still another day, part 4/4 (mark/eduardo)
from here.
*
Eduardo does have to leave, again, and Mark gets nervous when he does, gets clingier while simultaneously pushing him away, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it - doesn’t know what it means, to her.
He leaves and she doesn’t drive him to the airport, this time.
He texts her.
Are you okay?
He turns his phone off, after, for the flight.
When he gets there, he falls asleep nearly instantly, and he’s so grateful he didn’t get rid of his apartment, because dealing with a Mark that’s upset is draining, absolutely.
He wakes up and when he turns his phone on, he has three messages from Mark.
He frowns.
I’m all right. How are you?
Wardo?
I’m sorry for being a bitch. Please don’t be angry with me.
He rolls his eyes, and calls her, calculating the time difference - it’s one in the afternoon, she shouldn’t be busy.
“I should have driven you,” she answers, and she sounds rushed. “I should have and I didn’t and please don’t - you have to come back, Wardo.”
He chuckles, soft.
She makes a wounded noise. “You don’t have to be an ass about it, Wardo.”
He smiles. “So you’re not upset, about anything?”
She’s quiet for a moment, and he runs a hand through his hair, frowns at his phone.
When she answers, it’s forced. “No, I - no.”
He groans. “Look, can we talk face-to-face?”
“If you want,” she says after a moment, and then they’re talking via Skype. She looks vaguely petulant until she sees him, and then her face brightens, a bit.
She rolls her eyes. “Have you gotten out of bed yet?”
He shakes his head.
She opens and closes her mouth a couple of times, and then just shakes her head, minutely. “You - okay.”
“Mark, if you want - anything - we’re going to have to talk this out,” he says, pleads.
She closes her eyes. “I just had some problems, Wardo, I don’t - it isn’t a big deal.”
He frowns at her.
She cocks an eyebrow.
“You look nice today,” he tells her, before she can stop it.
She grins at him. “Well, thanks.”
It doesn’t seem to be awkward, and he reluctantly lets the conversation drift to other things - because he can never stay angry with Mark, not for long.
*
When he gets back they fuck, hard and desperate, and Mark is pushing against him, nails scratching against his chest, biting back moans, and Eduardo underneath her, taking it, giving back as much as he can.
She falls asleep and wraps herself around him, and he doesn’t understand and doesn’t pretend to.
She seems happy, tells him that she is, and that’s enough for him.
*
(“Let’s go to Chris’s,” Mark says, one day, smiling at him, because she misses them, misses having people around who understand her.
Wardo grins, and nods, taking her hand and kissing it. “Now?”
She shrugs.
And so they go, and Dustin tries too hard to make her feel comfortable and Chris tries to distract Wardo and Mark’s skin feels too tight.
She shakes her head at them and picks fights with Wardo, all night, until they’re snapping at each other, saying the stupidest things.
“Children,” Chris says, and levels them both, and Wardo tries to apologize but Mark won’t let him.
She doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want to hear his empty words, because he’s going to leave her, again and again. He’s going to keep leaving her and Mark’s going to always be the one left behind.
Until the end, that is - and that’s a terrifyingly exhilarating thought.
“We should go,” Eduardo says, and smiles at Chris and Dustin, nearly dragging Mark outside.
“Fuck you, don’t touch me,” Mark says, shaking him off of her, and she turns her head, away from him, walking fast.
“Hey,” and he catches up to her, spins her around. “Mark, what the hell?”
She shakes her head. “You - you just don’t fucking get it,” and she’s not sure what she’s so livid about, anymore, but it rolls up in her, hot and angry, and she can’t stand to look at him, suddenly.
She walks to the car, getting in and slamming the door behind her.)
*
They’re both ready to snap, when they get back.
Mark’s glaring at him and as soon as they get inside she’s throwing her coat on the couch, turning to face him with her arms crossed.
“Fuck you,” she bites out. “Fuck you, Eduardo.”
He feels the weight of his full name pile over him and he’s snorting, shaking his head at her. He feels anger, hot and wild rolling up in him. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I hurt your fucking feelings?” he asks, snaps, laughing. He rolls his eyes. “I don’t give a fuck.”
She’s staring at him and then they’re shouting at each other, everything between them ratcheted up until he can barely breathe, drowning in the anger and the love.
“At least I’m not so fucking scared of my father that I had to leave the fucking continent to get away from him!” Her breaths are coming out shorter, more hurried, and he should be worried but he just shakes his head at her, absolutely livid.
“I didn’t leave to get away from him. I left because I couldn’t stand the thought of being on the same continent as you.”
She stares at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, almost looking hurt, and then she seems to break. “Fine,” she hisses, pointing to the door. “Get the fuck out, then. Get the fuck out of my house if you hate me so much.”
He nods at her, and nearly runs into her room, packing the things that have accumulated of his almost blindly.
She’s still standing in the living room when he comes out, arms folded across her chest.
He leaves, without a look back.
*
(“You promised you wouldn’t leave me,” she says, just after the door slams. “You fucking promised me.” She spins around, feeling dizzy, tired in a way that she shouldn’t. “Shit,” she hisses, and her heart sends up a stab of pain.
She falls, and her hands are shaking when she fumbles for her phone.
Her last though before everything goes black is of Wardo, of what she whispered against his skin.
Dying, she thinks, getting a handle on her phone, and the world goes dark.)
*
He’s in his hotel room, throwing everything into his bag, when he gets the call.
It’s Dustin.
“What?” Eduardo asks, world-weary.
He doesn’t hear most of what he says - he hears Mark and coma and collapsed and, more clearly, “Please come, Eduardo.”
“I -” and he doesn’t have the words, doesn’t know what to say. He swallows, refusing to let the fear take him over until he knows everything. “Can you come pick me up?” he asks, and his voice breaks on the last word.
“I’ll be right there.” His voice is professional, and Eduardo gets the feeling that he knew what was going to happen, that he knew about this.
*
He’s quick to get there, and as soon as he’s parked he’s out of the car, running to Eduardo, giving him a hug, hard. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
“Tell me everything,” Eduardo says, too loud with everything that’s happened. His voice is broken.
“I -”
Eduardo closes his eyes. “Did you know? Did she?”
He nods, after a moment.
Eduardo crumples, and he feels almost as though he’s having an out-of-body experience - in that he doesn’t feel anything.
Dustin leads in to the car, straps him in, and Eduardo stares out the window, feeling worry and panic crush him.
“Do you think he’s going to live?” he asks, finally, and he knows the answer before Dustin even opens his mouth.
“I don’t think so,” and he sounds so detached that it feels like a punch in the face.
Eduardo is silent for the rest of the car ride.
Dustin lets him be.
*
Mark looks small, in the bed.
Eduardo lets out something resembling a sob, holding a hand over his mouth. He goes to her, grabbing her hand.
“Mark?” It’s barely a whisper. “Mark, honey, you have to wake up.” He forces himself to smile. “Look, I’m wearing a regular shirt, just for you. It’s all wrinkled. I came here like this for you.” He swallows. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” He shakes his head, grips her hand tighter. “Mark, you have to wake up to see this, you’d be so fucking proud of me, of the way that I look, that I don’t give a shit. At least, I think you would. Proud like I was - like I am, of you, for Facebook. You - have I ever told you that? How proud I am of you?” He smiles. “I don’t think I ever did - I don’t know if I ever even told you that I was proud.” He smiles again, feels a lump in the back of his throat. “Because I am. I really - and Mark, Mark, you have to wake up.”
He stops.
He feels a hand on his shoulder; it’s Dustin, and he nods toward the door. “You need to get out of here. You’re going to make yourself sick.” He offers something like a smile.
Eduardo doesn’t’ move, just stares up at him. “How the fuck are you so calm?” he asks, hisses, through his teeth.
Dustin shrugs, soft, and the smile he gives Eduardo is more than a little bit sad. “Acceptance is a stage of grief,” he says, and shrugs.
That’s something that Eduardo can’t handle, though, and he shakes his head, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
“Come on,” and Eduardo lets himself to be led.
*
Dustin tells him everything - the heart disease, the way she’d told them, the way she’d gotten her affairs in order.
“I’m going to be CEO,” Dustin says, and he smiles, and that’s what breaks Eduardo, finally.
He stares down into his cup and tears slide down his face.
Dustin reaches across, grabs his hand, holds tight. “She said - she said I was - a good choice, that - that no one ever really understood what I was about, that they thought I was joking. She - she always saw in me what no one else did.”
“She’s not dead,” Eduardo gets out through gritted teeth.
Dustin smiles, a soft, sad, smile. “You think she’s going to live?”
Eduardo does, because he can’t handle the thought of Mark not being there - can’t handle the idea of a world without Mark.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” he finally asks, instead.
“She didn’t think you’d care.”
He snaps his head up. “What?”
He bites his lip. “She didn’t want the reason you stayed to be - because you felt sorry for her.”
“It wouldn’t have been.”
Dustin looks up at him. “And you didn’t leave.”
Eduardo shuts his eyes, and he feels more tears prick at his eyes. “I -”
“You did?” and Dustin sounds so sad, so lost, that Eduardo can’t handle it.
“I didn’t - she told me to get out - she told me - we were fighting.” He looks up. “I think I need - a moment to myself.”
Dustin lets him have his time.
*
Eduardo spends more time in the hospital than out of it, now. He doesn’t want to leave, and every day they tell him that her condition is worse but still, he believes.
Dustin gives him Mark’s computer, one day. “I have the password,” he says, soft. “She said - well, she wanted you to be the one to look at it, after.”
Eduardo shuts his eyes. “She’s not dead,” he says.
That’s his phrase - she’s not dead, repeated over and over, like a mantra.
He tells himself that, over and over, tells Dustin and anyone who will listen, who tries to get him to talk about the after.
She’s not gone and he’s not going to think about the possibility.
If he doesn’t think about it, that means that it isn’t true, that it’s not real.
*
Chris visits, too. He spends time with Eduardo, in the room, and out of it, giving him his peace and quiet.
Dustin tells Eduardo that the needs to think about the after but he won’t, can’t make himself.
Chris whispers I can’t, either into his shoulder, one day, and Eduardo feels himself break.
*
He keeps telling himself and everyone that will listen that she’s not dead, until the day that she is.
She goes quietly, and he’s sitting next to her. Her breathing stops, and he knows, before he looks up, that this is it.
He cries, soft and silent in the slowly lightening room, and then he stands up, calls Dustin with shaking hands.
“She’s gone,” he says, and then he collapses into the chair, shaking. He’s not crying, but he feels empty, like someone’s emptied him out.
Dustin blows in and gives him a hug, hard, and Eduardo feels his shoulders shaking.
He closes his eyes. “Dustin,” he says, because if there’s anyone that’s been strong through all of this, it’s the person holding him together right now.
“I know,” Dustin says, and he’s crying, too.
*
Days pass in a blur.
Eduardo stays in his hotel and doesn’t leave, doesn’t answer the calls from Chris and Dustin. He stares at the computer that Mark left for him, and the password on a Post-It that Dustin gave him.
He doesn’t want to go to the funeral but Chris knocks on his door long enough to get Eduardo to come out, shaking his head.
“You’re not the only one that’s hurting,” Chris tells him, and so Eduardo goes.
The funeral is cramped and he won’t look in the casket, can’t look at Mark, there, gone from his life for good.
Tears choke him and he goes into the bathroom, tries to cry, let out the sobs threatening to engulf him, but he can’t.
He stays dry-eyed, and he’s heaving into the sink when Dustin walks in.
Eduardo looks up at him. “You’re CEO,” he says, and forces a smile.
Dustin smiles, a weak approximation of one. “I guess I am,” and he still sounds shell-shocked.
And Eduardo doesn’t know how to talk to the man that knew, that knew how he felt and still didn’t tell him what was going on with Mark.
“I loved her,” he says, into the sink.
Dustin nods. “I know.”
“I don’t -”
“Look at her laptop,” he says, and shakes his head. “For closure, or something like it.” He looks up. “She didn’t leave you alone, okay?”
Eduardo breathes, and nods.
*
He types the password in, that night.
Mark’s face pops up on an auto-playing video. She’s smirking at the camera, at her office in Facebook.
“Hey, Eduardo. I guess you’re wondering what happened. Dustin, I’m guessing, told you part of it but not the whole thing.”
She licks her lips and Eduardo’s transfixed, staring at her. Tears fill his eyes but he blinks past them, trying to focus on her.
“I - I’m dying.” She looks down, smiling at her lap. He watches her take a shuddering breath. “I just - I don’t know how to say it, other than that. I’m dying and I can’t tell you. But I think you’ll understand that. We’ve both kept secrets, haven’t we?”
He’s nodding even though she can’t see him.
She smiles, a soft smile. “I - I want you to know something. You were always so important to Facebook. It couldn’t have been done without you.”
Eduardo shuts his eyes.
“You’ve always been important to me, too,” and her voice is softer, now, more honest.
He shakes his head, tears streaming down his face. “No,” he whispers.
“I - I don’t think I told you, how important you were. How much you meant to me.” A beat. “I love you.”
And that’s - it’s too much, and he shakes his head, pushing away the computer, sobs ripping through him.
She’s still talking but he can’t focus on her, can only focus on this, the missing her, needing her.
He hears a noise and looks up just in time to see her smile. “Wardo,” and it sounds soft, now. She turns the laptop, out to look at the employees, all working. “Wardo, look what we did.” She sounds so awed he can’t help holding his breath. “You and me. Do you remember the algorithm? Eric?” She hisses. “I just - Wardo, we did it.”
He shuts the computer, tossing it to the other side of the bed. He can’t deal - he feels like his heart’s been ripped out of his chest.
Now that Mark’s gone, he has nothing left.
*
He doesn’t talk to Chris and Dustin.
He won’t answer them.
He hates them, almost - because they knew and they didn’t tell him, because they have things to move on to but Eduardo doesn’t.
He thinks over Mark’s words, the way she’d said We did it, and he feels like his heart’s been crushed.
He goes back to Singapore.
There’s more to the video, he knows there is, but he can’t get past We did it.
Until one night, he can.
She’s smiling when she returns the camera to her, and she holds up a piece of cardboard - the lid from a Cheerios box.
Her smile is soft, sad. “Here.” She turns it over - and there, written in her blocky handwriting, are the words What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
“Do you remember?” she asks, smiles. “I know how you’re feeling - or I can imagine. But what would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
He stares at her image.
“Now do it,” she says.
The video cuts off.
He’s booking a flight back to the States before he has time to think.
Be with the people I deserve to be with, he tells himself.
*
He goes straight to Chris’ house.
Chris answers the door and Eduardo hugs him, hard, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes again.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Chris’ arms wrap around him. “It’s okay,” and his voice is low, soothing.
He feels a bit of his heart begin to mend, with this - with Chris not letting him fall apart.
Chris calls Dustin and they sit in a circle.
Eduardo looks at the two of them and can’t come up with the proper words, so he just shakes his head. “You’re both so - Mark was lucky to have you.”
Chris raises an eyebrow. “You made her so happy, those last couple of months.”
Eduardo doesn’t say anything to that.
He doesn’t need to.
*
He stays the night at Chris’. He doesn’t drink, just lies on the couch, staring at the ceiling.
Dustin’s snoring on the other couch and Chris is curled up on the armchair, and Eduardo smiles - no one ever seems to sleep in a bed when they’re together.
The three of us, now, he thinks, and winces as a fresh wave of pain hits him.
Mark, he thinks, and then nothing else.
It hurts, still, and he doubts that’s ever going to go away entirely - but he thinks that maybe he’ll be able to breathe again, someday.
Dustin snores next to him.
And Eduardo hopes.
He’s not afraid to let himself have this - to be something like happy.
What would you do if you weren’t afraid? she’d asked him.
Let myself let you go, he answers her, now, and closes his eyes.
*
ending note: this is it. it's done. :) took me too long to write, probably, but i kept getting distracted by thoughts of the ending and getting sad and then i had to read happier fic to counteract it. but! it's finished. inspired by far too many pictures/gifs of kristen stewart that are in a folder called simply "SAD" (because about halfway through this, i realized that "still another day" had the initials SAD and, well, this is a sad story.
this is a long and rambling note, apologies. i blame ohnvm entirely for this:
Aby W 3:22 am
LMAO DONT KILL HER
WAIT
NOW I WANT THAT TOO
WHAT
SHUT UP
Jasmine 3:22 am
FUCK
Aby W 3:22 am
LMAO
yes. thank you for reading!