i know i'm lost - part one
Eduardo tapped his foot offbeat as the final bell for homeroom rang. Chris had told him that they were too cool for homeroom as they had pulled into the parking lot this morning, but he had always enjoyed Doctor Sorkin, so he saw no reason to skip a perfectly good reading opportunity. For some reason, he’d been put in the V-Z homeroom, but he didn’t’ mind - at least it meant that there were at least some new faces to meet and annoy.
As he went to pick up his battered copy of Ulysses from his bag, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He propped his book between the edge of his desk and his lap, and slid open his phone to reveal a text from Chris.
we could be getting coffee right now. real coffee. I can’t believe I let you force me into this Starbucks shit.
Eduardo laughed and shoved his phone back into his pocket. After his father had bought him a coffee shop for his seventeenth birthday, Chris and he had spent the whole summer behind the bar, learning the tricks of the trade, buying used books from graduating seniors, and caffeinating the music scene that had slowly started to grow in Boston’s Neighborhood Nine. Plus, a lot of the incoming freshman to both Harvard and Tufts seemed to find their dumpy little coffee shop charming - selling and buying their books there as well.
Eduardo would see Chris two periods from now, so he opened his book as he waited for Doctor Sorkin to call his name. Unsurprisingly, he was first.
“Saverin, Eduardo.”
“Present.” Then he hunkered down into his book.
-------------------------------------------------
Four seats to his left and three rows back, Mark Zuckerberg was hatching a plan. His eyes were alternating between boring into the back of Eduardo Saverin’s head and scanning the screen of his phone, because he could type and look up at the same time, thank you very much. Dustin had gotten into video production and was in the library filming, which meant he sat behind the computers and ran the text under the morning news - which also meant he could text during homeroom as well.
Eduardo seemed nonplussed that he was in a random homeroom, but Mark was ecstatic that his hacking skills had gone undetected by the school. Mark was determined to get Eduardo to fall in love with him. Eduardo, with his flannel and cut off cords in the beginning of September in Massachusetts. Eduardo, with his gray beanie sticking out of his messenger bag. Eduardo, with his slight accent. Eduardo, who was more focused on hanging out with Chris Hughes then noticing Mark, who’d been in love with him since he had sat behind Eduardo in AP Calc AB sophomore year.
But this year, he and Dustin had a plan. Mark had hacked the school’s scheduling system weeks ago and switched around their schedules so that Dustin and Chris had all of their classes together, as did Mark and Eduardo. He knew that the school wouldn’t allow seniors to switch out into other classes, as they’d made a point with the year before them that the schedule you get is the schedule you get.
“Zuckerberg, Mark.”
“Here.”
------
Doctor Sorkin cleared his throat and Mark straightened. “So, here you all are.” Mark didn’t necessarily love lecturers, but he’d liked Doctor Sorkin after he took his creative writing class last year. So Mark looked up from his staring and focused on Sorkin. “I’m just telling you, don’t screw this year up. You only have one year left. Make new friends. Try something new. Fall in love. Here are your schedules.” Sorkin began to call out names, and Mark leaned back. He already had his schedule, and he was not going to screw it up this time.
Eduardo, however, was confused about his schedule. He wasn’t upset, per se, about his classes, he was just confused about the order he had them in. He and Chris had figured out a way to get all of the classes they wanted - and one or two that one hadn’t wanted, but had conceded to take to be with each other.
He pulled his phone out and took a picture of his schedule and took it to Chris with the message, WTF?!?! Then he scanned over the schedule again.
A days - AP World History, AP Macroeconomics, Resource Lab, AP Statistics.
B days - AP Computer Science AB, Speech and Debate III, AP Comparative Politics, AP English IV.
He officially had no classes with Chris, though he was pleased that he had managed to get into AP Comparative, a class that Chris had vehemently put his foot down about .Chris didn’t like Mr. Snyder, but Eduardo found his surreal imagining of politics refreshing. Chris said he wanted to major in history, not ideas. Sometimes Eduardo wondered why they were friends.
Then his phone buzzed and he got a i know :( i got into bio tho :D back. At least Eduardo wouldn’t have to sit through that class, he conceded, and he was sure that at least they’d have lunch together.
what lunch do you have?
first both days, since bio’s third. you?
second - i have Barrymore for resource lab and Snyder for comp poli.
:/ this sucks.
i know, but at least we won’t have to deal with dating rumors again.
true. kay, love you. Eduardo snorted. This was Chris' new thing, after his fling with Darryl. Darren? Something.
love you too. <3
Then the bell rang to go to first, and Eduardo picked up his bag, not noticing Mark watching him slowly, and headed toward Mr. Gilliam’s room, his shadow following him. As he reached the joint of 600 and 700 halls, he waited to see if Chris would hustle up from Mrs. Streep’s room to walk him to class, even though he knew that AP European was pretty much on the other side of the school and AP World was in 612. Suddenly, he saw a flurry of color running, and Eduardo moved out of the way in time to see Dustin Moscovtiz fly at Mark Zuckerberg. “Markie Mark, why are my classes far away from yours?”
“Go away Dustin.” Zuckerberg scoffed, but Eduardo didn’t hear any bark in his voice that Mark normally had. He watched as Mark disentangled himself from Dustin, adjusting his shirt, which seemed to be a vintage Kinks shirt, if Eduardo wasn’t mistaken.
He’d never noticed Mark, but maybe he wasn’t that bad. Eduardo watched for a second more, kicked his Vans against a locker, and headed towards 612. This year was going to suck.
-------------------------------
Mark watched Eduardo walk towards his class, and Mark smiled. Dustin went to pinch his cheek, but Mark batted his hand away in time. “Dustin, you’re going to be late to class.”
“You just want to stalk some more. It’s okay Mark, I know you’ve had this planned.”
“Shut up, Dustin.” Mark’s smile stayed, though, and as Dustin walked on, he smacked Mark on the ass. He would pay for that later, Mark thought, as he headed towards World History. Right now, he had to follow Eduardo to class and bring up Dali.
Yeah, Mark had done his research. This time, he was going to not stumble over his words, talk in code, or generally embarrass himself. He had spent all summer following Eduardo, and now, he was going to snare him.
This year was going to be totally awesome .
First Period
Mark
As Mark stood at the door to Mr. Gilliam’s AP World History class, he took a deep breath. History, in his opinion, was easy, but he also knew that Gilliam actually cared about more than data retention, and that this may be the hardest class of his year. Also, his seating in this class would be crucial. Eduardo, who had meandered in, sat right next to Gilliam’s podium, which was on the far right of the room. There were students scattered around the room, but no more than ten people were in the room excluding the teacher, so Mark slid into the row to the left of Eduardo and one seat back, leaving the seat to Eduardo’s left empty.
He had done this first to give Eduardo a chance to get used to him. Secondly, so that it didn’t look like he was overeager to be near Eduardo, but they had known each other since third grade, so being close would be fine. Third, it left room for a third person to interact with the two of them, actively giving them a chance to know each other peripherally.
Then a familiar jacket slid into the seat in front of him, and Mark breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good morning, Albright.” He teased, his voice barely reaching her. He pointed to her hat, “Hats aren’t allowed in the building.”
She turned to face him. “Good morning, Zuckerberg. Assholes aren’t allowed into the building, but it seems like they’ve let you in. Again.” Then she snickered. Classic Erica - funny, but in a way that Mark could identify with, not guess at.
Then Gilliam cleared his throat, and she turned around. “Albright, Erica?”
Dustin
Dustin’s approach, however, was much more obvious. As he slid into Mrs. McDormand’s trailer, the bell rang, and he mentally cursed himself. His plan was to get there on time, make small talk with Chris, impress him with his European knowledge. Mark had gotten him the study guide as a gag and Dustin had actually spent time reading it in between rounds of Black Ops with Mark.
However, Mark had distracted him by actually bothering to take off his hoodie for the first period of the day to expose Dustin’s dad’s tee-shirt that had been found in the Moscovitzes’ attic this summer, and Dustin was just excited that Mark was making an effort. It was adorable.
Then a hand on his back made him shoot about ten feet into the trailer, and a laugh came from behind him.
“Sorry dude, didn’t mean to make you die of fear.” The voice commented, and Dustin mentally fistpumped as he recognized it as Chris’.
“No worries dude. Just thought I was the latest.”
“It’s no problem, Dustin.” Though he said Dustin’s name, the end of the sentence was raised as if he was asking a question, and Dustin nodded vehemently. “Mrs. Streep held me up or I would have been on time.”
Dustin nodded again, “She tends to do that. ’ Oh wait, my little pumpkins, come back! Here is what I was trying to give to you in the first place.’”
Chris laughed at that, and Dustin grinned. He had spent the better part of Tech Theatre practicing Mrs. Streep’s voice rather than actually learning how to do sound. Mark had taught him how to work the mikes five minutes before the big production of The Tempest last year, but everything had worked out just fine.
Chris’ voice snapped Dustin back to attention. “I have her next. Advanced Theatre.”
Dustin pulled out his best surprised face, “Me too!”
A voice rang out, “You two should sit down before Frances gets here.”
“Yeah, we should.” Dustin scanned the room. “Wait, who’s Frances?”
Chris whistled. “You’ve never had Frances before?” Dustin shook his head. “Sit next to me, she’s a bit … much.” Dustin shrugged, but on the inside he knew he’d be texting Mark. Keywords - sweet victory.
Third Period
Eduardo
Eduardo slid into Barrymore’s room as the bell rang. As the school’s eccentric, Eduardo had secretly hoped for a lair comparable to Professor Trelawney’s from Harry Potter in Ms. - yes it’s Miss, darlings - Barrymore’s room. Trelawney was his favorite, her complete crazy was just hilarious to Eduardo. But instead he just found piles of pillows, couches, and armchairs. Eduardo spotted a plaid one across the room that looked ripe for the taking, and as he headed over there, he heard a shriek from the gypsy teacher.
“Mark, my darling! Can you fix my computer?” Eduardo turned to the sound as he reaches the couch, and a laptop with a sign that said in loopy script, please remind Mark to go to lunch, couch buddy. Eduardo laughed and sat next to the laptop. It was the third class he’d had with Mark Zuckerberg, and it surprised him how visible he was this year. Over the years Eduardo had seen various shades of Mark, but never the clever, funny boy he had seen over the past three hours.
Maybe, if he was being honest, it was he’d never paid Mark much attention. Now, watching him pull on his gray hoodie, pull the sleeves up, and focus hard on the dinosaur of a desktop on her desk. It was cute, Mark’s face all screwed up in concentration, his eyes slanted as he grabbed at something with the mouse.
Eduardo looked down at Mark’s laptop, removing the little note from the top. Whoever had wrote the note obviously knew Mark, as they had left a package of what looked like Twizzlers underneath the sign. Eduardo knew he had the rest of the couch, as a rotating table sat on Mark’s side of the couch, which Eduardo assumed was to be used for typing, but he was curious as to what Mark had on his computer. Eduardo had a North Face sticker and a fish his mother had bought for him when she went home to Sao Paolo last month.
As he revealed the top of Mark’s thin, gray Mac to himself, he had to bite his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing out loud. Mark’s laptop had a bright pink Hello Kitty sticker taking up the bottom left corner. As he flipped the laptop around so he could see the sticker in it’s full glory, he realized the kitty had a neon green star as a garnish and a text box screaming in all caps, loopy script “MI NOMBRE ES MARK-O.”. The top of his laptop has an Empires sticker on it, with a scratchy signature of what Eduardo figured said Ryan Luciani. Empires was a pretty decent band, even if Eduardo hadn’t liked Bang as much as he’d liked Howl. He also had a pattern of Dancing Bears heading down the right side of his laptop, which made Eduardo laughed. Mark was the last person he’d peg as a Deadhead, and a messy script of words that Eduardo started to sound out.
A beep alerted him that Mark was done doing whatever he was doing to Ms. Barrymore, and Eduardo slid over to the end of the couch, away from Mark’s space. He’d have to figure out the words later on. His phone buzzed, and after he had propped himself up in the corner, he slid open his phone.
so remind me again we’re still a gang of two?
Eduardo laughed and replied dunno. i think i’m making a new friend.
As his phone buzzed again, he heard a voice right next to his ear, and he hadn’t noticed Mark hovered about three inches from his face. “You don’t have to hide your phone. Drew won’t care.” As Eduardo raised an eyebrow, Mark pointed his head at Ms. Barrymore. “Drew. She’s pretty cool, even if sometimes she lives in the Stone Age.”
“Oh. Okay.” Mark slid back to his side of the couch, and Eduardo went back to his book. Maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad after all.
bollocks.
----
By the end of the second day, Eduardo realized that Mark Zuckerberg was in all of his classes. He also noticed that a majority of their teachers either ignored him or had Mark doing things that weren’t directly related to their classes.
It was kind of weird, he thought to himself as he waited for Chris on the hood of his car, his overused, old UNC sweatshirt as his protection from the burn that the back of his legs was sure to get if he didn’t protect them. His music was playing, one earphone in, one earphone out so he could hear the rustling of conversations over Zooey Deschanel asking her lover why do you let me stay here?
As the majority of the baseball team passed him, he saw Chris meandering over to his car, talking to Dustin Moscovitz, who Chris had all of his classes with. It was strange, to think that Moscovitz, who was as good with computers as Mark was, wasn’t in AP Comp Sci, but in AP Bio instead, a class Chris was enthused about.
Eduardo hopped off the hood as Dustin broke off from Chris, literally skipping down to a tan Toyota parked on the other side of the lot, the owner pulling a burgundy shirt off of their body and throwing it into the car, pale backside exposed.
“Wardo? Eh, Wardo? You up there?” He focused back to his space, and Chris was snapping at him, fingers barely an inch away from Eduardo’s eyelashes. “You’re such a space case sometimes. Come on, the coffee shop awaits, my hot Brazilian piece of ass.”
Eduardo snorted. “If I was you, I wouldn’t be calling my boss a piece of ass. Looks bad for the customers.” Eduardo dragged his sweatshirt off the hood as well and turned towards the drivers’ seat. “Besides, I wasn’t even the late one, Mr. I’m So Eager To Get To Work.” His eyes drifted over to the tan Toyota, which now had the pale owner getting slapped around by Moscovitz, who seemed excited about something. “What’s up with you and Moscovitz?”
“Oh, we got into a conversation about The Hush Sound, which albums were better and what not during Bio, then in Aerobics we couldn’t finish it because Mr. S was being a total bitch about it so he told me he’d walk me to my car.”
“Oh, how cute.”
“Yeah, and he gave me his phone number so I’d text him and remind him to email Frances his paper. He’s a bit of a space case.”
“That was nice.” Finally, the pale skinned man had put a new shirt on, a white one that was barely lighter than his skin, and turned to look at the sun and Eduardo realized it was Mark. He veered his eyes away, and back to Chris. “Shall we get going?”
“Yes, lets. I have to start Hamlet as soon as we get to work, so I’d rather not miss some of the Drama majors coming in after their 1:45-3 rehearsals and begging them to read me the Baird.”
“Alright, alright, we’re going.” Eduardo glanced up once again, but he just got an eyeful of Dustin. Chris glanced back as Eduardo got in the car.
“What were you staring at.”
“Nada. Lets go, my country bumpkin.”
Chris frowned as he got in the car, “I should have never let you watch Cinderella. You’ve gotten idealistic on me.”
Eduardo slid on his clubmaster Ray-Bans, which he had bought after the coffee shop had broken even. “So, are Dustin and Mark good friends?” He started the car as Chris slid in the car and buckled his seatbelt. Eduardo pulled out as Chris responded.
“Yeah, pretty much best friends since grade school, but Dustin says Mark’ll never say it out loud. They both work on Brattle Street - Dustin at the theatre, Mark somewhere. I wasn’t really listening - Dustin likes to talk. A lot.”
“Like you?” Eduardo shot back, and Chris smacked him in the arm. “Take me to my store. I need caffeine and music.”
“And another look at that Antonio from Tufts’ ass.” Chris smacked him again.
---
However, in The Enterprise, Dustin was just as actively beating up Mark’s arm. “He has my number Mark. I tricked him into thinking I’m dumb so he’ll text me to remind me the homework that I’ve already done .Then when I ask him for answers, he’ll find me adorable and silly and we’ll bond. Then I’ll implement my master plan. Plus, today’s payday, which means you get to buy me another pair of seersucker shorts from work!”
“I cannot believe that you’re using me for the discounts.” Mark deadpanned as he drove towards Brattle Street. Dustin had a full hour to browse, but Mark had to be clocked in at American Apparel at 3 flat, and that only gave him twenty minutes to get there and slip on his Toms and skinnies before he had to go in and look bored for four hours.
Originally, the plan was for Mark to work at the theatre and Dustin to work at AA. But Dustin had forgotten to take his ADHD meds on the day of the interview and went crazy, while Mark had cut down the manager at the Theatre’s taste in film so much that the manager had ordered him out of his sight and cried into his poster of some knockoff of Rudolph Valentino that Mark had noticed was a fake the minute he walked in.
Dustin, however, had been charming towards the manager and had spent the whole interview talking about the merits of The Birdcage versus the original La Cage, and Mark had that too skinny, a touch bored look that the manager at American Apparel had taken one look at and told him, “You have the job.”
It was beneficial - one of the girls who worked there, Ellen, had taken one look at him and had told him that she needed to dress him. At first, he was unsure that a girl the size of a dwarf could help him, but she had persuaded him into a few pairs of skinnies that didn’t completely cut off his necessary circulation, gave him some of her too big concert shirts and had burned him like six mixes of ‘pure hip goodness’. After he’d explained his plan to her about Eduardo, she had started to make him watch pretentious movies with subtitles.
Mark cried during Amélie. Ellen held him and promised never to tell Dustin.
Luckily, Ellen was the schedule producer, so whenever Mark worked, Ellen worked. She was perched on the counter as Mark screeched in after getting pantsed by Dustin, pulling up his skinny black pants up, the label of his GAP boxers barely over his pants.
“Were you getting your sex on or did Dustin pants you again?”
“Dustin, though he said that Eduardo was staring at me when I was changing for work. I had my Harvard shirt on, and the last time I wore it to work, I got hit on. By the way, where are those seersucker shorts? Dustin wanted me to put a pair on hold for both of us. He wants the royal blue, and I want the red ones. Dustin said it’ll go well with my Harvard shirt.”
“It would.” Ellen preened, and Mark rolled his eyes. “Hey Mark?” Mark looked up from where he was logging into the cash register. “Please don’t rearrange the mannequins again.” Mark rolled his eyes.
“It was because you made me watch that dumb Mannequin movie. It was retaliation.”
Ellen laughed, and Mark rolled his eyes. “Turn up that radio!” she commanded, and Mark turned up the volume to the store’s radio, which streamed directly from Ellen’s iPod in the back room. Mark had hooked it up on the second day of working there, and it was probably why he still had his job.
Then he got to rehanging while Ellen started to sing along to the Dean Martin song that was playing. After a few minutes, she shouted to Mark, on the other side of the store, “How’s your lover?”
In return she got the finger.
----
Since school started on a Wednesday this year, it was relatively quick week, and the weekend sent both pairs of friends frantically working - Chris and Eduardo at their coffee shop because it’s the posh place for Tufts’ kids to go now, Mark at American Apparel because Divya the Diva from Harvard had come down with mono and Mark wanted the money to invest in a third desktop screen, and Dustin on Phase Two of his epic plan, finishing up Phase One by buying all of the 50% off stuff at American Apparel with Mark’s extra 50% discount on top and Concepts’ cashier had a crush on him, so he got a 25% discount on anything. She wasn’t his type, but he did love cheap clothes.
Then, he checked the weather. His plan would only be good on a rainy Monday, and luckily for him, the forecast called for rain. He reclined in his chair, smirking in victory at his desktop screen. Alas, as he went to prop his feet up so he could take a picture with his webcam, he forgot about his chair’s back breaking and fell to the floor.
Oh well. You can’t have everything in life. Dustin sighed and pulled himself up, grabbed a blank white CD from his massive pile that he had bought at Wal*Mart, and stuck in into his CD drive, opening up iTunes, clicking his playlist labeled ‘DAYS’ and then in sweet victory the ‘burn’ button.
While it burned, he clicked onto Tumblr, as surprisingly all of his homework was finished, and logged in. Mark, who had been on the trend, had an account, but since he only used it to give and get help with code, he had given Dustin the password so Dustin could reblog all of the pretty memes and gush about how he’d dragged Mark to see Gold Motel last weekend.
It was also an effective stalking tool for Chris & Eduardo, as both had a large following. After a few weeks of “studying patterns”, Mark had let Dustin start to follow Eduardo after a day over the summer where Eduardo posted a video of him shirtless singing along to a Mumm-Rah song. Chris’ follow came after he had taken a Topless Tuesday picture. It helped Mark figure out what Eduardo liked, and it helped Dustin because Chris was always saying what he did and didn’t look for in a guy and what his new favorite obsession was.
Mark, of course, had Dustin make himself a spreadsheet to note every time a musician was mentioned, and over the course of the summer he had collected and divided and created a spread of music that Chris would either like - thanks last.fm! - or already did like. Mark, whenever he ventured on, focused solely on their two blogs and made notes, which he then emailed to Dustin under the guise of ‘coding suggestions’. The similarities of the two were noted, and the two columns were like reading pages of history notes - detailed, accurate, and occasionally dated.
The two best friends were similar, Mark had ascertained, but liked deviations. Chris liked chiller, older music with a folk background while Eduardo enjoyed poppy bubblegum style music. For example, Chris loved Midtown, while Eduardo enjoyed Cobra Starship. Chris bemoaned the loss of The Hush Sound and The Young Veins, while Eduardo was quite content with his Panic! and thought Ryan Ross was a drug addict who needed a haircut. Though the original thread was similar, there were differences, but that’s what made them different.
Also, that’s why Dustin had made a mixtape instead of wearing clichéd tees and making himself look interesting like Mark had. As he scrolled through his dashboard, he saw a picture of Eduardo & Chris at their coffee shop, making goofy faces at the camera. Then the computer dinged, and he pulled out his CD as his other hand grabbed for his cell.
phase 2 begun. PS qt pic on tumblr of e n c.
cool. I’ll check it in a bit. COD later?
ttly. gimme ten, i gotta finish this.
k
---
On Monday, Chris walked out of the house without a rain jacket, ten minutes late, without any sort of style to his hair, exhausted because Antonio from Tufts had spent all last night trying to sext him. Not like Chris wasn’t interested, but it was a school night and Antonio wouldn’t. stop. texting. Chris had fallen asleep around one, and woken up thirty minutes late, only giving him ten minutes to shower, dress, get coffee and get out the door before Eduardo left his ass at home and he had to bum a ride off his mom.
So, as Eduardo honked his horn, Chris slid on his TOMS before looking outside and grabbed his bookbag and yelled bye to his mom, who yelled bye back. Then, as he locked the door behind him, a spray of water splashed the back of his neck. He ignored it, but as he turned around, it was like a monsoon had hit Boston. Eduardo honked again, and Chris cursed as he sprinted towards the car, his bookbag sliding around on his back as he ran towards what he had made out to be as the car. He rounded the back and slid into the passenger seat and breathed a sigh of relief.
Eduardo laughed at him. “Ever hear of this thing called the weather?”
“No, sorry. My childhood dream was to be Prince of South Carolina, not a weatherman.” Eduardo reached over to smack him as Chris buckled up. “Can I borrow your Carolina hoodie?”
“Sure. It’s kinda ratty though.”
“S’fine. Now let’s get to school - Mrs. Streep said she’s going to let me help her pick out the musical for the fall today, and I want to make sure Porter has a chance this year.”
Eduardo chuckled and put on his best Southern accent, “Lawd knows we can’t do anotha Rodgahs and Hammasteins again.”
“Exactly!” Chris exclaimed, and Eduardo erupted into giggles as he drove and Chris realized that he was being made fun of. “I hate you.”
“You asked for it.”
-------------------------
As Chris slid into Mrs. Streep’s room, half soaking, half dry from Eduardo’s hoodie, the bell rang and Mrs. Streep waved him back to her desk. “Chris! Chris my darling! Come here!” She stage-whispered, and Chris rolled his eyes. Hopefully somebody hadn’t suggested they do A Very Potter Musical to her again - he had to remind her six times how inappropriate it was last year, even though he did love it. He would have to be someone dumb in that, and it was his senior year. He wanted to do Kiss Me, Kate this year, and no one was going to stop him. Not even Mrs. Streep.
But it wasn’t the musical she was bubbly about - she already had three spread in front of her, but her eyes were glued to him and her hands were behind her back. “Chris, I have to tell you, you have a suitor here at school. They gave me a gift to give to you. I must say, it’s quite charming.” Then, from behind her back, she pulled a CD case out. At first it looked normal to Chris, but then he realized it was a handmade insert, covered with the word DAYS. He was intrigued, and flipped open the case to find a white CD covered with what looked like day cards from a daily calendar. The inside cover said in loopy handwriting Sometimes the days pass so slowly, and then too long. Here’s hoping yours passes faster now. Snapping it closed, he nodded briefly at Mrs. Streep and headed back to his seat, flipping over the case to find a track list in black ink, with anything that had the word day in it in red.
He read over the track list quickly, his mind boggling . He’d only heard of some of these artists, but it was like this person had tailored the CD to him, a mix of folk and rock and some music he’d never heard before, but he felt like he would like. He ran his index finger over the back case as Mrs. Streep called his name.
Days Mix
Everyday - Buddy Holly
Rainy Monday - Shiny Toy Guns
Another Day - Ari Hest
Crazy Tuesday - Thenewno2
Yesterday - The Beatles
Wednesday, 3 AM - Simon and Garfunkel
Sleeping Is All I Wanna Do( Stars on a Sunny Day ) - The Duhks
When The Day Met The Night - Panic! At The Disco
Thursday - Jim Croce
Daydream Believer - The Monkees
A Hard Day’s Night - The Beatles
Friday - Rebecca Black
Love Today - MIKA
The Time Of Your Life - Alex Day
Another Saturday Night - Cat Stevens
Sunday Morning - No Doubt
Sunday Morning - Maroon 5
Some Day My Prince Will Come - Disney’s Princess Collection
“Chris! Come back here and pick from the selection we have, my child. You know it’s important to me that you like what we do.”
After a few seconds, Chris returned to her desk, the CD slipped into the hoodie pocket. He skimmed the playbooks, pulling out Kiss Me Kate and handing it to Mrs. Streep. “We need to do Cole Porter. Need to, Mrs. Streep, not want to.”
She shook her head, her eyes filled with mirth. “Okay Christopher. Okay. Want to start on posters for auditions?”
Chris nodded and sat down to design one by hand, knowing that during Advanced Theatre he could finish and maybe ask Dustin or Erica to help him photocopy and distribute, then read through it. Most Advanced kids would get a part, but occasionally a star would break out the general student population.
----
Tuesday brought Eduardo clear skies, a new suit and a moonstruck Chris who stuck a CD into the CD player of Eduardo’s car before he even bothered to throw in his bookbag. “Wardo, you just have to listen to this. I couldn’t even bother to take it out of my CD player to burn it onto my laptop. It’s like an hour long but I swear to you, listening to it feels like it took you a minute. When I had to iron, it pained me to take it from my CD player to my boombox, I just can’t stop listening to it.”
“You’re rambling.” Chris laughed and Eduardo hit play as Chris leaned down to pick up his bag, the dings of the music beginning. “Who is this?”
“Buddy Holly.” Eduardo turned to Chris, raising an eyebrow. “It’s catchy, and cute, and stop judging me, Antonio from Tufts is completely out of the question. He sent me a picture of a box last night, followed up with a text that said ‘you like SNL?’”
Eduardo snickered and Chris rolled his eyes. “It’s just a bonus that this mystery dude is into me. If he’s as cool as this mix is, I had the right to tell Antonio I’m talking to someone. Right?”
“Sure, buddy. Just don’t bust a cap if it turns out to be like, Dylan Parker or someone.”
“You say that again and I’ll never watch Little Ashes with you again.”
Eduardo opened his mouth to respond and then shut it. Chris was the only person who would sit through the movie with him, and Eduardo always choked up a little bit at the end. Chris hated it, but then again, Chris had a slight crush on Robert Pattinson, so he probably wouldn’t follow through on that threat.
As the song changed, Eduardo shifted into drive. Time to get to school - he had some questions to ask Mr. Gilliam before class and they were on time as it was, so he’d have a few minutes before homeroom to slide in and pester him about the reading.
on to part two
As he went to pick up his battered copy of Ulysses from his bag, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He propped his book between the edge of his desk and his lap, and slid open his phone to reveal a text from Chris.
we could be getting coffee right now. real coffee. I can’t believe I let you force me into this Starbucks shit.
Eduardo laughed and shoved his phone back into his pocket. After his father had bought him a coffee shop for his seventeenth birthday, Chris and he had spent the whole summer behind the bar, learning the tricks of the trade, buying used books from graduating seniors, and caffeinating the music scene that had slowly started to grow in Boston’s Neighborhood Nine. Plus, a lot of the incoming freshman to both Harvard and Tufts seemed to find their dumpy little coffee shop charming - selling and buying their books there as well.
Eduardo would see Chris two periods from now, so he opened his book as he waited for Doctor Sorkin to call his name. Unsurprisingly, he was first.
“Saverin, Eduardo.”
“Present.” Then he hunkered down into his book.
-------------------------------------------------
Four seats to his left and three rows back, Mark Zuckerberg was hatching a plan. His eyes were alternating between boring into the back of Eduardo Saverin’s head and scanning the screen of his phone, because he could type and look up at the same time, thank you very much. Dustin had gotten into video production and was in the library filming, which meant he sat behind the computers and ran the text under the morning news - which also meant he could text during homeroom as well.
Eduardo seemed nonplussed that he was in a random homeroom, but Mark was ecstatic that his hacking skills had gone undetected by the school. Mark was determined to get Eduardo to fall in love with him. Eduardo, with his flannel and cut off cords in the beginning of September in Massachusetts. Eduardo, with his gray beanie sticking out of his messenger bag. Eduardo, with his slight accent. Eduardo, who was more focused on hanging out with Chris Hughes then noticing Mark, who’d been in love with him since he had sat behind Eduardo in AP Calc AB sophomore year.
But this year, he and Dustin had a plan. Mark had hacked the school’s scheduling system weeks ago and switched around their schedules so that Dustin and Chris had all of their classes together, as did Mark and Eduardo. He knew that the school wouldn’t allow seniors to switch out into other classes, as they’d made a point with the year before them that the schedule you get is the schedule you get.
“Zuckerberg, Mark.”
“Here.”
------
Doctor Sorkin cleared his throat and Mark straightened. “So, here you all are.” Mark didn’t necessarily love lecturers, but he’d liked Doctor Sorkin after he took his creative writing class last year. So Mark looked up from his staring and focused on Sorkin. “I’m just telling you, don’t screw this year up. You only have one year left. Make new friends. Try something new. Fall in love. Here are your schedules.” Sorkin began to call out names, and Mark leaned back. He already had his schedule, and he was not going to screw it up this time.
Eduardo, however, was confused about his schedule. He wasn’t upset, per se, about his classes, he was just confused about the order he had them in. He and Chris had figured out a way to get all of the classes they wanted - and one or two that one hadn’t wanted, but had conceded to take to be with each other.
He pulled his phone out and took a picture of his schedule and took it to Chris with the message, WTF?!?! Then he scanned over the schedule again.
A days - AP World History, AP Macroeconomics, Resource Lab, AP Statistics.
B days - AP Computer Science AB, Speech and Debate III, AP Comparative Politics, AP English IV.
He officially had no classes with Chris, though he was pleased that he had managed to get into AP Comparative, a class that Chris had vehemently put his foot down about .Chris didn’t like Mr. Snyder, but Eduardo found his surreal imagining of politics refreshing. Chris said he wanted to major in history, not ideas. Sometimes Eduardo wondered why they were friends.
Then his phone buzzed and he got a i know :( i got into bio tho :D back. At least Eduardo wouldn’t have to sit through that class, he conceded, and he was sure that at least they’d have lunch together.
what lunch do you have?
first both days, since bio’s third. you?
second - i have Barrymore for resource lab and Snyder for comp poli.
:/ this sucks.
i know, but at least we won’t have to deal with dating rumors again.
true. kay, love you. Eduardo snorted. This was Chris' new thing, after his fling with Darryl. Darren? Something.
love you too. <3
Then the bell rang to go to first, and Eduardo picked up his bag, not noticing Mark watching him slowly, and headed toward Mr. Gilliam’s room, his shadow following him. As he reached the joint of 600 and 700 halls, he waited to see if Chris would hustle up from Mrs. Streep’s room to walk him to class, even though he knew that AP European was pretty much on the other side of the school and AP World was in 612. Suddenly, he saw a flurry of color running, and Eduardo moved out of the way in time to see Dustin Moscovtiz fly at Mark Zuckerberg. “Markie Mark, why are my classes far away from yours?”
“Go away Dustin.” Zuckerberg scoffed, but Eduardo didn’t hear any bark in his voice that Mark normally had. He watched as Mark disentangled himself from Dustin, adjusting his shirt, which seemed to be a vintage Kinks shirt, if Eduardo wasn’t mistaken.
He’d never noticed Mark, but maybe he wasn’t that bad. Eduardo watched for a second more, kicked his Vans against a locker, and headed towards 612. This year was going to suck.
-------------------------------
Mark watched Eduardo walk towards his class, and Mark smiled. Dustin went to pinch his cheek, but Mark batted his hand away in time. “Dustin, you’re going to be late to class.”
“You just want to stalk some more. It’s okay Mark, I know you’ve had this planned.”
“Shut up, Dustin.” Mark’s smile stayed, though, and as Dustin walked on, he smacked Mark on the ass. He would pay for that later, Mark thought, as he headed towards World History. Right now, he had to follow Eduardo to class and bring up Dali.
Yeah, Mark had done his research. This time, he was going to not stumble over his words, talk in code, or generally embarrass himself. He had spent all summer following Eduardo, and now, he was going to snare him.
This year was going to be totally awesome .
First Period
Mark
As Mark stood at the door to Mr. Gilliam’s AP World History class, he took a deep breath. History, in his opinion, was easy, but he also knew that Gilliam actually cared about more than data retention, and that this may be the hardest class of his year. Also, his seating in this class would be crucial. Eduardo, who had meandered in, sat right next to Gilliam’s podium, which was on the far right of the room. There were students scattered around the room, but no more than ten people were in the room excluding the teacher, so Mark slid into the row to the left of Eduardo and one seat back, leaving the seat to Eduardo’s left empty.
He had done this first to give Eduardo a chance to get used to him. Secondly, so that it didn’t look like he was overeager to be near Eduardo, but they had known each other since third grade, so being close would be fine. Third, it left room for a third person to interact with the two of them, actively giving them a chance to know each other peripherally.
Then a familiar jacket slid into the seat in front of him, and Mark breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good morning, Albright.” He teased, his voice barely reaching her. He pointed to her hat, “Hats aren’t allowed in the building.”
She turned to face him. “Good morning, Zuckerberg. Assholes aren’t allowed into the building, but it seems like they’ve let you in. Again.” Then she snickered. Classic Erica - funny, but in a way that Mark could identify with, not guess at.
Then Gilliam cleared his throat, and she turned around. “Albright, Erica?”
Dustin
Dustin’s approach, however, was much more obvious. As he slid into Mrs. McDormand’s trailer, the bell rang, and he mentally cursed himself. His plan was to get there on time, make small talk with Chris, impress him with his European knowledge. Mark had gotten him the study guide as a gag and Dustin had actually spent time reading it in between rounds of Black Ops with Mark.
However, Mark had distracted him by actually bothering to take off his hoodie for the first period of the day to expose Dustin’s dad’s tee-shirt that had been found in the Moscovitzes’ attic this summer, and Dustin was just excited that Mark was making an effort. It was adorable.
Then a hand on his back made him shoot about ten feet into the trailer, and a laugh came from behind him.
“Sorry dude, didn’t mean to make you die of fear.” The voice commented, and Dustin mentally fistpumped as he recognized it as Chris’.
“No worries dude. Just thought I was the latest.”
“It’s no problem, Dustin.” Though he said Dustin’s name, the end of the sentence was raised as if he was asking a question, and Dustin nodded vehemently. “Mrs. Streep held me up or I would have been on time.”
Dustin nodded again, “She tends to do that. ’ Oh wait, my little pumpkins, come back! Here is what I was trying to give to you in the first place.’”
Chris laughed at that, and Dustin grinned. He had spent the better part of Tech Theatre practicing Mrs. Streep’s voice rather than actually learning how to do sound. Mark had taught him how to work the mikes five minutes before the big production of The Tempest last year, but everything had worked out just fine.
Chris’ voice snapped Dustin back to attention. “I have her next. Advanced Theatre.”
Dustin pulled out his best surprised face, “Me too!”
A voice rang out, “You two should sit down before Frances gets here.”
“Yeah, we should.” Dustin scanned the room. “Wait, who’s Frances?”
Chris whistled. “You’ve never had Frances before?” Dustin shook his head. “Sit next to me, she’s a bit … much.” Dustin shrugged, but on the inside he knew he’d be texting Mark. Keywords - sweet victory.
Third Period
Eduardo
Eduardo slid into Barrymore’s room as the bell rang. As the school’s eccentric, Eduardo had secretly hoped for a lair comparable to Professor Trelawney’s from Harry Potter in Ms. - yes it’s Miss, darlings - Barrymore’s room. Trelawney was his favorite, her complete crazy was just hilarious to Eduardo. But instead he just found piles of pillows, couches, and armchairs. Eduardo spotted a plaid one across the room that looked ripe for the taking, and as he headed over there, he heard a shriek from the gypsy teacher.
“Mark, my darling! Can you fix my computer?” Eduardo turned to the sound as he reaches the couch, and a laptop with a sign that said in loopy script, please remind Mark to go to lunch, couch buddy. Eduardo laughed and sat next to the laptop. It was the third class he’d had with Mark Zuckerberg, and it surprised him how visible he was this year. Over the years Eduardo had seen various shades of Mark, but never the clever, funny boy he had seen over the past three hours.
Maybe, if he was being honest, it was he’d never paid Mark much attention. Now, watching him pull on his gray hoodie, pull the sleeves up, and focus hard on the dinosaur of a desktop on her desk. It was cute, Mark’s face all screwed up in concentration, his eyes slanted as he grabbed at something with the mouse.
Eduardo looked down at Mark’s laptop, removing the little note from the top. Whoever had wrote the note obviously knew Mark, as they had left a package of what looked like Twizzlers underneath the sign. Eduardo knew he had the rest of the couch, as a rotating table sat on Mark’s side of the couch, which Eduardo assumed was to be used for typing, but he was curious as to what Mark had on his computer. Eduardo had a North Face sticker and a fish his mother had bought for him when she went home to Sao Paolo last month.
As he revealed the top of Mark’s thin, gray Mac to himself, he had to bite his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing out loud. Mark’s laptop had a bright pink Hello Kitty sticker taking up the bottom left corner. As he flipped the laptop around so he could see the sticker in it’s full glory, he realized the kitty had a neon green star as a garnish and a text box screaming in all caps, loopy script “MI NOMBRE ES MARK-O.”. The top of his laptop has an Empires sticker on it, with a scratchy signature of what Eduardo figured said Ryan Luciani. Empires was a pretty decent band, even if Eduardo hadn’t liked Bang as much as he’d liked Howl. He also had a pattern of Dancing Bears heading down the right side of his laptop, which made Eduardo laughed. Mark was the last person he’d peg as a Deadhead, and a messy script of words that Eduardo started to sound out.
A beep alerted him that Mark was done doing whatever he was doing to Ms. Barrymore, and Eduardo slid over to the end of the couch, away from Mark’s space. He’d have to figure out the words later on. His phone buzzed, and after he had propped himself up in the corner, he slid open his phone.
so remind me again we’re still a gang of two?
Eduardo laughed and replied dunno. i think i’m making a new friend.
As his phone buzzed again, he heard a voice right next to his ear, and he hadn’t noticed Mark hovered about three inches from his face. “You don’t have to hide your phone. Drew won’t care.” As Eduardo raised an eyebrow, Mark pointed his head at Ms. Barrymore. “Drew. She’s pretty cool, even if sometimes she lives in the Stone Age.”
“Oh. Okay.” Mark slid back to his side of the couch, and Eduardo went back to his book. Maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad after all.
bollocks.
----
By the end of the second day, Eduardo realized that Mark Zuckerberg was in all of his classes. He also noticed that a majority of their teachers either ignored him or had Mark doing things that weren’t directly related to their classes.
It was kind of weird, he thought to himself as he waited for Chris on the hood of his car, his overused, old UNC sweatshirt as his protection from the burn that the back of his legs was sure to get if he didn’t protect them. His music was playing, one earphone in, one earphone out so he could hear the rustling of conversations over Zooey Deschanel asking her lover why do you let me stay here?
As the majority of the baseball team passed him, he saw Chris meandering over to his car, talking to Dustin Moscovitz, who Chris had all of his classes with. It was strange, to think that Moscovitz, who was as good with computers as Mark was, wasn’t in AP Comp Sci, but in AP Bio instead, a class Chris was enthused about.
Eduardo hopped off the hood as Dustin broke off from Chris, literally skipping down to a tan Toyota parked on the other side of the lot, the owner pulling a burgundy shirt off of their body and throwing it into the car, pale backside exposed.
“Wardo? Eh, Wardo? You up there?” He focused back to his space, and Chris was snapping at him, fingers barely an inch away from Eduardo’s eyelashes. “You’re such a space case sometimes. Come on, the coffee shop awaits, my hot Brazilian piece of ass.”
Eduardo snorted. “If I was you, I wouldn’t be calling my boss a piece of ass. Looks bad for the customers.” Eduardo dragged his sweatshirt off the hood as well and turned towards the drivers’ seat. “Besides, I wasn’t even the late one, Mr. I’m So Eager To Get To Work.” His eyes drifted over to the tan Toyota, which now had the pale owner getting slapped around by Moscovitz, who seemed excited about something. “What’s up with you and Moscovitz?”
“Oh, we got into a conversation about The Hush Sound, which albums were better and what not during Bio, then in Aerobics we couldn’t finish it because Mr. S was being a total bitch about it so he told me he’d walk me to my car.”
“Oh, how cute.”
“Yeah, and he gave me his phone number so I’d text him and remind him to email Frances his paper. He’s a bit of a space case.”
“That was nice.” Finally, the pale skinned man had put a new shirt on, a white one that was barely lighter than his skin, and turned to look at the sun and Eduardo realized it was Mark. He veered his eyes away, and back to Chris. “Shall we get going?”
“Yes, lets. I have to start Hamlet as soon as we get to work, so I’d rather not miss some of the Drama majors coming in after their 1:45-3 rehearsals and begging them to read me the Baird.”
“Alright, alright, we’re going.” Eduardo glanced up once again, but he just got an eyeful of Dustin. Chris glanced back as Eduardo got in the car.
“What were you staring at.”
“Nada. Lets go, my country bumpkin.”
Chris frowned as he got in the car, “I should have never let you watch Cinderella. You’ve gotten idealistic on me.”
Eduardo slid on his clubmaster Ray-Bans, which he had bought after the coffee shop had broken even. “So, are Dustin and Mark good friends?” He started the car as Chris slid in the car and buckled his seatbelt. Eduardo pulled out as Chris responded.
“Yeah, pretty much best friends since grade school, but Dustin says Mark’ll never say it out loud. They both work on Brattle Street - Dustin at the theatre, Mark somewhere. I wasn’t really listening - Dustin likes to talk. A lot.”
“Like you?” Eduardo shot back, and Chris smacked him in the arm. “Take me to my store. I need caffeine and music.”
“And another look at that Antonio from Tufts’ ass.” Chris smacked him again.
---
However, in The Enterprise, Dustin was just as actively beating up Mark’s arm. “He has my number Mark. I tricked him into thinking I’m dumb so he’ll text me to remind me the homework that I’ve already done .Then when I ask him for answers, he’ll find me adorable and silly and we’ll bond. Then I’ll implement my master plan. Plus, today’s payday, which means you get to buy me another pair of seersucker shorts from work!”
“I cannot believe that you’re using me for the discounts.” Mark deadpanned as he drove towards Brattle Street. Dustin had a full hour to browse, but Mark had to be clocked in at American Apparel at 3 flat, and that only gave him twenty minutes to get there and slip on his Toms and skinnies before he had to go in and look bored for four hours.
Originally, the plan was for Mark to work at the theatre and Dustin to work at AA. But Dustin had forgotten to take his ADHD meds on the day of the interview and went crazy, while Mark had cut down the manager at the Theatre’s taste in film so much that the manager had ordered him out of his sight and cried into his poster of some knockoff of Rudolph Valentino that Mark had noticed was a fake the minute he walked in.
Dustin, however, had been charming towards the manager and had spent the whole interview talking about the merits of The Birdcage versus the original La Cage, and Mark had that too skinny, a touch bored look that the manager at American Apparel had taken one look at and told him, “You have the job.”
It was beneficial - one of the girls who worked there, Ellen, had taken one look at him and had told him that she needed to dress him. At first, he was unsure that a girl the size of a dwarf could help him, but she had persuaded him into a few pairs of skinnies that didn’t completely cut off his necessary circulation, gave him some of her too big concert shirts and had burned him like six mixes of ‘pure hip goodness’. After he’d explained his plan to her about Eduardo, she had started to make him watch pretentious movies with subtitles.
Mark cried during Amélie. Ellen held him and promised never to tell Dustin.
Luckily, Ellen was the schedule producer, so whenever Mark worked, Ellen worked. She was perched on the counter as Mark screeched in after getting pantsed by Dustin, pulling up his skinny black pants up, the label of his GAP boxers barely over his pants.
“Were you getting your sex on or did Dustin pants you again?”
“Dustin, though he said that Eduardo was staring at me when I was changing for work. I had my Harvard shirt on, and the last time I wore it to work, I got hit on. By the way, where are those seersucker shorts? Dustin wanted me to put a pair on hold for both of us. He wants the royal blue, and I want the red ones. Dustin said it’ll go well with my Harvard shirt.”
“It would.” Ellen preened, and Mark rolled his eyes. “Hey Mark?” Mark looked up from where he was logging into the cash register. “Please don’t rearrange the mannequins again.” Mark rolled his eyes.
“It was because you made me watch that dumb Mannequin movie. It was retaliation.”
Ellen laughed, and Mark rolled his eyes. “Turn up that radio!” she commanded, and Mark turned up the volume to the store’s radio, which streamed directly from Ellen’s iPod in the back room. Mark had hooked it up on the second day of working there, and it was probably why he still had his job.
Then he got to rehanging while Ellen started to sing along to the Dean Martin song that was playing. After a few minutes, she shouted to Mark, on the other side of the store, “How’s your lover?”
In return she got the finger.
----
Since school started on a Wednesday this year, it was relatively quick week, and the weekend sent both pairs of friends frantically working - Chris and Eduardo at their coffee shop because it’s the posh place for Tufts’ kids to go now, Mark at American Apparel because Divya the Diva from Harvard had come down with mono and Mark wanted the money to invest in a third desktop screen, and Dustin on Phase Two of his epic plan, finishing up Phase One by buying all of the 50% off stuff at American Apparel with Mark’s extra 50% discount on top and Concepts’ cashier had a crush on him, so he got a 25% discount on anything. She wasn’t his type, but he did love cheap clothes.
Then, he checked the weather. His plan would only be good on a rainy Monday, and luckily for him, the forecast called for rain. He reclined in his chair, smirking in victory at his desktop screen. Alas, as he went to prop his feet up so he could take a picture with his webcam, he forgot about his chair’s back breaking and fell to the floor.
Oh well. You can’t have everything in life. Dustin sighed and pulled himself up, grabbed a blank white CD from his massive pile that he had bought at Wal*Mart, and stuck in into his CD drive, opening up iTunes, clicking his playlist labeled ‘DAYS’ and then in sweet victory the ‘burn’ button.
While it burned, he clicked onto Tumblr, as surprisingly all of his homework was finished, and logged in. Mark, who had been on the trend, had an account, but since he only used it to give and get help with code, he had given Dustin the password so Dustin could reblog all of the pretty memes and gush about how he’d dragged Mark to see Gold Motel last weekend.
It was also an effective stalking tool for Chris & Eduardo, as both had a large following. After a few weeks of “studying patterns”, Mark had let Dustin start to follow Eduardo after a day over the summer where Eduardo posted a video of him shirtless singing along to a Mumm-Rah song. Chris’ follow came after he had taken a Topless Tuesday picture. It helped Mark figure out what Eduardo liked, and it helped Dustin because Chris was always saying what he did and didn’t look for in a guy and what his new favorite obsession was.
Mark, of course, had Dustin make himself a spreadsheet to note every time a musician was mentioned, and over the course of the summer he had collected and divided and created a spread of music that Chris would either like - thanks last.fm! - or already did like. Mark, whenever he ventured on, focused solely on their two blogs and made notes, which he then emailed to Dustin under the guise of ‘coding suggestions’. The similarities of the two were noted, and the two columns were like reading pages of history notes - detailed, accurate, and occasionally dated.
The two best friends were similar, Mark had ascertained, but liked deviations. Chris liked chiller, older music with a folk background while Eduardo enjoyed poppy bubblegum style music. For example, Chris loved Midtown, while Eduardo enjoyed Cobra Starship. Chris bemoaned the loss of The Hush Sound and The Young Veins, while Eduardo was quite content with his Panic! and thought Ryan Ross was a drug addict who needed a haircut. Though the original thread was similar, there were differences, but that’s what made them different.
Also, that’s why Dustin had made a mixtape instead of wearing clichéd tees and making himself look interesting like Mark had. As he scrolled through his dashboard, he saw a picture of Eduardo & Chris at their coffee shop, making goofy faces at the camera. Then the computer dinged, and he pulled out his CD as his other hand grabbed for his cell.
phase 2 begun. PS qt pic on tumblr of e n c.
cool. I’ll check it in a bit. COD later?
ttly. gimme ten, i gotta finish this.
k
---
On Monday, Chris walked out of the house without a rain jacket, ten minutes late, without any sort of style to his hair, exhausted because Antonio from Tufts had spent all last night trying to sext him. Not like Chris wasn’t interested, but it was a school night and Antonio wouldn’t. stop. texting. Chris had fallen asleep around one, and woken up thirty minutes late, only giving him ten minutes to shower, dress, get coffee and get out the door before Eduardo left his ass at home and he had to bum a ride off his mom.
So, as Eduardo honked his horn, Chris slid on his TOMS before looking outside and grabbed his bookbag and yelled bye to his mom, who yelled bye back. Then, as he locked the door behind him, a spray of water splashed the back of his neck. He ignored it, but as he turned around, it was like a monsoon had hit Boston. Eduardo honked again, and Chris cursed as he sprinted towards the car, his bookbag sliding around on his back as he ran towards what he had made out to be as the car. He rounded the back and slid into the passenger seat and breathed a sigh of relief.
Eduardo laughed at him. “Ever hear of this thing called the weather?”
“No, sorry. My childhood dream was to be Prince of South Carolina, not a weatherman.” Eduardo reached over to smack him as Chris buckled up. “Can I borrow your Carolina hoodie?”
“Sure. It’s kinda ratty though.”
“S’fine. Now let’s get to school - Mrs. Streep said she’s going to let me help her pick out the musical for the fall today, and I want to make sure Porter has a chance this year.”
Eduardo chuckled and put on his best Southern accent, “Lawd knows we can’t do anotha Rodgahs and Hammasteins again.”
“Exactly!” Chris exclaimed, and Eduardo erupted into giggles as he drove and Chris realized that he was being made fun of. “I hate you.”
“You asked for it.”
-------------------------
As Chris slid into Mrs. Streep’s room, half soaking, half dry from Eduardo’s hoodie, the bell rang and Mrs. Streep waved him back to her desk. “Chris! Chris my darling! Come here!” She stage-whispered, and Chris rolled his eyes. Hopefully somebody hadn’t suggested they do A Very Potter Musical to her again - he had to remind her six times how inappropriate it was last year, even though he did love it. He would have to be someone dumb in that, and it was his senior year. He wanted to do Kiss Me, Kate this year, and no one was going to stop him. Not even Mrs. Streep.
But it wasn’t the musical she was bubbly about - she already had three spread in front of her, but her eyes were glued to him and her hands were behind her back. “Chris, I have to tell you, you have a suitor here at school. They gave me a gift to give to you. I must say, it’s quite charming.” Then, from behind her back, she pulled a CD case out. At first it looked normal to Chris, but then he realized it was a handmade insert, covered with the word DAYS. He was intrigued, and flipped open the case to find a white CD covered with what looked like day cards from a daily calendar. The inside cover said in loopy handwriting Sometimes the days pass so slowly, and then too long. Here’s hoping yours passes faster now. Snapping it closed, he nodded briefly at Mrs. Streep and headed back to his seat, flipping over the case to find a track list in black ink, with anything that had the word day in it in red.
He read over the track list quickly, his mind boggling . He’d only heard of some of these artists, but it was like this person had tailored the CD to him, a mix of folk and rock and some music he’d never heard before, but he felt like he would like. He ran his index finger over the back case as Mrs. Streep called his name.
Days Mix
Everyday - Buddy Holly
Rainy Monday - Shiny Toy Guns
Another Day - Ari Hest
Crazy Tuesday - Thenewno2
Yesterday - The Beatles
Wednesday, 3 AM - Simon and Garfunkel
Sleeping Is All I Wanna Do( Stars on a Sunny Day ) - The Duhks
When The Day Met The Night - Panic! At The Disco
Thursday - Jim Croce
Daydream Believer - The Monkees
A Hard Day’s Night - The Beatles
Friday - Rebecca Black
Love Today - MIKA
The Time Of Your Life - Alex Day
Another Saturday Night - Cat Stevens
Sunday Morning - No Doubt
Sunday Morning - Maroon 5
Some Day My Prince Will Come - Disney’s Princess Collection
“Chris! Come back here and pick from the selection we have, my child. You know it’s important to me that you like what we do.”
After a few seconds, Chris returned to her desk, the CD slipped into the hoodie pocket. He skimmed the playbooks, pulling out Kiss Me Kate and handing it to Mrs. Streep. “We need to do Cole Porter. Need to, Mrs. Streep, not want to.”
She shook her head, her eyes filled with mirth. “Okay Christopher. Okay. Want to start on posters for auditions?”
Chris nodded and sat down to design one by hand, knowing that during Advanced Theatre he could finish and maybe ask Dustin or Erica to help him photocopy and distribute, then read through it. Most Advanced kids would get a part, but occasionally a star would break out the general student population.
----
Tuesday brought Eduardo clear skies, a new suit and a moonstruck Chris who stuck a CD into the CD player of Eduardo’s car before he even bothered to throw in his bookbag. “Wardo, you just have to listen to this. I couldn’t even bother to take it out of my CD player to burn it onto my laptop. It’s like an hour long but I swear to you, listening to it feels like it took you a minute. When I had to iron, it pained me to take it from my CD player to my boombox, I just can’t stop listening to it.”
“You’re rambling.” Chris laughed and Eduardo hit play as Chris leaned down to pick up his bag, the dings of the music beginning. “Who is this?”
“Buddy Holly.” Eduardo turned to Chris, raising an eyebrow. “It’s catchy, and cute, and stop judging me, Antonio from Tufts is completely out of the question. He sent me a picture of a box last night, followed up with a text that said ‘you like SNL?’”
Eduardo snickered and Chris rolled his eyes. “It’s just a bonus that this mystery dude is into me. If he’s as cool as this mix is, I had the right to tell Antonio I’m talking to someone. Right?”
“Sure, buddy. Just don’t bust a cap if it turns out to be like, Dylan Parker or someone.”
“You say that again and I’ll never watch Little Ashes with you again.”
Eduardo opened his mouth to respond and then shut it. Chris was the only person who would sit through the movie with him, and Eduardo always choked up a little bit at the end. Chris hated it, but then again, Chris had a slight crush on Robert Pattinson, so he probably wouldn’t follow through on that threat.
As the song changed, Eduardo shifted into drive. Time to get to school - he had some questions to ask Mr. Gilliam before class and they were on time as it was, so he’d have a few minutes before homeroom to slide in and pester him about the reading.
on to part two