his mother made up when she’d read to him as a child. Because the boy he remembers is determined and steadfast and a little bit reckless, but always interesting, and now he’s wondering if all of that obscured the person Mark had always been. If Eduardo had let his judgment cloud because of the things he felt, let all the virtues he’d seen in a boy who’d deigned to become his best friend hide who the boy himself really was. If the majority of their relationship had all been in his head.
Because this is not the Mark he knows, still determined but not nearly as steadfast. If anything, Mark doesn’t seem to know why he’s here either.
“Wardo, stop looking at me like that. I’m not a child. I’m perfectly capable of understanding when I do something wrong. Sometimes it just takes a little while for it to sink in. It didn’t feel wrong at the time.”
“If it didn’t feel wrong, Mark, why did you keep it from me until the very end?”
He doesn’t seem to have an answer for that. Finally Mark says, “Because I thought you might change my mind.”
For a second, Eduardo can’t find words, but then they come, hurtful and spiteful and almost a sob.
“I hate you. I hate you so much, and it’s exhausting. I want to feel something different, now. I want to forget all of it. I hate you,” he repeats, except it doesn’t sound like hate at all. It sounds like I love you and why did you leave, why did you hurt me, and don’t go away, not ever again. Because he’s never met anyone else who’s made him feel the way Mark did. The instant connection, the way his ideas clicked differently, the weird sense of almost- completeness.
He tells himself he will, again, someday. Everyone says that nothing is ever lost for good, that real love happens more than once in a person’s life (not that Eduardo equates what he used to feel for Mark with love) and the loss of one best friend isn’t the end of the world, but twenty seven years of life is presenting him with evidence to the contrary. Maybe Eduardo will meet someone better, more interesting, more dynamic that Mark, who will fill the big gaping sense of emptiness he has in his chest when it gets too quiet and he actually allows himself to think. But he isn’t sure if he can wait another twenty years for it to happen. The world is wearing him down.
Sometimes he wonders if that’s what college is really for, and why life afterwards is nothing like it. College is the place that popular media and daydreaming high school kids imagine as this hotspot for intellectual creativity. And yeah, it can be, at times. But mostly it’s a circus for kids who want to get drunk, get laid, and spend four years of their life putting off the rest of their fucking life. If you learn a thing or two, hell, you’re ahead of the game. That’s why Eduardo chose Harvard.
(They say Harvard chooses you, but when you have as many connections as the Saverins and a childhood full of nothing but learning how to get ahead, you pretty much have your pick of the litter.)
He figured it wouldn’t be as bad. Not as many hormones. Not as much free flowing liquor. Turns out, smart kids have more pent up then all the rest of them put together. Now he thinks that maybe parents send their children away under the guise of education so that they can learn what it’s like to get their hearts broken and dreams crushed surrounded by thousands of other kids going through the exact same thing. Because nobody comes out of it unchanged. Even the boring kids, the ones who do nothing but study or play World of Warcraft for their entire scholastic career go through a transformation of sorts. One where they realize that nothing fantastic is ever going to happen to them, no princes on stallions or superheroes or playboy bunnies coming out of the woodwork to save them from the doldrums. Eduardo thinks maybe that breaks them a little too, in its own way.
He hates Mark, and he hates that he let himself get sucked into this, the drama of it all.
“That’s okay,” Mark says softly, like he expects it, and he probably does. He’s probably used to being hated. But Eduardo’s not used to seeing that expression on Mark’s face. Mark’s always unshakable. He’s the most driven person Eduardo has ever met, and he’s never needed his parents or his friends or his teachers’ approval. He knows he’s hot shit, and knowing gives him this innate amount of confidence that he probably doesn’t wholly deserve. At least, that’s what Mark’s usually like. “You deserve to hate me.”
“I don’t need you to qualify what I feel, thanks.”
Although Eduardo kind of does. He feels realer, more solid, somehow, with all of that out in the open, under Mark’s steady gaze.
“We’re never going to be able to trust each other,” Mark says, and hearing it out loud sounds like surrender.
“No, probably not. If it’s any consolation, I don’t much feel like trusting anyone. I’m going to my meeting now,” Eduardo says, because he needs to leave, he’s needed to leave since the moment he first saw Mark standing in front of him.
Why can’t he just fucking leave?
“I’ve got beer,” Mark says, and Eduardo decides that five more minutes can’t hurt.
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Two