fic: Got to Stand It 5/6
PART 4
As it turns out, being heartbroken is a lot less glamorous than the movies make it seem.
In the days following The Night of Heartbreak and Doom (as Mark’s come to refer to it in his head), he feels like shit all the time, without having any specific physical symptoms. It’s like that general yuckiness that comes with being sick, only way worse because it’s not something that’ll get better in a week.
Still, he makes an attempt not to act differently, although that’s basically impossible now that all the sunshine has been sucked out of the world. He tries to act the way he would before, working on the site as much as usual and making conversation with the interns and all that, despite the fact that he doesn’t even feel like getting out of bed in the mornings.
He doesn’t tell anyone that Eduardo has resigned.
Truth be told, he’s holding onto the tiny possibility that Eduardo might change his mind. He can’t totally accept it, even though realistically he knows that Eduardo never makes dramatic gestures unless he means to follow them through.
A week after TNoHaD, Eduardo sends his official letter of resignation. He doesn’t even send it to Mark, he sends it to the lawyer Chris has hired for the company, which makes it even worse.
Of course, this means Chris finds out about it, and tries to have a big important discussion with Mark about it.
“What’s this about, Mark?”
“Nothing,” Mark says sulkily.
“It’s obviously something,” Chris says.
“He doesn’t want to be a part of Facebook anymore, that’s all there is to it.”
“Something must’ve brought this on.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
Chris sighs. “Did you two have another fight?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Mark says.
(Later, it occurs to him: another fight? Since when did Chris know about the first one?)
---
After getting the letter, Mark gives up all hope and descends into a pit of despair. He gives up on any semblance of a sleep cycle, a balanced diet, or personal hygiene. He alternates between coding for 36 hours straight, sleeping for 18 hours, and wallowing in self-pity and/or self-hatred for time periods too extensive and numerous to count. He starts eating Ben & Jerry’s for every meal, because that’s what you’re supposed to do after a break-up, right? Except instead of just buying one carton at a time, he buys three of every flavor in the store. Whatever, he’s a billionaire now, he can fucking afford it.
People obviously notice, since he stops coming into the makeshift office they’ve been using and disappears into his room for days on end, but all the interns seem too intimidated or weirded out to say anything. Sean doesn’t really ask what’s wrong, which Mark is grateful for, but he does try to cheer him up, which never works. Besides, Mark kind of hates Sean right now, since he blames him for indirectly causing Eduardo’s departure. (Although he knows that’s bullshit, if he’s being honest with himself, as it’s quite obviously much more Mark’s fault than anyone else’s.)
Dustin is concerned and tries to figure out what’s wrong, at least at first, but he loses his patience when all the response he can get is Mark snapping at him or ignoring him completely. As for Chris, he stops attempting to help Mark after being consistently told to fuck off when he asks what happened with Eduardo. So now all his friends hate him. Good, he probably deserves it.
He would explain to them what happened. He really would. It’s just that, even if he could bear to talk about it without having a huge breakdown-which he can’t-there’s no way to really explain the situation without them knowing the extent of his relationship with Eduardo. It would basically be a coming-out speech along with a break-up story. Yeah, no thanks.
So he commits himself to his new, very time-consuming hobby: moping.
Now that Facebook is starting to gain a lot of media attention, Mark keeps getting called a genius, and that is ironic in a really horrible, agonizing way.
Because seriously. It’s bad enough to not notice that someone is in love with you (and that in itself is idiotic, particularly if you’ve been sleeping with that person for two years), but to not realize that you yourself are in love with them? That’s just like, new lows of emotional stupidity.
Of course, looking back, there are countless moments in which it now seems blindingly obvious what he was feeling.
Like how he mysteriously contracted a short-lived stomach bug on the day that he thought he’d never see Eduardo again. Or how Eduardo could make things that usually just annoyed Mark seem endlessly endearing. Or how whenever Mark would get a cold, and Eduardo would show up right away with tissues and Nyquil, Mark would immediately feel ten times better even before taking the medicine. Or how he was always thinking how good the sex was, but it didn’t even matter what they were actually doing, as long as Eduardo was there. Or how much he liked to hear Eduardo say his name, and how stupidly happy the affection that would always creep into Eduardo’s tone would make him.
Or how he was always saying Eduardo was his best friend, as if he really thought most best friends had that kind of a relationship.
God. How much of an idiot can you be?
---
He comes up with a kind of system for what he thinks about, depending on how deep his self-hatred is running that day.
When he’s only hating himself a little, he thinks about the neutral things. Eduardo’s stupid little accent. His obsession with the weather. The little slice of his back that is always a little less tan than the rest of his body. His bushbaby eyes. Stuff like that.
When he’s moderately self-loathing, he thinks about the bad things. All the times he let Eduardo down. The disappointed look Eduardo would always give him when he would say you’re my best friend, times in which Mark now knows he should’ve said I love you. The fury in his voice when he called Mark an asshole, and even worse, the resignation when he said I can’t do this anymore.
Only when he’s feeling really intensely masochistic does he allow himself to think about the good things. The times when Eduardo acted like Mark was the best thing to ever happen to him. Those times are too numerous to list, and more painful to think about than anything else.
---
One day in late July-or it actually could be August, Mark has lost track of time completely-he’s lying on the couch, staring up at the ceiling in a stupor. He’s alternating between trying to remember the punchline to some stupid joke Eduardo told him once, and contemplating how he could obtain more alcohol. Mark Zuckerberg, heartbroken and driven to rampant alcoholism at the age of twenty. He likes the sound of that; it seems sufficiently tragic. He’s been attempting to drown his sorrows using whatever booze he can find in the house. Unfortunately, he just drank the last beer he could find, and pathetically, he’s still underage, so he can’t buy any. He considers asking Sean to get him some, but it’s just so pathetic and embarrassing, and besides, he’s still kind of pissed at Sean.
He’s vaguely aware of someone pounding on the door, but he ignores it, instead closing his eyes. Did you know beer makes you smart? Sure, it made Budweiser! That’s what it was.
“Mark,” says someone next to him. “Oh my god, this is worse than I thought.”
He opens his eyes and squints up at the figure standing next to him. “Randi?” he says.
Last he knew, Randi was in Chicago with her fiancé. Maybe he’s hallucinating. Maybe he’s lost his last ounce of sanity.
“Yes,” she says. “Get up.”
“What are you doing here?” he says.
“I came out to take care of you, you dick,” she says. “Now get up.”
Well, it certainly sounds like something the real Randi would say.
“Who called you?” he says. “Was it Chris? That traitor, after all I’ve done for him.”
“I doesn’t matter who called me. The point is, you’re a wreck. Get up.”
Mark groans and throws an arm over his face.
“Mark, if you don’t get up, I’m calling Mom.”
“So what?” Mark says.
“So, if Mom hears about the state you’re in, she’ll force you to come home, and you won’t be able to be with your company.”
Mark knows she’s right. He also knows from experience that Randi never makes empty threats.
“Fine,” he grumbles, sitting up. “No need to be such a bitch about it.”
“Yeah, whatever, heard it all before,” Randi says. She crinkles her nose.
“Ew. When was the last time you showered?”
Mark shrugs.
“You smell like shit,” Randi says.
“Gee, thanks.”
“Don’t act offended, I don’t care,” says Randi. “I’m going to get you some groceries. There’s no real food in this house. When I get back, I expect you to be showered, shaved, and wearing clean clothes.”
Mark sighs dramatically. “Fine,” he says. “You’re so bossy.”
The shower does actually make him feel a little better. He has to dig through heaps of clothes on the floor of his bedroom, but he eventually finds a t-shirt and jeans that smell fairly clean.
When he gets downstairs, Randi is unloading several bags of groceries, all filled with disturbingly healthy-looking produce.
“Ew, I hate vegetables,” he says.
“Get over it. I could not handle the embarrassment if you died of scurvy in this day and age,” she says.
“What the hell is that?” he says, pointing to some freaky-looking vegetable.
“Bok choy,” says Randi. “Chinese cabbage. It’s good for you. And it’s organic.”
“Ugh, organic,” Mark says. “Why do you hate me?”
“'Cause you’re my brother. It’s my duty,” Randi says. She opens the freezer and starts chucking all the ice cream in the trash.
“What the hell are you doing!?” Mark cries, aghast. “That’s expensive!”
“You can afford it,” Randi says.
“Yeah, but-not the Phish Food!” Mark pleads. “That’s like my only reason to live!”
“Oh my god, you’re such a drama queen,” Randi says, and tosses the Phish Food anyway.
“I hate you,” Mark says.
“Mark, if you keep eating all this, you’re gonna get fat,” Randi says. “And that’s embarrassing for me.”
“I will not get fat,” Mark says stubbornly. “I’m a boy.”
Randi laughs. “Ha. So naïve. Sorry to break it to you, sweetie, but the days of your perfect metabolism are numbered.”
Mark wants to argue, but she’s probably right. He thinks vaguely of Eduardo hearing that he’s gotten fat, and decides he’ll have to give up the Phish Food. He plops down at the kitchen table and puts his head in his hands, groaning miserably.
“Eat this,” Randi says, pushing over a plate of carrots and peanut butter and sitting across from him. Mark makes a face but nibbles on a carrot.
“So,” Randi says. “I hear you’re dropping out of college.”
“Yes,” says Mark. “And spare me the lecture about how I’m ruining my future. I’ve already made my decision.”
“I wasn’t to going to lecture you,” she says. “You’re obviously doing incredibly well for yourself with Facebook, and I think that decision makes perfect sense.”
Mark stops chewing and stares at her blankly. “Are you actually saying something nice to me?”
“Yes,” she says. “You know, I’ve been really proud of you this past year. The whole family has.”
“Wow,” Mark says. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” she says. “But I have to tell you, if you’re gonna be CEO of a major company, I don’t think you can keep living like this.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she says. “Nobody wants to do business with someone who lives like a slobby frat boy.”
“Hasn’t been a problem so far,” Mark grumbles, but he thinks of Eduardo, always impeccably dressed in his suits, and he knows she’s right.
“Are you gonna keep living here?” Randi asks.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Mark says. The house was only meant to be temporary, for the summer. Chris and most of the interns are going back to school in September anyway. Dustin has decided to drop out too, though.
“I think you should get your own place,” Randi says. “It’ll be better for you.”
Mark thinks, again, that she’s probably right. He liked living here, before, but it’s turned into the site of his despair, and the prospect of spending more time here, surrounded by Sean and his bimbos, is not appealing.
“Ugh, fine,” he says. “I guess I’ll look for something else.”
“Good,” she says. She gets up and carries her suitcase into the guest bedroom.
“Listen,” she says when she comes back into the kitchen. “I can only stay for one night. I’ve got to get back to work.”
Mark is suddenly struck with gratitude for his sister, realizing the trouble she’s gone to just to make sure that he’s okay. “Okay,” he says.
“But I don’t want to leave without knowing that you’ll be okay,” she says.
“I’ll be fine,” Mark says. Randi looks at him skeptically.
“I will, Randi,” he says.
“Okay,” she says. “You know, Mark…I know this sounds harsh, but…you’re an adult now, you know? You can’t expect that other people will take care of you if you don’t take care of yourself.”
“I know,” he says, staring down at his hands. There’s a lump forming in his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” she says. She leans over and grabs his hand. “Hey,” she says, in a gentler voice. “I don’t know who she is, but she certainly did a number on you.”
Mark swallows.
“Trust me, I know what it feels like,” Randi says. “It feels like she was the only one out there for you. And you’ll never love anyone else the same way.”
Mark feels hot tears prickling behind his eyes. He squeezes them shut.
“But you will,” Randi says. “Before you know it, you’ll find someone else, and she’ll just be a memory.”
“No I won’t,” Mark says, and then he can’t help it. He breaks into sobs.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Randi says. She comes around the table and kneels next to the chair and hugs him. She strokes his hair as he sobs uncontrollably into her shoulder. He wants to stop, but it’s like all he’s been holding it all in without realizing it, and he now he has to get it out. Besides, there’s no point being embarrassed in front of his sister, who has known him his whole life.
“It’s okay, Marky,” she says as he tries to catch his breath. She's the only person he's ever allowed call him that.
Mark hiccups, and takes a deep breath. “I just miss him so much,” he whispers.
“I know,” she says soothingly. Then she registers his words and pulls away slightly to look at him. “Wait,” she says. “Him?”
Mark wipes his eyes and looks away. He nods. He meant to say it.
“Mark,” Randi says cautiously. “Are you…?”
“I don’t know,” says Mark miserably. “Maybe?”
Randi’s eyes widen. “Oh my god,” she says.
“Please don’t tell Mom or Dad!” he says frantically. “I’m not, like, ashamed, or anything, but I don’t know if I am…or what…and I really don’t wanna talk about it until I’ve figured it out…”
“Oh, Mark, of course I won’t say anything until you’re ready!” she says. “But you know you can tell us anything, and we’re gonna love you the same way no matter what. You know that.”
Mark thinks of Eduardo and his father, and he feels affection for his family well up inside him.
“Yeah, I know,” he says, and hugs his sister.
She leaves the next day, after making him promise to eat all the vegetables in the fridge at start sleeping at a slightly more normal hour.
“Thanks for coming out,” Mark says.
"I could say the same thing," Randi says, and bites her lip. "Oops, too soon?"
"Oh my god, I hate you," Mark says, rolling his eyes. And then he says, "But seriously, thanks."
“No problem,” Randi says, “but you know that’s all the niceness I have to give you for the year. That fulfills my quota.”
Mark smiles. “Yeah, yeah,” he says.
She hugs him, and says “You’ll be okay, Marky. I love you.”
“Going over quota,” he says, but he adds, “Love you too.”
---
October 2004
It turns out that Randi was right about almost everything. (She usually is.)
After seeing her, he does make more of an effort to take better care of himself. He starts showering regularly again, and doing his laundry, and he gets something that at least resembles a pattern in his sleep cycle. He starts eating a little healthier, too, although he draws the line at organic vegetables. There are some horrors he simply cannot face.
He moves out of the house, too, in September, into an apartment that’s small, but nice enough. Now that he’s living on his own, and he has a real office to go to instead of working in a pot-smoke-filled living room, it feels a lot more like a real business. He doesn’t start wearing suits, though, because there are certain things that you just can’t change about a person.
The hardest change to make, though, is cutting down on the moping. He can’t stop the self-pity altogether, nor can he stop himself from pining after Eduardo, but he stops actively trying to pursue those activities.
It feels good to take care of himself. And even when he’s uninspired to do so, he thinks about Randi, and how important it is to her that he’s okay.
Sometimes, he also thinks about Eduardo, who’s now back at Harvard, and he wonders if Eduardo thinks about how Mark’s doing. If he worries about him. If he expects him to be irresponsible, like always. It’s stupid, but part of Mark wants to act responsible just in case Eduardo is asking after him.
Randi was wrong about one thing, though. Mark doesn’t get over Eduardo, and he isn’t going to.
Mark has no interest in meeting anyone else. Sometimes Sean takes him to clubs and tries to introduce him to girls, hoping to get him laid, but he’s not interested. Sure, the girls are all attractive, but he has a feeling if he tried sleeping with them he’d just end up sobbing in the middle of sex or something horribly embarrassing like that. He could look for a guy, too, but that prospect seems even worse.
Mark doesn’t have much experience with being in love, beyond that one extensive, fierce, and probably ill-advised case, but he thinks maybe there are different kinds of love. Maybe there’s the kind that can be sweet, and safe, and not really painful. The kind that you can get over, move on, and you can look back at and think, I’m glad I loved that person, and I’m okay with the fact that it’s over.
But with Eduardo, it’s not like that. Mark doesn’t think that’s the kind of love you can recover from. Maybe one day you’ll be able to think of them and it won’t hurt quite so terribly, only a dull ache instead of a throbbing pain, but that’s the best you can hope for. It will never, ever be just a memory.
---
December 2004
Upon his mother’s insistences, Mark goes home to Dobbs Ferry for Hanukkah. It’s not like his family is religious in the least, but Hanukkah is a good excuse to get the two oldest (Mark and Randi) to visit, so his mom milks it for all it’s worth.
Randi doesn’t bring anything up about the last time she saw him, for which he is endlessly grateful. She also doesn’t try to pressure him into making any big confessions, which is good, because that actually might have made him lose his nerve.
He waits until his last day there to do it. Everyone is sitting around the living room, playing with their new presents, wrapping paper strewn everywhere. Mark doesn’t exactly know how to lead into it, so he just clears his throat and says, “Uh. I have a thing. To tell you guys.”
He says, “I think I’m bi.” He doesn’t mention Eduardo, or make any reference to any relationship he was in, because it’s not really relevant to the point he’s trying to make. And if it is, well, it doesn’t matter. His family doesn’t have to know everything.
They react pretty much how he expects. Randi gives him a private, proud smile. His dad pats him on the back and stumbles through a “we love you no matter what” speech, supremely awkward as he always is whenever one of his children mentions anything remotely related to their sex life. His mother gets all weepy, rambling a bit about how he’s such a good boy and she just wants what’s best for him and it’s such a big cruel world out there and she wants him to find someone, male or female, who loves him the way he deserves to be loved.
Donna is altogether unimpressed, saying “Is that supposed to be, like, scandalous? Because I have like twenty friends who are bi.” (She’s sixteen, and makes a habit out of acting unimpressed.)
Arielle, on the other hand, is thrilled by this slightly juicy tidbit. “Oh my God, Mark,” she says. “I have so many cute friends you should meet.”
“Ew, Ari, he’s not interested in freshmen,” says Donna, her voice dripping with disdain.
Arielle rolls her eyes. “Duh, I know that! They’re not all freshmen, God. ”
Randi chuckles. “You guys, I doubt he’s interested in any high schoolers.”
“Yeah,” says Mark, who is mostly amused by this exchange. “That would be extremely creepy.”
“Well excuse us for trying to help, God,” says Donna.
“No, I bet he’s more interested in Eduardo,” says Arielle, teasing.
Mark stops smiling.
“Oh my god, I knew it!” Arielle shrieks gleefully.
“That’s not-no. That’s not a thing,” Mark mumbles.
“I told you! Didn’t I tell you?” Arielle says.
“Shut up, Ari,” Randi says, noticing the look on Mark’s face.
“Holy crap, you were right,” says Donna, thrilled. “Look, he’s blushing!”
“Shut up, Donna!” Randi hisses.
“I totally called it,” says Arielle. “You guys were like, you don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can always tell these things, and I told you he had the hots-ow! Jeez!” Randi smacks her arm, hard.
“He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, okay?” she says.
“Okay, God,” says Arielle. “No need to be so dramatic.”
---
March 2005
They reach a million members, in March, and Mark starts thinking about a lot of things.
He thinks about Facebook. The thing about Facebook is-well, the way they market it, and everything, it’s supposed to be about connections. About relationships. But sometimes it feels like what it’s really about, at least to some people, is popularity.
You have 1500 friends. Three new friend requests. Being liked, being wanted. Approval. Ten people like your status.
Isn’t that really what the site capitalizes on? Eduardo said, once, that everybody feels like they don’t fit in. Everybody wants to be liked. Mark didn’t believe it, at the time. But now he does. Even with the people that seem the most popular, there’s still that same feeling of that it’s not enough, they’re not enough.
He thinks about Eduardo. Eduardo, who is universally liked. But it was never enough for him, without his father’s approval. Mark has gathered, from eavesdropped-on conversations between Chris and Dustin, that Eduardo is out, now, at Harvard. About liking boys, or whatever. Mark can’t help but wonder if that means he’s just given up trying to please his father, trying to be the perfect son. If he’s realized it’ll never be enough. Mark hopes so.
Mostly, Mark thinks about himself. How obsessed he’s always been with being liked, even when he tries to act as if he couldn’t care less. That was always his reason for keeping the Eduardo thing a secret, right?
And he was always thinking, not yet. Soon. As if one day, suddenly, he’d be popular enough to stop worrying about it. One day, all his insecurities would disappear, just like that. And look at him now. One million people on his site, something of a celebrity, featured in damn magazines, and he doesn’t feel any closer to that day.
It’ll never be enough, he realizes now.
And how fucking stupid is it, to push away the people that actually do care about you, in search of some unattainable and frankly meaningless goal? What the hell is the point?
Mark thinks a lot, and then he makes a decision.
---
“I need to speak with you two,” he says to Dustin and Chris. They’re in the Facebook offices. Chris is visiting for the Millionth Member Party, which happens to correspond with his Spring Break.
Chris makes an oh shit face, probably worried that Mark has caused some PR disaster.
“It’s not bad,” Mark says quickly. “And it’s not about the company. Well, um, it kind of is, but-it’s about me.”
“Okay, now I’m intrigued,” Dustin says. Mark says, “Yeah, can we-can we just go in the conference room? It’s kind of personal.”
Chris groans. “We do not want to know about your STDs, Mark.”
“Fuck you, Hughes, just get in the conference room, okay?”
“Fine, jeez,” Chris says.
Mark closes the door behind him and takes a deep breath.
“I have to tell you guys something, but you can’t be, like, immature about it, okay?”
“When are we ever immature?” Dustin says, and giggles. Mark glares at him.
“Shut up, Dustin,” Chris says. “Mark, what is it?”
“Okay, so the thing is,” Mark says. “I’m, uh-bi.”
Chris and Dustin stare at him with identical blank expressions.
“Sexual,” Mark adds pointlessly.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Chris says, voice completely flat. “I can’t believe it.”
Dustin widens his eyes theatrically. “No fucking way, Mark! You are? That is just so shocking! I’m shocked!” He adopts what he apparently thinks is a sufficiently dramatic surprised face.
“What-you guys knew?” Mark says.
“No!” Dustin exclaims.
“Yes,” Chris says, deadpan.
“Okay, yes,” Dustin says guiltily, dropping the affectation. “We may have had some idea.”
Mark feels the back of his neck heating up. “But-I mean-how?”
“The fact that you were screwing Eduardo was kind of a big tip-off,” says Chris. Mark goes bright red, and Dustin smacks Chris. “Christopher!” Dustin hisses.
“Sorry, someone had to say it!” says Chris.
“Jesus,” says Mark. “But-but we were so discreet!”
Chris snorts, loudly, and Dustin glares at him again. He turns to Mark and says placatingly, “Yes, of course you were. But we were your roommates, and your best friends…I mean, it would be pretty sad if we still managed to miss it. And they’d probably revoke Chris’s gaydar.”
“Fuck,” says Mark. “Did other people know?”
“I think all of Massachusetts knew,” Chris said. Mark groans and buries his head in his hands.
“Oh my god, Chris, have a little tact!” (Mark wonders what bizarro world he’s fallen into where Dustin is the one telling Chris to be tactful.) “Mark, I don’t think anyone else knew,” he says. His face softens and he adds, “But even if they did, nobody cared.”
“He’s right,” says Chris. “Nobody was, like, judging you.”
“Especially not us,” Dustin says. “I mean, sure, we weren’t thrilled about what you were doing to your girlfriends” -Mark squirms guiltily-“but anyone could see you made each other happy.”
“When you weren’t making each other miserable,” Chris adds.
Mark sighs. “I just-I just can’t believe you guys knew this whole time. I really thought that nobody did.”
“Look, Mark,” says Chris. “Even if the walls in our suite weren’t so thin-” (Mark blushes even more) “-you two were always making googoo eyes at each other.”
“It’s true,” says Dustin. “Oh man, you should’ve seen yourself. He would say the most mundane things, and your eyes would turn into fucking hearts. And then one of us would say the same thing, and you wouldn’t even care. It was hilarious. I remember this one time-” He cuts himself off, noticing the look Mark is giving him. “Well, it doesn’t matter.”
“So… were you guys mad that we never told you?” Mark asks.
For the first time, Chris and Dustin actually look genuinely surprised. “No, of course not. Why would we be mad?” Dustin asks.
“We were supposed to be your best friends, and that’s a pretty big thing to lie about,” Mark says.
“I guess,” says Dustin, “but we-well, I, I can’t speak for Chris-I figured, it was up to you if you wanted to tell us. You would if you wanted to.”
“Yeah, exactly,” says Chris. “And besides, we didn’t exactly want to get involved. Your relationship kind of seemed like…how to put this lightly…”
“A clusterfuck of drama,” Dustin says matter-of-factly.
Mark actually cracks a smile for the first time since the conversation started.
“That sounds pretty accurate,” he says.
“So,” says Chris cautiously, “does this mean you’re finally gonna explain to us what happened last summer?”
Mark tenses up immediately. “Nothing happened.”
“So he just decided to quit the company and stop speaking to you for no reason?” says Chris.
“It’s-we had a fight,” Mark says. “And it was kinda my fault. He basically hates me now, is what it comes down to.”
“I seriously doubt that,” says Dustin.
“No, trust me, he does,” says Mark.
“No way,” Chris says. “I shouldn’t-he’d kill me if he knew I was telling you this, but he always asks after you, all the time.”
“Really?” says Mark, and there’s that damn warm feeling in his chest. Ugh, he’s so pathetic.
“And there go the heart eyes,” says Dustin, smiling.
“Yeah, but he tries to do it really nonchalantly,” says Chris, “like, ‘how are things in California? How are the new offices?’ As if I won’t figure out that he actually just wants to know about you.”
“Oh my god, Mark does the exact same thing!” exclaims Dustin, grinning. “That’s so cute!”
Mark rolls his eyes and sighs in an attempt to hide how stupidly pleased this news has made him.
“I don’t suppose you’ve considered actually, you know, contacting him,” says Chris.
The truth is, he has considered it quite a lot. He’s come close to calling Eduardo, or even sending him a message on Facebook, a number of times. But then he thinks about the last time he saw Eduardo, how final his Eduardo’s words were, like he had no intention of ever speaking to Mark again. Mark can’t bear the thought of reaching out and then being crushed, again.
“There’s no point,” Mark says. “Anyway, why are we talking about this? This conversation was not supposed to be about Wardo.”
“Okay, so what then?” Dustin asks.
“I decided…I want to do a press release about it,” says Mark.
“About Eduardo?” says Chris, confusedly.
“No, I just said this wasn’t about him,” Mark snaps. “About me. You know, being bi.”
“Um,” says Chris. “Oh.”
“Wait, you’re gonna come out in a press release?” Dustin says.
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s either ballsy or stupid, I can’t decide,” Dustin says.
“Why don’t you just change your Interested In?” Chris says. “That’s the new way to come out, anyway.”
Mark sighs. “I thought about it, but either way, the press is gonna make something out of it, and I don’t want it to be perceived that I’m hiding it, like I’m ashamed or whatever. Because you know some douchebag blogger will spin it that way.”
“I guess I see your point,” says Chris. “It sucks to be in the spotlight, though, for something like that.”
Mark shrugs. “Whatever. Isn’t that the whole point of coming out?”
“I guess,” says Chris. “But when I was fifteen and I came out, it basically involved telling some friends and confirming it any time someone asked me. I wasn’t a celebrity. And even that felt like a huge deal. To do it in front of the whole country…I’d be terrified.”
“First of all,” says Mark, “I’m not a celebrity, so stop saying that. And also, I seriously doubt it’ll be that big of a deal. Maybe one day of headlines, whatever. And I was thinking, I could take the opportunity to try to generate some positive publicity for the company. You know, like, sending a good message to our younger users, etcetera.”
“So suddenly you’re an activist?” Dustin asks skeptically.
“Um, no, not likely,” says Mark, in a tone that says Do you even know me at all? “That’s just the spin I would put on it, you know, since we could use the publicity. Killing two birds with one stone, or whatever.”
Chris considers this for a moment. “You’re right, it would be good for our image. So you’re really sure about this?”
“Yeah,” Mark says. “It’s really not a big deal. I’ve already told everyone that matters, anyway.”
Chris nods. “Okay,” he says. “If you’re sure, I’ll start writing up a draft of the release.”
“Good,” says Mark, a little uncomfortable but relieved to be finished with the conversation.
“And uh, may I ask…is there a particular reason you decided to do this now?” Dustin hedges. Mark has a feeling, from the way he saying it, that what he really means is does this have something to do with getting Eduardo back?
Mark fiddles with his shirt. “I don’t know,” he says. “I guess I just…for a while I didn’t want to say anything because I was worried it might affect the company badly, or something, which I guess is stupid, but whatever. But now that we’ve reached a million users, I guess I just kinda realized…I don’t know…it won’t make a difference. And we’re obviously here to stay, so like…now’s as good a time as ever.”
Chris is looking at him a little too knowingly, and Dustin doesn’t say anything. Mark is unsettled by Dustin’s newfound seriousness, so he says, “Anyway, can we just get back to work? This wasn’t a license for some kind of weepy heart-to-heart.”
Dustin tries to hug him, but he squirms and ducks away. “Don’t you dare,” he mutters.
---
The press release itself turns out to be majorly anticlimactic. The way Chris writes up his statements makes it so it’s really not very personal at all, mostly a bunch of platitudes about acceptance and loving who you are no matter what and blah blah blah.
At that point, it doesn’t even feel like much of a big reveal or anything. Like he said, he’s already told everyone that matters.
Well…maybe not everyone.
---
He almost doesn’t do it.
He almost pussies out, decides to just let sleeping dogs lie and all that, that she’d probably rather not hear from him again anyway.
But the thing is, there’s one other thing that he’s been doing a lot of thinking about. And that’s about being what people expect of you. It’s so easy to live up to people’s worst expectations, to just disappoint them as they’ve come to anticipate. But trying to change how they see you? Trying to convince them that you’re better than what they’ve come to see you as, that you have got the potential to maybe grow up and not be such an asshole anymore? That right there, that’s a lot harder.
But maybe it’s worth it.
---
Standing in his kitchen in pajama pants and bare feet, he calls her the day after the press release goes out. Luckily, in the seventeen months since they’ve spoken, she hasn’t changed her number, so he doesn’t have to do any hacking to find it.
She picks up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hi. It’s Mark,” he says.
“Mark?” Erica says.
“Zuckerberg,” he clarifies.
“Yeah, I know, I recognize your voice, I’m just surprised to hear from you,” she says.
Surprised is good. At least she hasn’t hung up on him, which was a distinct possibility.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” he says dumbly. “Um, so, how’ve you been?”
“Fine,” she says slowly, sounding very confused.
“Yeah? That’s good. How’s school? Classes are good and all?”
“Yeah, I like them,” she says.
“Glad to hear it,” he says.
There’s a pause that seems to stretch out. She clears her throat. “Actually, I, um, I got engaged.”
“Wow,” says Mark, dumbfounded. “You did? To who?”
“His name’s Casey,” she says. “We met last year at this volunteer thing I do, you know, at Central Square. He’s in his first year at Tufts Med School.”
“Wow, a doctor,” says Mark. “You do go for the smart types, don’t you?”
Erica chuckles. “Yeah, but apparently not the modest types.”
Mark blushes. “No, I didn’t mean-”
“Chill, Mark, I’m kidding,” she says.
“Oh,” he says. “Well, Jesus. I mean, congratulations! That’s, uh, that’s really awesome.”
“Thanks,” she says. “It’s weird, you know, because I always used to judge the girls that would be getting married in college, especially when it was someone they hadn’t know for long, and now look at me. But I guess it can take you by surprise sometimes, you know? Love, I mean.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says quietly, because he does.
“Well, yeah, anyway,” she says, embarrassed, as if just remembering who she’s talking to. “And I don’t have to ask how you are, California Man. What’s it like, being rich and famous?”
Mark rolls his eyes. “I’m not famous,” he says. “And it’s…I don’t know. It’s nice, I guess.”
Erica laughs. “Mark, you are the only person I know who could be in your situation and still be so blasé.”
“Well, I don’t know, I mean obviously I appreciate the success…it’s weird. It’s not really that different, in some ways…”
“Uh huh,” she says, and there’s another almost unbearably awkward pause.
“So, um,” she says, “no offense, but…is there a reason you’re calling?”
“Oh yeah,” Mark says. He fiddles nervously with the hemline of his T-shirt. “Yeah, um, about that. Well, uh, I don’t exactly know how to say this…” he takes a breath. “Well, I guess you probably read about me in the news yesterday…I mean, not that you necessarily follow me, in the news-”
“I saw it,” she says.
“Yeah, okay,” he continues, pacing his hallway. “Right, so. I don’t, I mean, I was just worried, that you might, uh, get the wrong idea, you know, about, about me, and us, and whatever, and I-”
“Mark, just spit it out.”
“I don’t-I wasn’t faking it with you,” he says quickly. “I didn’t want you to think that you were some kind of, of cover-up, or whatever. ‘Cause you know, I still like girls too, and I was into you, it wasn’t a lie-”
“Mark,” she cuts off his rambling. “I appreciate the sentiment, but it didn’t exactly come as a surprise.”
“What?” he says. Oh, shit. Not her too.
“Look, I may only go to BU-”
“I never meant to imply anything about the intellectual rigor of your school!” he interrupts.
“Okay, that’s not my point,” she says impatiently. “I was just gonna say, I may only go to BU, but I’m not that stupid. I could tell there was something going on between you and him.”
Oh, fuck.
Mark’s stomach drops.
“Who?” he says weakly.
Erica scoffs. “Oh, come on, Mark. You’re seriously gonna lie to me about it now? After all that? Don’t you think you owe me at least the truth?”
“Okay, okay,” he says desperately. He slumps down against the wall and closes his eyes. “Erica, I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
She makes a soft sound that he can’t quite identify. “I knew it,” she murmurs.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I never wanted to hurt you. I know that’s, like, the biggest cliché ever, but I seriously mean it. I always cared about you…”
“Just not the way you cared about him,” she says, not a question but a statement.
Mark swallows, and doesn’t deny it.
“God,” she says, but it still doesn’t sound angry. More tired than anything.
“How long did you know?” Mark asks in a tiny broken voice.
“I…I don’t know. I never knew for sure, but after that day when we were ice-skating…I knew even if there wasn’t anything going on, you were hoping there would be.”
Mark groans, and takes a minute to indulge the guilt that washes over him.
“It started before college, didn’t it?” she asks. “That summer, at camp. That’s why you were all weird after.”
“Yes,” he admits. She exhales, hard.
“Fuck,” he says. “I was such an asshole.”
“You were,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“You could’ve just told me,” she says. As if it were that simple.
“I know.”
“Or even just dumped me. That would’ve been better than stringing me alone and treating me like shit.”
“If you knew,” says Mark, “then why didn’t you…?”
“Why didn’t I say something? Why didn’t I end it sooner?” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Good question,” she sighs. “Because I was young and insecure and stupid? I kept thinking maybe I was just being paranoid, and I really didn’t want to be one of those jealous girlfriends…I kept telling myself, ‘you’re imagining things. Mark wouldn’t do that.’”
Of course, this makes Mark feel even worse.
“And to be honest, I really liked you, despite all that,” she continues. “You were my first serious boyfriend, you were the guy I lost my virginity to…it’s not so easy to just let something like that go.”
“I know,” Mark says again.
“And besides,” Erica says. “I hate to admit it, but I was afraid that if I dumped you, I might not be able to find anyone else who wanted me. I was afraid of being alone. I had this fear, like maybe this would be the only chance I would have. I guess I thought I would rather have a shitty relationship than none at all. At least until I forced myself to get over that.”
“But that’s stupid,” Mark says. “You’re so pretty and sweet and popular, why would you have any trouble getting guys? I mean, obviously, you don’t.”
“I didn’t always feel that way,” she says. “Self-confidence is a lot harder than it looks.”
“Don’t I know it,” Mark says.
She sighs. “I really do regret it,” he says. “I don’t know if you believe me, but I do. You never deserved any of that.”
“I believe you,” she says.
“And I’m not saying this just to like, clear my conscience or whatever,” he adds.
“I know. I-I appreciate it.”
“You do?” Mark is beyond startled.
“Yeah,” she says. “You could’ve just not even bothered calling.”
“Wait, you’re not angry at me?”
She sighs. “No, Mark, I’m not angry. Yes, okay, I was, for a long time. I was really hurt and angry at you, and every time I heard about Facebook’s success it would piss me off, which is vindictive but there you go. But then I met Casey and to be honest I kind of stopped thinking about you, and then I guess I just…I got over it. I’m happy, now, and all that’s in the past…so I guess I just didn’t see the point in holding on to some pointless anger about something that’s over.”
“Wow,” Mark says. “You’re such a good person, jeez.”
She laughs. “Sorry, I can’t help it.”
“Well,” he says, “thanks.”
“And I’m really glad you’re happy now. You deserve it,” he says sincerely.
“Thanks, Mark,” says Erica. “You too. I’m glad you and Eduardo are happy together.”
“Uh,” he says. “We’re not actually-he hasn’t spoken to me in eight months.”
Erica is silent for so long that Mark thinks his phone might have dropped the call.
“Hello? Are you-”
“Are you fucking serious?!” she shrieks, and Mark has to hold the phone away from his ear.
“Uh, yeah, we kind of had a fight-”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says, and she sounds angrier that she has been throughout the entire conversation. “After all that --you put me through all that for him and now you’re not even together?”
“I don’t-it’s complicated,” he says.
“I don’t give a damn if it’s complicated,” she growls. “If you’re going to cheat on me for two fucking years, I would at least like to know that it was worth it, and that you ended up with him.”
Mark thinks that this doesn’t seem like very normal logic.
“Well, yeah, me too,” he says, “but he was the one that wanted to end it.”
“Why, what did you do?”
“I’m an asshole, remember?” he says wryly.
“Mark,” Erica says. “You’re not an asshole. Certainly not anymore.”
“Yeah? How do you know?”
“Because if you really were, you wouldn’t have made this call,” she says.
Mark is oddly touched and smiles to himself.
“Be that as it may, he doesn’t want to hear from me,” he says.
“You’ve tried contacting him?” she asks.
“Well, no, not exactly…”
She sighs, hard, frustrated. “Well, then you can’t know for sure, can you?”
Mark, who is frankly completely bewildered by the turn that this conversation has taken, just says, “Um. I guess not.”
“Don’t you remember any of those romantic comedies I made you watch?” Erica says, getting more worked up by the minute. “It’s about the gesture. If you want to get him back, you have to make a big gesture!”
Mark is glad she isn’t there to see him roll his eyes. It’s just such a typical girl thing to say.
“Okay, fine,” he says. “But what if I do and he still doesn’t take me back?”
“Then at least you’ll know for sure,” she says.
Mark sighs, deep, dramatic. “I just-I don’t know if I can do that.”
“You’re Mark Zuckerberg,” she says. “You started fucking Facebook from your dorm room. And you had the balls to have this conversation with me. You can do it.”
He smiles. “Okay, fine” he says, “I’ll think about it.”
“You better,” she threatens. “Or else I may be forced to revoke my forgiveness.”
He laughs. “Frightening.”
“I mean it,” she says. “Anyway, I’ve got to go, but let me know if you’re ever in the area. You could meet Casey.”
“Do you really mean that, or is that just one of those things you say to be polite that would actually be extremely awkward?”
Erica laughs. “A little of both?”
“Okay, I’ll keep it in mind,” he says. “Bye, Erica.”
“Bye, Mark,” she says, and hangs up.
PART 6