I Would Take A Whisper (If That's All You Had To Give) - (3/9)
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When Eduardo gets back to the house and staggers through the door with several bags and a baby balanced precariously in his arms he shouts, “Mark? You think you could help?”
Mark comes shuffling out of the kitchen and reluctantly takes some bags from Eduardo.
“Thank you. Hey, Rosie, you wanna tell Mark the new word you learnt today?”
Mark leads them back to the kitchen to set the bags down on the counter and then turns to look at them.
“She said a new word?” He looks almost excited.
“Yeah.” Eduardo beams proudly at her as he sets his own bags down, “Rosie, say fish.”
“Fish!”
Mark makes an impressed noise and takes Rosalind from Eduardo to hug her, “Fish?”
“Fish.” She repeats and Mark smiles.
“I tried to get her to say ‘croissant’ but she wouldn’t go for it.” Says Eduardo as he starts to unpack the bags. Mark looks at him and for the first time in...Eduardo can’t even remember how long, there is shared laughter in their eyes as they look at each other.
“Here.” Eduardo says, fishing out the cases of Red Bull and putting them on the counter, “I wasn’t going to but Rosie here pulled my arm.”
Mark smiles slowly and nods. “Thanks.” He gestures to the bags, “Finish unpacking. I’ll feed Rosie.” And he places Rosalind in her highchair and starts trying to keep mushed plums from staining her clothes.
By the time Eduardo has finished unpacking the shopping and sorting out some of the kitchen cupboards, Mark has retreated into the living room with Rosalind and his laptop. Eduardo goes to grab his own laptop (which is in the living room with them) and is planning to retreat upstairs but when Mark sees him he says,
“Don’t go up to your room.”
Eduardo hesitates so Mark continues, “I set up a spreadsheet. We’re going to need a timetable about when each of us can go to work and when we have to be here. Also we can organise events in advance to make sure one of us will always be available to take care of Rosie. I assume you won’t be working from home forever.”
Home. That scares Eduardo a little.
Mark is looking up at him expectantly and a little bit hopefully and Eduardo realises that actually, Mark is trying to make things easier. So he sits down next to Mark on the couch and they start to organise a schedule.
It’s easier than Eduardo expected, negotiating with Mark. Mark has his scheduled meetings for the month sent to him from his assistant and, seeing as Eduardo is more or less starting again in a different country, he is able to mould his plans around Mark’s existing ones. For most days, they decide that once Eduardo has an office he can have until lunch to work away from home whereas Mark, who is more likely to have to stay later, can have the afternoons at the facebook offices.
“On one condition.” Says Eduardo firmly, “Unless there is an emergency, you get home before Rosie’s bedtime. Preferably for dinner.”
To Eduardo’s surprise, Mark smiles at him. “Deal.” He says and makes the last adjustment to the document.
It’s at times like these, when Mark sends him a smile where he was expecting a frown, when Eduardo can’t quite understand what happened to them. Mark was once the person he felt the most at home with, the most himself. He used to be able to talk to him and understand him and he had been pretty sure the feeling of ease had been mutual.
Sometimes he tries to pinpoint the moment everything tilted on its axis, the actual straw that broke the camel’s back. Words spiral around his head like a tornado (I need the algorithm, I got punched by the Phoenix, you’re CFO, sure I do, you’re trying to end the party at 11, I had to get your attention) but this time it’s not one he can understand. He can’t find what it was. When did everything stop being Mark and Wardo and start being Mark. And Eduardo.
Mark’s hands still on the keyboard.
“Do you remember - ”
“Yes, Mark.”
Eduardo doesn’t need to wait for him to finish the sentence.
*
“Mark, seriously? You haven’t studied at all?”
Eduardo is sitting on Mark’s bed with econ books scattered around him, pen in his mouth.
Mark turns around from where he sits at his desk, “Wardo, you know I never bother studying unless you are here to force me.”
“Fine.” Eduardo gets up and leans over Mark, opening up a spreadsheet on Mark’s laptop. “Put in the times you can’t do and I’ll put in mine and we can organise some times when we can study together. And I will make you actually do something.”
Mark looks briefly like he is about to argue but Eduardo crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows sternly and Mark rolls his eyes half-heartedly and starts to put in his class times.
They spend a good portion of the evening filling out their schedule and negotiating locations where they can meet in some of their lunch breaks. Eduardo never thought he could have fun setting up a revision timetable but when they start drinking beer and playing increasingly violent games of rock, paper, scissors for whose room to study in, Eduardo finds himself feeling very glad he has Mark as a study partner this year.
When they’ve finished Eduardo flops back onto Mark’s bed with his books and Mark stays facing his computer, bringing whatever code he’d been working on back up.
“Hey, you know I won’t really end up doing much studying at all, right? By myself I have no motivation to even start and with you, you’ll just end up distracting me.”
“No I won’t, Mark, because I really will be studying. Some of us can’t just pass on skill alone, you know, I probably won’t even talk to you.”
Mark shrugs, “Doesn’t matter. You’ll distract me just by being there.”
Eduardo laughs and flips open a new page of his notebook. “Bullshit. Once you’re focused on something, I don’t distract you even when I try.”
“Sure you do. I’m just good at hiding it.”
And Eduardo can’t see Mark’s face, he is typing away furiously at his laptop again signalling the end of the conversation, but Eduardo is sure that Mark’s ears aren’t normally quite that pink.
*
The silence between them was almost tangible now that Mark’s hands were unmoving on the keyboard. Eduardo doesn’t have to look at Mark to know that they are remembering the same thing.
“Wardo, I - ”
“You shouldn’t call me that.”
It’s out of Eduardo’s mouth before he can even think about it. But what is there to think about? Wardo. It sounds so different on Mark’s tongue. It always did. When Chris and Dustin say it - said it. Said it - it was just Eduardo without the Ed. Just them missing off a syllable to make it more convenient because of how often they said his name. When they said it, it was nice, but it still sounded like Eduardo.
But from Mark’s lips it’s different. A whole new name fashioned at a time when Eduardo meant enough to Mark for him to fashion one. Mark used to call him Wardo and it didn’t sound like Eduardo it sounded like something only a best friend would call him. Something affectionate and familiar.
When Mark says Wardo, Eduardo feels like he’s someone to Mark. But he’s not. Mark made that clear (It won’t be like you’re not a part of Facebook, you’re not a part of Facebook) so what business does he have saying it now?
It’s not right. It hurts.
Mark’s face closes off in a way that Eduardo is all too familiar with and he nods jerkily as he looks back at the computer screen.
“I guess we’re done here anyway.” Says Mark after a moment and Eduardo, determined not to start feeling guilty (you signed the papers) leaves with his own laptop under his arm.
It only occurs to him as he is going to bed that evening that he never even asked if Mark solved the problem with chat.
*
The week that follows passes by pretty awkwardly but in comparison to how it started, it’s actually not that bad.
Eduardo spends the mornings hunting for office space nearby and Mark leaves for the facebook offices almost immediately after Eduardo gets back around midday.
Rosalind learns four more words. Eduardo starts refusing to give her things until she masters ‘please’ and she starts saying ‘up’ when wanting to be carried. Mark manages to get her to say ‘dog’ and ‘yes’ but fails, much to his disappointment, to teach her ‘laptop’.
Mark and Eduardo only really see each other for dinner which, despite the awkward way their planning session ended, Mark has followed through on getting home for. Eduardo cooks most days, spending the time when he isn’t working finding new recipes to try out and even though meal times only really bring stilted small talk between the two of them, they are not too awkward what with one or other of them chatting cheerfully to Rosalind while they feed her.
They take it in turns being the one to get up each night.
It’s weird, Eduardo thinks, how quickly they are starting to settle in to fitting their lives around Rosalind but not around each other. Eduardo misses Singapore and he misses his friends and he is so tired from getting up in the night to sooth a crying baby but it’s Mark he starts thinking most about.
In the years after the depositions, Eduardo made a point of not thinking about Mark until he genuinely didn’t anymore. I mean, things would remind him every now and then and when he got drunk he’d sometimes dwell on what could have been but on the whole, he lived his life with relative contentment. Not happiness. But contentment.
But now Mark’s there, every day just there, looking exactly the same as he always did and doing exactly the same things. Except he isn’t exactly the same. Not quite. Eduardo isn’t blind. He sees all the times Mark looks at him like he can’t believe he’s there or like he’s trying to work up enough courage for something and he sees all the times Mark fidgets with his hands and takes a breath like he wants to say something and it isn’t by accident that Eduardo says something inane or leaves the room before he actually can. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it or what he’s afraid Mark will say but something in Eduardo, the same part of him that smashed Mark’s laptop, looks at Mark and just sees point zero three percent.
When the doorbell rings on Saturday night Mark is sitting along the couch with his computer on his lap and Eduardo is sitting on the floor with Rosalind on his knee watching some strange cartoon that makes her laugh happily.
They share a confused look for a moment as if to ask whether either of them were expecting company, before Mark slides off the couch to answer the door and Eduardo shuts off the TV.
When Mark returns to the room and sits back down he is followed by a smartly dressed, relatively short woman with dark hair and a cheerful smile.
“Ah, and this must be Mr. Saverin,” she leans forward with a smile to shake his hand, “I’m Charlotte, I’m the social worker on this case!”
“Oh, of course!” Eduardo says, smiling his most charming smile, “Please, call me Eduardo.”
He gestures to the armchair that sits at a right angle to the couch Mark is sitting on and asks if she wants a drink.
“No, I’m fine, thank you. I’m just here for a quick chat really. Please, do sit down.”
He sits.
“So this must be Rosalind.” She says as Rosalind crawls over to her legs.
“Up!” the child demands and reaches up to Charlotte, who laughs and lifts her up delightedly to sit on her lap.
“Why, she’s very friendly! She’s not wary of strangers at all!”
“I know,” Eduardo smiles, “She gets that from Dustin.”
Charlotte smiles sadly, “You must miss them.”
Mark snorts incredulously and mutters something that Eduardo doesn’t quite hear but he shoots Mark a glare anyway and nudges him hard in the ribs.
“Be nice.” He growls under his breath and Mark just frowns petulantly.
“No, it’s alright.” Sighs Charlotte, “I guess it was a stupid thing for me to say. Look, basically I just wanted to get to know you guys a bit. I know the story of course, I think everyone knows the story. It’s been all over the news, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
Eduardo was aware. Mark had had a tough time dealing with the PR of this whole affair, especially as he had to hire a new PR guy to deal with it and Eduardo has been recognised a couple of times this week.
“Mark, let’s start with you. I know what you do for a living of course. How do you see that fitting around raising a child? Facebook must be a pretty full time job.”
Mark shrugs. “Yes. It is. But I can work from home if I have to and laptops are portable so it isn’t really an issue.” He sounds bored.
“And you, Eduardo? You’ve had to move your whole life around!”
“Yeah,” Eduardo nods, “I’m currently trying to find office space but my work is pretty flexible too. Most of my work is consulting with potential clients and dealing with my various investments. I can also work from home and change my hours around fairly easily if I have to.”
Charlotte nods. “This little girl sure is lucky to have you two then. Most cases I deal with there are all kinds of arguments about who has to stay at home and when.”
“Lucky?” Mark asks with an edge to his voice, “Her parents died before she could even know them and you say she is lucky that we have flexible work hours?”
“Mark.” Eduardo sighs warningly but he can’t help agree with him, just a little.
Charlotte looks taken aback and a little out of her depth.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, I know this is a terrible time for you and I know everything anyone says about it must sound trite and meaningless, so I’m not going to say that I’m sorry for your loss or that I wish this hadn’t happened but I will try and make you see the positives here. This little girl could have been left to an orphanage or to random parents she didn’t even know and instead, Mr Hughes and Mr Moskovitz were able to leave her to two people she was already close to and who are fortunate enough in life to offer her a good home. Not many orphans are left to two billionaires, you know.”
Mark doesn’t say anything and Eduardo smiles gratefully at her. She has a point.
“Okay, well today I just wanted to make sure everything was alright and that you had managed to fit your lives around her satisfactorily. I’ll be making two more visits over the next month or so just to make sure she is OK and that this is the best possible life for her. Do either of you have any questions about anything? I know that neither of you have any experience in child care before now so it’s OK if you need to ask me anything.”
They both shake their heads. She sighs and nods, looking down at Rosie and bouncing her gently on her knee,
“What about you, Rosie? Any questions?”
“Hi.” She says cheerfully and Charlotte smiles.
“Okay, well then before I go I just have one more thing I need to discuss with the two of you. Of course, I am familiar with your past but I have to ask as part of my job.” She smiles apologetically, “Are you engaged in any sort of sexual relationship with each other?”
Eduardo almost chokes.
“What? No!” he sputters. Mark just continues to glare.
“Okay good. You should both know that it is my job to ensure that this little girl goes through as little turmoil as possible and sex just makes everything ten times more complicated. If you decide you want to pursue a relationship -”
“Honestly, we will not -”
“Please, Eduardo, I’m not saying that you will, but you need to be aware that you either need to keep this platonic,” she waves a hand between the two of them, “or get married. It sounds drastic but this child does not need more instability in her life. Okay?”
Eduardo nods weakly. She stands to leave and Mark leans over to take Rosalind from her, a little too forcefully for it to be entirely polite. It’s clear to everyone in the room, probably even Rosalind, that Mark does not like this woman one bit.
She picks up her bag but before she can walk towards the door, Eduardo suddenly remembers,
“Wait, what are the rules on us dating?”
Mark turns to look at him so fast that he almost bangs heads with the small child in his arms and his eyes are wide.
“I mean other people.” Eduardo adds quickly. “Not each other. What are the rules on us dating other people? I mean, I met this girl in the supermarket the other day and I was thinking about calling her. Is that against the rules too?”
Mark is staring at Eduardo with such focus that it unnerves him slightly. He refuses to look at him and keeps his eyes on Charlotte.
“Well,” she says, “there are no rules about anything really, Eduardo. Just advice on what is best for Rosalind. There is nothing to say that you can’t pursue a relationship with this girl just as long as you do not make her an important part of Rosalind’s life until you are sure of the relationship’s longevity.”
Eduardo nods, “Okay. Thank you.”
“His last girlfriend set fire to his room,” Mark says suddenly, voice clipped and eyes still on Eduardo.
Eduardo sighs exasperatedly at him, “Mark that was not my last girlfriend. That was one of my girlfriends when I was in college.”
Mark shrugs, “Still, doesn’t look like you have great taste in women.”
“Yeah, in college, where I didn’t have a great taste in best friends either.” Eduardo snaps and Mark’s eyes narrow.
Charlotte’s eyes are wide and she looks between them as they glare at each other, Eduardo’s hands clenched into fists and Mark’s jaw tense.
“Gentlemen,” she sighs, “you really need to think about whether you can get it together enough to be the parents she deserves because as much as I know you love her, if you continue like this, I don’t know if you’re what’s best.”
She leaves them then, showing herself out and closing the door quietly behind her.
There is a moment where they’re both silent, Eduardo taking deep breaths to calm down.
“Don’t call her.” Mark says quietly and this time, it sounds like a request not an order.
Eduardo sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, “And why not, Mark? How could it possibly matter to you?”
“Just...look I know you don’t want this, Eduardo but we are here, with a child. Neither of us really knows what we’re doing and...and we need each other, War - Eduardo. Please. Don’t call her.”
Eduardo thinks of about fifty different responses he could give, ranging from fuck you, what right do you have to ask anything of me? to I didn’t even know that ‘please’ was in your vocabulary. But he doesn’t find himself saying any of them. What he actually says is,
“Okay.”
*
When Mark comes downstairs on Monday morning, Eduardo is sitting on the living room floor with pieces of paper spread out around him, Rosalind staring at the TV where an excessively colourful cartoon is playing.
“Was she up much last night?” Mark asks as he bends down to kiss her on the forehead.
“Yeah. I gave up trying to get her back to sleep about an hour ago.”
Mark nods in what Eduardo assumes is meant to be a sympathetic way and then gestures to all the paper on the floor.
“What’s this?”
“Potential office spaces. I’ve been to see all of them, I’ve just got to make a decision. You can go into work this morning if you like, I have nowhere to be but here.”
Mark shakes his head and twists his hands, “No, I um...I could help you if you like. Help you decide.”
Eduardo looks taken aback for a minute.
“You want to help?”
Mark shrugs, “I don’t have much going on at work and I know the area better than you.” He seems to consider for a moment before adding, “Plus if I let you choose all by yourself you will just end up going for the one with the prettiest view or something.”
Eduardo laughs and Mark looks pleased.
“Yeah, okay then.” Eduardo says, clearing a space next to him on the floor. “Impress me with your local knowledge.”
Mark looks vaguely surprised but there is a smile on his face as he sits down next to Eduardo and starts looking through all the options.
Sometimes Eduardo forgets how much Mark used to make him laugh. Mark has something dry and scathing to say about pretty much every single office but Eduardo finds, as he always used to find, that when his acerbic wit isn’t directed at him it makes him laugh in a way that no one else used to really understand. They always were kind of odd like that. Telling jokes that only the two of them found funny.
They find themselves arguing good-naturedly over an old period place which Eduardo thinks is perfect but Mark thinks is ‘too pretentious’. Eduardo doesn’t hesitate to point out the hypocrisy in that assessment and Mark calls him an asshole, which leads to Eduardo shoving him playfully in the shoulder and Mark flipping him off.
Rosalind turns around then and says with a frown “no” before turning back to the TV and this only makes Eduardo laugh harder and Mark smile wide enough for his dimples to show.
Eventually, after a few more debates and quite a few cups of coffee, Eduardo settles on a small office a couple of blocks away from the Facebook offices, Mark putting forward the argument that it would be useful if they ever needed to transfer Rosalind between the two.
Eduardo gathers all of the papers back up and stands up to put them on the coffee table.
“Thanks, Mark. I appreciate your help today.”
Mark stands too and stretches, “No problem. If you like I’ll help you choose an assistant too. You should definitely get one and I can always ask Isobel to give me some names.”
“Mark, thank you, but I am perfectly capable of doing my job without your help, you know.”
He doesn’t mean it to sound so harsh, in fact he had intended it as a fairly light-hearted comment but clearly something in him (probably the part of him that remembers it probably was a diversity thing and don’t worry if you don’t make it any further) wants Mark to know that he is good at his job.
Mark’s eyes go from open and happy to closed off in an instant. “I know that, Eduardo.”
“Good.”
Mark suddenly sighs frustratedly and surges forward, grabbing Eduardo’s arm and pulling him out of the living room. He closes the door behind them so that Rosalind cannot hear them and drags Eduardo into the kitchen. Only then does he let go of Eduardo’s arm with enough force that Eduardo, in his momentarily stunned state, stumbles back to the other side of the room.
“Why won’t you let me try to fix this, Wardo?”
And there it is: the three thousand pound marlin in the room that they’ve been dancing around for the past two weeks. It’s finally out there and Eduardo suddenly feels as if no time has passed between now and that last day of the depositions, the anger and the hurt feeling as fresh as the day he stormed across the room shouting Mark’s name.
Eduardo snorts, “There shouldn’t be anything to fix, Mark.”
“But there is,” replies Mark, instantly. “And I’m trying. So let me.”
“Let you? Mark, I’m not fucking stopping you.”
“Yes you are, Wardo!”
“Stop calling me that.”
“See!” Mark is almost shouting and Eduardo feels a hint of satisfaction that he cares enough to raise his voice for once. “Eduardo, I’ve been trying to fix this ever since the wedding and you won’t listen! Just like with Facebook!”
“WHAT?”
“I’ve been practising my apology ever since the depositions, fuck, ever since it happened really. I wrote and rewrote my speech in my head and then when I saw you at the wedding, you wouldn’t listen to me! You just walked away without even giving me a chance!”
“Maybe because I didn’t want to speak to you, Mark! How was I supposed to know you weren’t just going to - ”
“BECAUSE YOU DON’T EVER LISTEN!”
Eduardo clenches his fists and grits his teeth, glaring at Mark, who is glaring right back with unmistakable fury in his eyes.
“What did you mean when you said, ‘just like with Facebook’?”
Mark huffs out an incredulous laugh, “Jesus, Eduardo, I meant exactly that! You’re doing it again right now! I just told you that I have a whole apology in my head and you didn’t hear me. You only heard the bit you didn’t want to hear! Just like when I told you I needed you and you only heard that you’d get left behind.”
“Yes! Because you were leaving me behind!”
“NO! I told you I was SCARED of you getting left behind and that I NEEDED you NOT to be! I told you over and over to come with me, come live with me, come BE with me where I NEEDED you and you DIDN’T. LISTEN!”
Eduardo wants to smash something. He wants to smash something so much that he has to clench his fists hard enough to engrave fingernail grooves into his palms.
“You’re saying it was my fault?! Getting stabbed in the back was my own fault?!”
“Well actually, Eduardo, I would be apologising if you cared enough about anything other than your fucking high horse, to listen to me.”
And he turns on his heels and marches down the hall, grabbing his keys from the table and slamming the door behind him as he leaves.
Eduardo rams his hands into his pockets to keep from smashing a plate.
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