Rating:

Teen

Category:

F/F

Fandom:

The Social Network

Relationship:

Eduardo/Mark

Tags:

canon divergent, genderswap, second person pov, wip

Stats:

Posted on:

2016-10-05

Words:

11,285

Once, you’d thought that the hardest part of work was the public speaking. 

Since the depositions, it’s gotten a little more complicated than that. 

The day starts as usual—it’s fall, so the winds from up in San Francisco are sweeping down into the valley, through Palo Alto to San Jose. Your apartment is on Hamilton Avenue, only a few blocks away from work, so you commute by walking every day. Chris and Sheryl have tried persuading you to getting a briefcase, but you like backpacks, and you still wear hoodies, and anyone who doesn’t know who you are doesn’t know who you are, so it’s a lot easier that way. 

You nod to the security guard, make your way up the stairs and to the elevator. You ring up the button to the floor of your office, and wait patiently for the elevator doors to close. 

Then she comes. She’s quick as wildfire, in a black blazer buttoned in the middle, black slacks over her long legs. In the vee of her jacket a purple button-up is visible underneath; she quickly comes and slides her arm between the elevator doors, keeping them open. 

You don’t look at her or say anything as she enters the elevator with you. She glances at you; you pretend not to notice. 

You both ride the elevator all the way up to the eighth floor. 

When you get off, she glances at you again and nods before going to her own office. You ignore her again, even though this time she won’t see you ignoring her. You make your way through the bullpen, all the way to the glass doors and glass walls at the end. You open the door, set up your laptop, and begin to work. 

Outside, you can see everything, like the view from a fishbowl. Dustin is already here at her own desk, and she waves to you and holds up a small whiteboard that says WASSUP BOSS, which you ignore. Chris’s office is down a few floors in HR, but she’s up here anyway, talking to your assistant, probably gossiping about you and your sisters. The interns now work on the lower few floors, but up here is the news feed team, the programmers, the hackers—your home. 

And there’s the CFO’s office. It hadn’t even been your architectural decision because you’d waved all of floorplanning off to someone who cared more, so they (whoever they are) had decided that the CFO would be up here too, even though CFOs don’t need to know anything about programming and only handle the business end.  

There’s a knock at your door. 

“Mark,” Eduardo says, poking her head in. The top of her purple shirt is unbuttoned, too; her clavicle is visible. “We’re getting emails about the IPO announcement. Again.”  

“Tell them to fuck off,” you say without looking up. 

“Mark.”  

You continue tapping at your computer. Your desktop background is a picture of your dog—you’d found her abandoned on the street earlier this year and decided to take her in. Her name is Beast, and she’s big and white and looks like a mop. Everyone loves her and pretends not to be surprised by your soft side. 

“Mark, I’m not telling them to fuck off,” Eduardo says from the doorway. 

You shrug. “Tell them something like that, then.”  

You get SublimeText open, look over the work from the night shift, and Eduardo stays where she is at the entrance of your office. Finally, she says, “You’ll need to reply to some emails yourself, but I’ll see what I can do.”  

“Fine.”  

“And we’re going to have to fly out for a meeting this weekend.”  

That’s the other hard part of work—flying out for meetings. Ever since Facebook turned big—really big—bigger than you could’ve ever imagined when you were in the Kirkland dorm, drinking Beck’s, and still had to attend art history—you’ve had to travel to states, cities, countries—Ireland, Bangkok, Michigan. It’s not the relocating that irritates you so much as it is the wasting time and energy simply for transportation. And to get to meetings with capital investors and shareholders, whom you have to pretend to know and like. 

She—Eduardo always comes too, of course, since she’s your CFO. You travel together every time. 

You say, “Whatever,” and she leaves. 

* 

You open your front door to Eduardo standing on your front porch, fist raised. 

Your eyebrows flick upward. “We can meet at the airport,” you say, pushing your way outside and closing the door. “You didn’t have to pick me up.”  

“It’s not my fault you forgot last time,” Eduardo says, though her tone is light. She watches as you lock your door. “I can drive.”  

You shrug. Her car is parked next to yours, hazard lights on so the early morning traffic is swerving around it. All you have is your backpack where you packed two pairs of underwear, the customary dress, an extra shirt, Dances With Dragons, your laptop, and your laptop charger.  

(You left your phone charger in your apartment.) 

You say, “Sure.”  

The ride to the airport is quiet. On the 101, you pull out your laptop and code for a little until you start to get drowsy; it’s seven in the morning and you hadn’t slept last night. Halfway through you put your laptop away and nap in the passenger seat of Eduardo’s car. Low pop music is playing from the radio, and you don’t have the energy to complain about it. 

At the airport, you pull yourself out of Eduardo’s car tiredly and follow her as she leads you both to your terminal. She has a suitcase and a briefcase with her, as usual. Today she’s wearing a soft-looking sweater and brown trousers, and her hair is up in an uncomplicated bun. She glances at you once, but doesn’t comment on your dress or lack of luggage. 

You make your way through security together, not saying anything. If anyone else were to have glanced at the both of you, they wouldn’t have guessed you were traveling together. When she’s waiting, Eduardo pulls out her phone; you’ve taken out your headphones and are listening to your music, with only barely enough brain energy to focus on anything else. TSA makes you take off your headphones and your shoes. After making your way through random security check, Eduardo’s already disappeared. You take out your boarding ticket for your gate. 

At the gate, though, Eduardo’s already there. Your flight leaves in a half an hour, and there’s an empty seat next to her, like she’d left it open for you. You take it without saying anything. Eduardo has her laptop open on her computer and one headphone in, the one with the mic. She’s speaking into it. 

“Yeah, I don’t think that’ll work either,” she says. She’s laughing. “I have the spreadsheet open, though, it’ll be fine if we move it around…” 

You tune her out as you plop your backpack onto your lap, taking out your book. You’re halfway through and can probably finish the rest on the plane ride, but as you open it up, your eyes lose focus and you drift in and out of sentences, not absorbing any words at all. Eventually you nod off, dozing over your backpack, your thumb tucked at the corner of the page 281. 

Less than twenty-five minutes later, something under your cheek jolts suddenly. “Mark, we’re boarding,” says Eduardo’s voice. 

You jerk up. “Huh?” you say sleepily.  

Eduardo’s stood up already, adjusting the shoulder of her sweater. She nods towards the screen of your gate, where it says BOARDING: GROUP 1. 

You join her as you get on the plane; you’re both in business class, as usual, and next to each other, though there’s more space between the seats in business class. This time you’re in the aisle and she’s in the window seat so she slides in first. After you’re settled, you feel more awake. You tuck your hands into your hoodie pockets and mindlessly people-watch as people continue boarding. 

She’s taken out the magazine in the front pocket of her seat; you notice that, too. She flips through, a long strand of dark hair shielding her face, though you can see her smile at something in her magazine. 

Once the plane takes off, you’ve taken out your book again, reading it properly this time. Eduardo’s taken out a pen and is doing the crossword in the magazine—she always does. You’ve thought about doing it too, but you don’t want her to think that you’re copying her. 

You’ve thought about watching her do it, but you’re sure she’ll just tell you to mind your own business. 

You’re flying to Cincinnati today, because Kroger’s is interested in holding a stake in Facebook, and you do, unfortunately, need to come to the meetings with the bigger stakeholders. The flight is five hours long and you lose three hours in the day, so it’s early evening by the time you arrive. A car is waiting to drive you and Eduardo to your hotel. Eduardo makes easy conversation with the driver during the entire ride. 

At the hotel’s reception, she checks in first; you wait in line, bored, as she charms the concierge, practically flirting with him. After her, you rattle off your name and shove your credit card in the clerk’s face and say you already know that the complementary breakfast is at nine o’clock, before he can get a word in. He frowns and says, “Here’s your card key,” voice clipped. You smirk and head to the elevators. 

Eduardo is still there, watching as the elevator number slowly goes down. She says, “Eight o’clock tomorrow, don’t forget,” without looking at you. 

“I’m on the eleventh floor if you need me,” you say. You don’t look at her. 

You both ride the elevator together. She gets off at the tenth floor. She doesn’t say goodbye, but you wouldn’t have said it back anyway. 

* 

In the morning, you come to the table where Eduardo is sitting, which you think is a pretty decent gesture of yours, since you bet if you were here first, Eduardo wouldn’t have come sit with you. 

But instead of being grateful, all Eduardo does is glance at your plate and say, “Seriously?” 

“What?” you say, annoyed.  

“If you want to die of scurvy that’s fine, but it’s going to be nobody’s fault but your own.” Eduardo looks at your three pieces of toast again. “At least get some orange juice.”  

She’s wearing black slacks and a pink button-up today, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, her arms long and golden. Her jacket is slung on the back of her chair. She’s actually gained some weight since college—not too visible, just to fill out the shoulders of her blazers—and her hair is in a proper bun today, the kind she usually wears to work, not the casual one like yesterday. You’re in your dress as usual, which is just mid-sleeved and plain blue with a fake belt in the middle. No one from HR will let you attend any meeting or function in your hoodie and jeans (much less your khakis) so they long ago forced you to wear clothes like Eduardo—which would just look weird paired together—or dresses or skirts. You’d picked dresses because they’re just one piece and not uncomfortable, and you’d picked only one dress because you don’t care about owning any more. Bringing the same dress to every meeting and function drives Chris nuts; you hope at some point she’ll just give in and let you wear your hoodies. 

You and Eduardo finish breakfast; your car to the meeting is supposed to come to the hotel at nine. 

Eduardo glances at you, and then glances at you again. 

You frown. “What?”  

“Your hair, it—” Eduardo sighs. “Here, just tie it up into a ponytail.” She hands you a scrunchie from her pocket. 

Your frown deepens. “What? What’s wrong with my hair?”  

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” says Eduardo, and you don’t believe her at all. “But I’m not letting you go to the meeting looking like that.”  

“Sorry I can’t make myself look as fancy as you every day.” You roll your eyes and tie your hair up into a loose ponytail. 

Eduardo purses her lips, but she doesn’t say anything. 

The car ride, as usual, is boring. The meeting itself is even more boring. It kind of reminds you of spring break 2004, when Eduardo had dragged you along to all the meetings with the venture capitalists and tried to play grown-up and ultimately failed because Facebook was barely anything yet and no one was going to take twenty-year old Eduardo seriously and, okay, maybe you’d interfered so it would tick the VCs off too, because you didn’t want them either. But now Eduardo is all suave and charm and corporates love her—you have to pretend to smile, resist the urge to pull out your phone to complain to Dustin, and actually give a shit about what Eduardo’s saying. 

Eduardo does most of the talking. You’re meeting with the main team in an incredibly high-end Italian restaurant, and you’ve ordered spaghetti. You eat as she charms and negotiates, and stoutly avoid eye contact with anyone on the other side of the table. 

The man with the goatee, who might be the CEO of Kroger’s but you can’t be sure, says, “We heard you were planning on launching your IPO in a few years, so it might be more beneficial for us to invest then.”  

“It’s a possibility, we’ve been thinking about it,” Eduardo says diplomatically. “But we haven’t hit 500 shareholders yet, so investing now could see a future increase afterward.”  

“That is true,” says the woman. She’s wearing purple lipstick and has a beauty mark. “But why the delay?”  

Eduardo takes a sip of her champagne. (You’d ordered beer.) “We’re in no rush,” she says. “We have over six hundred million active members—”  

“Six hundred and twenty,” you correct. 

“Six hundred and twenty million active members, and it’s only been increasing exponentially,” says Eduardo. “And we’ve been doing some restructuring so that if/when we go public, all the early private investors will have the same amount of control as before.”  

“That would dilute Miss Zuckerberg’s share, then?” says Goatee Man. 

You shrug. “It’s just money.”  

Goatee Man and Lipstick Woman laugh. “Coming from a twenty-five year old millionaire,” Lipstick Woman says. You don’t bother correcting her. (You’re a billionaire.) “I must say, it’s adventurous to stay private for so long.”  

“Like we said,” Eduardo says easily, “we’re in no rush. And Mark doesn’t care about money, as you can tell.”  

It’s meant to be light-hearted, surely, but you flinch anyway. If Eduardo notices, she doesn’t visibly react. 

Their tablemates chuckle again. “Fair enough,” says Lipstick Woman. “Let’s head back to our office and discuss this properly, shall we?”  

You take the same cars you’d come in; Lipstick Woman and Goatee Man say they’ll see you soon as you and Eduardo climb into your own car. Eduardo sits with you in the back; the partition is rolled up, shielding the driver’s view from you. 

You say, two minutes into the ride, “I do care about money.”  

Eduardo looks at you with surprise. She’d been tapping on her phone. She says, “Really. That’s news to me.”  

“Why would you think that I—”  

You cut yourself off and stare stubbornly out the window. Your arms are folded over your chest, across the belt of your dress. You remember your mouth saying, You’re gonna blame me because you were the business head of a company and you made a bad business deal with your own company? You remember Eduardo’s eyes when she’d said, Point zero three percent, across the stupid glass table. You remember when you’d signed something much larger than a speeding ticket after the lawsuit. 

Eduardo says, “I’m not sure if you know this, Mark, but it’s a lot more humble to say that you don’t care about money than to say that you do.”  

“I just don’t know why you of all people would say that after what happened with you.”  

The words taste like poison on your tongue, and you almost regret it. 

But it’s worth it when Eduardo’s eyes flash at you. There’s an inkling from the day, when your laptop had shattered at your feet. She says, “Is that what that was about, then? Because money meant so much to you that you took away all of mine, too?”  

Victoriously, you meet her gaze. “I can’t answer that,” you say. “We signed a nondisclosure agreement.”  

Eduardo stares hard at you, but you go back to gazing out at the city again. Eventually the sound of her typing at her phone resumes. The taste under your tongue is bitter and sweet. 

* 

Kroger’s and Eduardo (and you, technically) set up the contracts and send them to your legal teams. Afterward, Eduardo says she’s going to look around the city. You go back to the hotel and work on your computer.  

You wire in and out, get hungry and order room service, text Dustin incessantly about World of Warcraft, patching bugs and keeping an eye on Beast, from the webcam program you’d set up on your computer and in your apartment. The day fades into evening and being in a different city hides in the back of your mind, like it always does. You live in the digital age and the digital cities; everything else is just a formality. 

You’re eating a slice of pizza and snickering at a text from Dustin when you hear a knock at the door. You put the pizza down and trudge towards the door. 

Eduardo’s there, looking pissed. “Why did Chris email me saying that you’d given an official statement about our IPO launching next year?”  

You shrug. “I was answering emails last week. They’d asked.”  

“And you told them next year?”  

“I don’t see why not. That gives us plenty of time.” You go back to your desk—if Eduardo’s pissed enough, she’ll just slam your door closed and leave. 

But Eduardo follows you in, slamming it behind her instead. “You are aware that we just had a meeting today where we discussed how keeping Facebook private for a longer time is more strategic—”  

“And we don’t lose strategy if we go public next year,” you say, picking your slice of pizza back up. “Or something.”  

Eduardo inhales slowly. “You need to tell me these things, Mark.”  

“I told you now,” you say, rolling your eyes. You take a bite of your pizza and turn to your computer. “Next year’s a whole year, anyway, and if we decide to do it later—”  

“We are not deciding to do it any later.”  

“Okay,” you say. “So you agree.”  

You expect Eduardo to end it, to give up and just leave. But she comes over to you and leans back against your desk and shuts your laptop.  

You scowl up at her. “What the fuck, Eduardo?”  

“As your coworker, and more importantly, as your CFO,” she says, “you are telling me these things from now on. Every statement you release, every business decision you make—”  

“You don’t work in HR so I have no obligation to that,” you interrupt. “And if this is just so I won’t dilute your shares again—”  

“This isn’t about that,” Eduardo snaps.  

“Really,” you say dryly, crossing your arms. 

“Don’t be stupid, we have a new contract and the same lawsuit can’t go to court more than once.” Eduardo’s glare is electric, and it’s actually kind of intimidating, especially since you’re sitting down in your chair, still in your dress, and she’s kind of unintentionally towering over you. “But it’s fucking idiotic of you to have made such a blunt announcement like that, the least you could’ve done was left it ambiguous.”  

“Oh, sorry,” you say sarcastically. “I guess I’ll just call Forbes up again and say that I meant some time in the next ten years.”  

“You could’ve sent the email to me or anyone else on marketing.”  

“You forwarded the email to me,” you point out; Eduardo sends all her emails regarding the entire state of the company to you. 

“Then we could’ve talked it out,” says Eduardo, “before you actually said something.”  

You kick back in your chair and scowl at her. “I don’t know what you want me to do. Say sorry to you? Fire you again?”  

“Neither of those things are necessary,” Eduardo says shortly. “Just don’t be stupid again.”  

You roll your eyes. “I’m not an idiot. I created Facebook.”  

“And I actually graduated from Harvard.” Eduardo lifts herself up from your desk and heads back to your hotel room door. “Go to sleep early,” she says without turning around. “Our flight’s at ten tomorrow morning.”  

You huff, watching as the door closes behind her back. You glare at the door for a few seconds before turning back to your computer. It’s been years, and it’s kind of depressing to think about, that Eduardo is the hardest person for you to talk to these days when at one point she’d been the easiest person for you to talk to. You wire in, trying to ignore the itch at the back of your mind that still lives with the broken laptop pieces, the hiss of Eduardo’s voice when she’d said, I’m coming back for everything.  

A few hours pass and you’re still texting Dustin (who, over the years, had cultivated a sleep schedule not unlike yours) when your phone dies. You frown and search your backpack for your phone charger. 

(You left it at your apartment.)

Swearing, you call the front desk and ask if they carry lightning cables, but for some godforsaken reason they don’t. And you don’t want to go down to Eduardo’s because she’ll definitely still be pissed, but you need your phone for music and actual phone calls and all the transportation tomorrow morning. You find Eduardo’s room number in the itinerary Chris had emailed you both last week that you hadn’t really bothered to check until now, before leaving your room. 

The floors are carpeted and, being so upscale, more than comfortably clean, so you decide to go out barefoot since it’s only for a few minutes. You’d been too lazy to change out of your dress earlier so you’re still wearing it, and your loose ponytail has only gotten looser over the day. You tap the elevator button for the floor below yours, watch as the light goes down to 10, and find Eduardo’s door. 

You knock on it. 

“What?” Eduardo says, annoyed, rubbing her eyes. She’s still in her clothes from the day, but she has an extra button open and her own laptop is on the hotel desk. 

“I left my phone charger at home,” you say. “Can I borrow yours?”  

Her glare is fixating, but there really is no reason for her to say no. She makes you promise to give it back to her on the plane. 

* 

When your plane touches down the next day, it’s only noon, even though your flight was five hours long (again.) Eduardo drives you back, presumably to the office since it’s Thursday, but you say, “We should get lunch.” They had served lunch on the plane but you hadn’t been hungry and didn’t get any; Eduardo had, though. 

She glances at you, then says, “Okay.”  

So she stops at an In ’n Out on the drive back down to Palo Alto and goes through the Drive Thru, before stopping in the parking lot. She sits and unwraps her burger as you eat your fries. 

She says, “You don’t care about money, though.”  

You look at her through a mouthful of gravy and onion and potatoes. “What?”  

“You don’t care about money.” Eduardo takes a bite of her burger, chews, and swallows. “You don’t care that your percentage gets diluted for new investors. Yesterday at the meeting you’d even said, ‘it’s just money.’ You’d only diluted me to teach me a lesson, right?”  

“We can’t talk about it,” you say. 

“Bullshit. You know it’s just us right now, and I know you don’t care about nondisclosure agreements enough to take this to court.”  

You watch as Eduardo continues eating, as if you two were talking about the weather or the possibility of Microsoft investing more money in Facebook. Although in all fairness, you’d be more likely to talk about Microsoft; the weather is something Eduardo actually likes, and wouldn’t bother talking about with you. 

“I know what money means,” you say. “And I know it’s important to survival.”  

Eduardo rolls her eyes. “Well, a five-year old could tell you that,” she says. “So that’s what it was, wanting to take away my ability to survive?”  

You snort. “You grew up with money, Eduardo,” you say. “You had over two hundred grand in your own savings at the time. I’m pretty sure you could’ve survived.”  

“So it’s not that,” Eduardo says, moving on easily. “Then what was it? Not wanting me in your life anymore?”  

You become occupied with your fries, suddenly; you don’t want to talk about this. “Obviously not,” you say shortly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have signed for the settlement.”  

You feel her gaze on you, heavy, perhaps waiting for more. You refuse to, and finish your lunch in silence. You don’t talk about it, but you think about how becoming vegetarian has unfortunately warded you off In ’n Out burgers, though their fries are still good. Eventually Eduardo finishes her own lunch, and drives you both back in silence. 

* 

The rest of the day is business, as usual; Dustin yells at you, in person, for abandoning her the last time you were playing WoW with her. You work on some projects unrelated to Facebook, while managing the site, and then by extension the rest of the company. This is what your days have come to, but you never cared much about routine, anyway. 

You could leave the company; you could sell it to Yahoo for twenty billion; you could abandon it and watch it crash and burn with no one but you the wiser. When you’d signed the contract of reinstating Eduardo as your CFO, it held no legal obligation for you to stay with Facebook. You care, but you don’t care that much—it’s more a company than it is some coding project from your Harvard dorm anymore, and you were never that interested in business, anyway. 

Then again, you’re not interested in anything else—you don’t have anything to move onto. The same way there’s no reason for you to stay, there’s no reason for you to leave, either. So what if you and Eduardo are legally contracted to work together again? You don’t hate Eduardo; you never hated her. If she’s here to work with you, then there’s nothing stopping you from being able to work with her. Sure, you’re not the same as you were back in college, and she’s not coming into your dorm out of choice anymore, watching you procrastinate on homework and sitting on your bed reading her econ textbooks, rolling her eyes when you say that your minifridge has run out of beer and saying, So? and making you ask explicitly for her to buy more, because she’s the only one of age.  

It’s been years. You’ve both moved on. 

* 

On Wednesday, you have to attend a function at the San Jose conventional center, even though it’s storming and you’re pretty sure you’re coming down with something. Not that really matters—you go into work sick all the time, Dustin yells for everyone to clear away from you, and your assistant drops in with Advil every day until you stop sniffling. 

But you hate functions (really, just the whole socializing aspect of anything), and you have to go, anyway. 

On the ride, Chris says, “There should be tissues in the back, Mark,” and you sniff some more, as the rain patters down on the windows. You’re working offline on your laptop and getting a tissue would be too much work, but then Chris gives you a look from the rearview window that you can’t even pretend to not notice, so you feel around for the tissue box somewhere behind you. 

You’re in the same blue dress and when you get out, some water splashes on your ankles. You’re wearing flats because no one will let you attend any formal event in sneakers. They immediately get soaked through as soon as you step on the sidewalk. 

“Fuck,” you mutter, padding up the steps and inside where it’s dry. It’d probably be worse if you tracked rainwater everywhere. You take your shoes off and shove them into your assistant’s hands, and she looks disgusted but doesn’t complain. 

So you walk into this function with a white shawl over your shoulders and barefoot, hating the weather and also most of the people in this room. Dustin finds you, looks you up and down, and says, “What the hell happened to you?”  

“Rain,” you grumble. “Who do I have to say hello to before I can sit at the bar for the rest of the time?”  

“This is a social event.”  

Eduardo has appeared at Dustin’s shoulder. To these events Eduardo wears slinky dresses, even though you know she prefers shirts and trousers. Her dress today is deep blue, but not really Facebook blue. She also wears heels, which make her taller than she already is. 

“You’re supposed to be social, Mark,” she continues. She glances down. “And where are your shoes?”  

You shrug. “It’s raining. They got wet.”  

Eduardo makes a huffy sound and looks around. “I’ll get my assistant. I have an extra pair of shoes in my briefcase.”  

“Why do you have an extra pair of shoes?” you complain, though you follow her, anyway. She clacks through the convention center, making heads turn with how tall and gorgeous she looks—and with how pissed she looks, too. “I’m fine with being barefoot.”  

“You’re going to be stupid and get your toes stepped on, and no one else here is fine with you being barefoot.” Eduardo finds her assistant, who dutifully hands her her briefcase; she looks you up and down with a slight frown on her face. You always had a feeling that Eduardo’s assistant never liked you very much. 

“Thank you, Sasha,” Eduardo says, before turning to you. “And yes, they’re heels,” she says to you before taking them out. 

You stare, refusing to take them. “You know I can’t wear heels, Eduardo.”  

“Suck it up.” Eduardo’s gaze is hard on yours.  

You whine, “I’m going to trip and shit, it’s going to be worse than getting my feet stepped on—”  

“If you don’t try to run and actually watch where you’re going, you’ll be fine,” Eduardo says. “We’re here for Facebook, and you’re going to at least try to look professional.”  

“Eduardo—”  

There’d been a time in college, when you’d gone back to Eduardo’s dorm because she’d forgotten a textbook, and you were in between projects so nothing needed your immediate attention, and you wanted to see the inside of her dorm, anyway. She’d had her shiny hard business shoes by the front door, but she’d also had two pairs of heels that you’d snorted at and asked if she could actually walk in them, since the heels were so thin and long. Eduardo said it took balance and you bet that no one could have that kind of balance, so she’d put her heels on and had shown you. Then she’d dared for you to do it and you knew you weren’t going to be able to, but a dare was a dare and you’d walked three steps before tripping and she’d rolled over in laughter. 

Eduardo’s not remembering that now, though. “Put them on,” she says, impersonal. 

You snatch them away from her. “Fine,” you say, tugging them over your heel and fidgeting as you lean against the wall. She probably just wants to see you make a fool of yourself. You’ll show her and walk around perfectly. 

You leave her, wobbling a bit but otherwise balanced. Fuck what she said about this being a social event, anyway; she says that all the time and you still do whatever you want, which is mostly being antisocial and letting your assistant snatch away your computer every half an hour to pretend that you actually care about being here. You find Dustin, who is talking with your assistant. She brightens up when she sees you. 

“There you are!” Dustin says cheerfully. “We were worried that Eduardo killed you.”  

Your assistant, Molly, rolls her eyes. “Eduardo wouldn’t kill Mark,” she says. “Just maim her and leave her sitting alone in the dirt for a while.”  

“She might as well have,” you say, twitching on Eduardo’s heels. 

Dustin looks down and whistles. “Point,” she says. “Eduardo actually got you to wear those?”  

“Did I have a choice,” you grumble. You turn to Molly. “Laptop.”  

Molly pushes you away. “Socialize first,” she says, with a cheeky smile, before disappearing with your backpack (and laptop) in her arms. You stare forlornly after her. 

Dustin nudges you. “What’s it like, being in Eduardo’s shoes?” she teases. 

You elbow her, hard. “Oh my god, shut up,” you say, as she whines. “I hate this and I hate you.”  

“You don’t mean that, I know it,” Dustin says, still rubbing at her side where your pointy elbow had jabbed her. “Don’t abandon me next time, though. If one of you axes the other when I’m not looking, I refuse to take responsibility.”  

You snort. “That wouldn’t happen.”  

Dustin raises her eyebrows. 

“Eduardo wouldn’t axe anyone,” you say. “And I don’t hate Eduardo, not even close enough to wanting to axe her.”  

“But you would axe someone if you hated them,” Dustin states. 

You shrug. 

Dustin throws an arm over your shoulder. “Let’s get you around the room and put that to the test,” she says cheerily, and you say, “That’ll just end with me axing you.”  

* 

You do a tour around, but everyone who knows you already knows you’re not the greatest conversationalist, so they either pretend to not notice you or say a brief hello before moving on to someone else. You’re likable in other ways; there are actually a handful of investors and workers from other companies who are actually funny, hate these things as much as you do, and create cool things. You do, actually, talk to them. 

You’re still on your two feet (and Eduardo’s heels) when you decide to go to the bar for a drink. Dustin’s already lost in the crowd somewhere else, and the keynote isn’t supposed to start for another half an hour. 

You order a beer and sit down on a stool. Your feet are killing you and you take the heels off, place them on the bar counter. The bartender gives you a look but says nothing. You drink your beer and go to your phone, text your assistant for your laptop. She says not to do anything stupid before she gets here. 

You roll your eyes but continue going through your phone, trying to find a dumb game to play while you wait. You’ve just opened one when you hear Eduardo’s voice:  

“… going to get a drink, if you don’t mind?” she’s saying to someone. The man she’s with says, “Sure,” and you glance over. Eduardo’s smile tightens, like she’d wanted him to leave. 

You try not to be obvious when you watch Eduardo order a drink from the bartender, while the man she’s talking with—he’s young, possibly an app designer that wants Facebook to invest in and that Eduardo’s already tried saying no to—watches her, and waits. 

After Eduardo gets her drink, you’re proven right when she says to the guy, “You’ve gotten the game on the Androids and iPhones, though, right?”  

“Not like people play it,” the guy says. “Well, I don’t know, Facebook already has a lot of games already, so it’s not like it’ll actually make a difference—”  

“It does go on our servers, though,” Eduardo points out. “Which we pay for.” She takes a sip of her drink and smiles. “Although I don’t really work on the hands-on stuff, so you don’t have to take my word for it.”  

“No, I do,” the man says quickly. “I’d just—We don’t have to talk about it anymore, anyway. Are you looking forward to the keynote?”  

“I don’t know much about biotech, sorry,” Eduardo says politely. “We’ve invested in it, but other than the finances, my knowledge is really minimal.”  

“That’s okay,” says the guy. He’s trying really hard. You’re snickering at the corner of your mouth; Eduardo catches your eye but doesn’t say anything. “What do you like?” the guy says. 

Eduardo answers, “The weather.”  

“The weath—” He looks thrown off for a moment. “Well, this rain is pretty crazy, right?”  

Outside the thick glass windows the rain and wind are coming down heavier than before, rattling the bushes. Every so often the thunder rumbles the ground beneath the building, but anyone who’s lived in California for long enough knows how to get used to it. 

Eduardo shrugs, takes another sip of her drink. “I’ve seen worse,” she says. 

“I mean, I dunno.” The guy laughs nervously as he glances outside. “I didn’t even bring an umbrella.”  

“You could’ve,” Eduardo says, lifting her glass to her mouth again. “If you’d listened to a weather forecast this morning.”  

You snort even louder, that you have to turn away so the very hapless guy doesn’t notice you. You’re so occupied with hiding your laughter that you don’t notice that Eduardo has successfully warded the guy off until she sits next to you a moment later, asking the bartender for another gin and tonic. 

It’s a surprise, but you don’t let it show. You sip your beer and wonder if she expects you to leave, or if she’s going to a second later. 

After a minute when she’s sitting with you but not leaving, you say, “I think he was trying to sleep with you.”  

Eduardo scrunches her nose. “Not even if he was actually charming,” she says. “What are you doing with your shoes off?”  

“They’re your shoes.”  

She gives you a look. 

“I’m sitting down,” you say. “I don’t need to wear them.”  

“Don’t put them on a table at the very least.” Eduardo takes her heels by their straps and sets them on the carpeted ground. “And you’re sitting for another five minutes before you go out and socialize again.”  

“I don’t see how you expect me to listen to you,” you say. 

“Don’t you want to prove to me that you can spend a whole day in my heels?” Eduardo doesn’t even wait for you to respond. “I hate this as much as you do, but it’s a part of our job.”  

“I wasn’t aware you hated it,” you say, rolling the rim of your glass between your fingers. 

“There are worse things,” Eduardo replies mildly, “but there are also better things.”  

You have something to say to that, but before you can, a sneeze escapes from your throat. It takes both you and Eduardo by surprise, and you wipe at your face with your arm before grabbing the napkin from under your beer and using that, instead. 

Eduardo says, “Allergies?”  

“No,” you say, sniffling. “I have a cold. It’s been a while since I took Advil this morning.”  

“Ugh.” Eduardo whips out her cellphone. “I’ll get—”  

“It’s okay, Molly’s on her way.” You nod to the entrance of the bar, where your assistant is coming in with your backpack. You get the front pocket open and grab a pill, downing it dry. Then you take your backpack from her and say, “Thanks.”  

“Mark,” Eduardo says to you warningly. 

You get your laptop out on the bar and wave her off. “I’ll be out for the keynote,” you say. 

* 

Your cold lasts as long as the storm does, which only makes you feel worse. On a Tuesday you see Eduardo walking ahead of you, umbrella propped on her shoulder, a long overcoat over her shoulders and not minding the weather at all. You scurry past her under your own umbrella, pretending you don’t know that it’s her, even though you know the angle of her shoulders and her deep purple umbrella very well. 

In the office, you have a box of tissues on one side of your computer, and a pile of crumpled tissues on the other. You rub at your nose as you work, which just makes your nostrils more raw and sore, and still runny and clogged and makes you type at the pace of an intern. You’d already taken your dosage this morning so you just have to unattractively stuff wads of tissue up your nostrils so you can get actual work done. 

Dustin emails you midway through the morning, Boss, you look like hell. How about I treat you to lunch today? 

Only if we get sushi, you send back. 

You ALWAYS want sushi. Ugh. Fine. Noon though. Be there or be square.

We work twenty feet away from each other.

And I’ll pry your cold dead hands from your laptop if I have to. 

There’s a knock at your door. “Our quarterly’s tomorrow, don’t forget,” says Eduardo. “And these are from your assistant.”  

She tosses something at you, which you catch easily. It’s the bottle of Advil. You look up, maybe to say thank you—only instinctively—but Eduardo’s already made her way out of your office. 

At noon, Dustin enters, waggling her fingers and making her way over to you. “I’m here for some cold dead hands,” she says, and you shut your laptop immediately. You know she’ll actually start grabbing your laptop away from you, and Dustin can do whatever the hell she wants with anybody else’s piece of tech but you’re allowed to not trust her with yours. 

“Stop being weird and buy me sushi,” you grump, grabbing your wallet and keys out of habit. “My nose feels like it’s seceding from my body.”  

“That could be a real health problem,” Dustin says seriously. “I’m sure sushi will cure that.”  

You walk together to a sushi place on University Avenue, one that you regular where all the waitresses know your name. Of course, there are other reasons for that, because they know Dustin too even though Dustin’s only come with you a handful of times. Sushi’s one of the only vegetarian foods she actually likes, though, so your suggestion hadn’t been just for you. 

Your conversation bounces from topic to topic: actual Facebook things, World of Warcraft (as usual), Beast. Eventually you make an offhand comment about your cold and Eduardo bringing your pills despite not caring. Dustin snorts into her avocado roll and says, “You’re the CEO to her CFO, Mark, I’m pretty sure she cares.”  

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything,” you say, dunking a California roll into your soy sauce. “It’s not like I expect her to care. She just doesn’t.”  

“Knowing Wardo, she probably does,” says Dustin.  

You don’t make a comment about how you don’t call her that anymore; even your assistant calls her that, after hearing Dustin and Chris and Eduardo’s assistant and a bunch of other people around the office throw it around so casually. Back in college, the nickname had been—yours, but you were with Eduardo all the time and it eventually just spread to anyone who knew you both. Now that population consists of basically all your mutual coworkers. 

“She’d want her boss alive at the very least,” Dustin says, and then chuckles. “Man, I can’t believe you two have been doing this for so long.”  

“Doing what?” you say, annoyed. 

“Just.” Dustin waves a hand. “I mean, I remember back when she got signed back on and, like, we were all afraid to leave you two in the same room together. You know how terrifying that shit was?”  

“No,” you say, because neither you nor Eduardo are particularly terrifying people, at least in your opinion.  

“Well, believe me,” says Dustin. “It was terrifying.” She pops a piece of sushi in her mouth. 

You work on your own lunch, trying not to ponder over Dustin’s words. “I mean,” you say, not really thinking. “We’ve been coworkers longer than we were friends, before.”  

“That,” says Dustin, “sounds really depressing.”  

You shrug. “It’s true,” you say, because it is. “She’s the one who wanted to be reinstated as CFO, anyway.”  

“And you just let her.”  

“It was the best thing to do at the time,” you say. “Financially.” And Eduardo’s actually been a good CFO since then, not making dumb business decisions like she had when you were both still in Harvard—she’d gotten right to what Facebook’s financial plan already was, and went from there.  

“And she has, what,” says Dustin. “A twelve percent stake now? Not that it really matters, to me—” Dustin still has her six percent “—but like. She destroyed you in the depositions.”  

You don’t really care. It’s been years since the lawsuit. “She said she would, and she did,” you say, shrugging again. You lift up a tuna roll. “Facebook’s standing, so I don’t really care.” 

Dustin shakes her head. “I’m just like, man,” she says. “If I was in your position, I would’ve quit or gone crazy at this point. Like, it’s weird to think that you guys are okay but not actually okay.” She squints at you. “And you never will be, will you?” 

“I didn’t realize ‘okay’ had two different definitions,” you say dryly. “And I don’t think there’s anything more for us to be.” You eat another piece of sushi. Dustin’s become your best friend now, though she doesn’t really know it, and you’re perfectly happy with the way things are. 

* 

Eduardo has to fly out to Singapore to meet with designers for potential apps on Facebook for a few weeks. You know this because it’s on your calendar, along with Meeting with PR and Shareholder’s meetings, every quarter. 

At work the monotony resumes, which mostly means you’re watching over Facebook in one window, IMing Dustin in a second, and on a World of Warcraft server in a third. Your assistant brings you lunch and doesn’t bother withholding her look of judgment when she sees what’s going on on your computer screens. Dustin tries to bring Chris into an IM group but Chris leaves immediately, because she’s smart. 

You get a text in the afternoon—roughly thirty hours since Eduardo has left—that says, +975mb, -480mb. PS: Stop playing WoW at work. 

You reply, For a single app? PS: No. 

Cumulative. I’m surprised you admitted it.

You can settle for nearly an entire gig for multiple apps, though they’re probably small ones like knockoff Tetris games or Notes that no one will use. Eduardo knows what she’s doing most of the time, and eventually they decide to leave or you let them go and the company still benefits financially. 

You send, For how much? 

0.0004% Most promising: mobile, IM for Galaxy users.

Who tf uses Galaxy phones? Even you have an iPhone.

Thoughtfulness and inclusivity.

Which is overrated.

The texting peters out after that, and your afternoon turns into working with Dustin on a faster loading script for the newsfeed, because Support has been getting complaints (again) and you’re always up for making things better. Your day proceeds as usual, except without the dark turn of a shoulder to pass by on your way out; and in the morning you know there is no one in front of you or behind you, going to the same place. 

* 

“Mark.” Chris knocks at the door frame of your office. “Can I come in?”  

You shrug, music still blasting from your headphones. Over the years you’ve learned to hear through it, though the music is always a good cover-up for when you feel like pretending you’re not paying any attention. 

Chris comes in, sitting at the edge of your desk. You realize belatedly that she actually wants to talk which rarely happens. The last time was when she wanted three weeks off to visit her girlfriend in DC, which was less of her trying to persuade or ask you and more of her making a point for you not to contact her at all during those three weeks. 

You take your headphones off. “What?”  

“Uh.” Chris fidgets on your desk, playing with her fingers. “I… I’m leaving.”  

You blink. 

“What?” you say again. 

“I’m leaving Facebook,” Chris says. “I figured it was about time—I wanted to leave a few years ago for the 2008 election—” she had been a very aggressive Obama supporter and actually handed out pins at the office, her eyes threatening if they dared to support McCain back then “—but the stuff with Eduardo was still happening, so I—I didn’t—Anyway, the point is, I’m leaving.”  

“You’re leaving,” you repeat. 

Chris nods. 

“But it’s been—” It’s been almost eight years, you’ve been working together for that long. Chris has been your friend since college, and so has—everyone else—  

“It’s not personal,” Chris says quickly. Then: “Well, maybe it is. It’s easier being friends with you than working for you, you know.” There’s an edge to her smile you’d otherwise appreciate, but you’re still processing her words. “But it’s not your fault.” 

“I know it’s not my fault,” you say, perhaps a little too snappishly. Chris’s eyebrows knit together and you force yourself to calm down. “Are you going into politics then?”  

“Something or other.” Chris shrugs and smiles. “Mark, I just want you to know that—it’s my moving on with my life, because Facebook’s not forever for me.”  

“Okay,” you say. 

“But that doesn’t mean our friendship isn’t, or that you aren’t.”  

“Okay,” you say again. 

After Chris leaves, you wire in pretty much immediately. A part of you wants to ask Dustin if Chris had already told her, if she’d known all along—there’s a weird part of you that suddenly gets the idea that Dustin will leave too, because you remember a few years ago when you were all at a party and Dustin had laughed and said, “Well Facebook was never part of the game plan, and who knows? There might be something else.” You’d written it off as just something she’d said while she was drunk, but—  

Well, Dustin’s not the one leaving right now. Chris is. And it’s going to be weird working without her, to look for a new head of HR and do interviews and shit, but you’re going to have to. It’s Chris’s choice. And Facebook is yours. 

* 

In the evening, you cave in. 

Did you know?

You’re going to have to be more specific than that. It’s nine AM in Singapore. 

Chris.

Did I know she was going to leave? Yes. She talked to me about it a few months back.

What did you say?

I don’t see how that’s important.

Then: I told her she should do what she feels is best and go for what she wants. I think she’s been sure about leaving for a long time, just not sure about when. 

You try not to think about the implications of that—Eduardo doing what she felt was best, going for what she wanted. In the early days, and during the lawsuit. 

A third text comes in. 

Go to sleep.

** 

After the lawsuit, and after you’d signed the new contracts, you had to be there for Eduardo’s first day of work. The former placeholder CFO had to catch her up on the current affairs and you had to be in the meeting too, and the whole time you were drawing Facebook’s mobile layout and glowering across the table. 

At the meeting’s end, everyone else—Legal, HR, the old stand-in CFO—went their separate ways. You’d quickly caught up with Eduardo and bit out, “Welcome back.”  

She’d smiled at you, insincere. “It’s good to be back,” she said, and you couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or mocking you.  

“I guess you got what you wanted,” you sneered. “Everything.”  

Eduardo shrugged. “Enough,” she said, looking around the new offices. You’d moved here a couple of months ago, further south on University Avenue; the buildings just kept getting bigger and bigger. 

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Eduardo said casually. “I look forward to working with you again.”  

“Bullshit,” you’d said, but Eduardo had just sent you a thin smile before walking to her office, leaving you alone. 

* 

You wonder if it was easier for Eduardo to be friends with you than to work for you, now. 

* 

Chris’s announcement to you is basically her two weeks’ notice, and it goes by fast. At the end of it, someone (Dustin) decides to throw a going away party in a conference room, and you don’t want to go but someone (Dustin) bodily drags you to it. 

Eduardo is in Beijing now but still overseas; she hasn’t come back since Singapore. You stand off to the side of the room, eating nuts from the trail mix bowl, a bottle of beer in your hands. 

Chris comes up to you, smiles, easy. “How are you going to survive without me?” she asks, cradling her own beer in her hand. 

You roll your eyes. “We’ll manage. And even if we don’t, I’m sure you’ll love to see us crash and burn without you.”  

Laughing, Chris bumps her shoulder with yours. “I’m not going to admit it, but you’re not wrong,” she says. She takes a sip of her beer and looks around the room. “You’ve really come so far, haven’t you?” she says. 

“We’ve come this far,” you correct. 

“Aw, how sweet,” Chris teases. “Hey Dustin,” she calls to Dustin, who is passing by. “Mark’s getting all sentimental on me.”  

“What? No way.” Dustin bounds over to you both, grinning. You scowl as hard as you can, even though you’ve always been lightweight and Dustin has some popcorn stuck in her hair. “You broke her, Chris,” Dustin says. “You’re leaving and Mark’s turning into a whole new person.”  

“You wish,” you say. 

“Don’t go without visiting for too long,” Dustin says warningly to Chris. “I don’t know if I can handle this much Mark by myself.”  

You say, “Stay away as long as you like. Make Dustin suffer.”  

Chris says, “I’m really going to miss you guys,” but then adds, “but I’m looking forward to moving in with my girlfriend even more.”  

* 

She leaves and then she’s living on the other side of the country, that quickly, and you’re still doing interviews for a new head of PR. Sheryl’s the current stand-in, and you and Eduardo and the rest of HR spend more time than usual deciding, but only because Chris had been so efficient that she’s a lot to live up to. Eventually, everyone settles and you find someone new, a young outspoken woman your age named Therese with a good sense of humor, and you’re pretty happy about the situation. 

As you and Eduardo leave the meeting with the new lead of HR, you think about—saying something, about how Chris had always been on, since the beginning, with the two of you, and now it’s strange that she’s leaving. But Eduardo’s already heading back to her office without a second glance back, so you don’t. 

The shareholder’s meeting is a couple of weeks later, so you’ve got all these representatives flying in, ready to be caught up to speed with the current financial affairs of the company. You’re long used to them but sometimes it’s strange for you to think about how so many adults are treating you like an adult like them, rather than the kid who just thought she had a cool project to work on from her college dorm. You direct these things, technically; but Eduardo actually organizes and does more of the talking, and she looks and holds herself adult more than you will ever feel. 

(At least in your own building, you’re allowed to wear hoodies and Adidas flip-flops.) 

During the meeting, she says, “As you may have heard, we have recently announced that we will be releasing our IPO in the next year.” Her eyes are hard on yours, and you refuse to look away. “It wasn’t our original plan, but we have made a rather spontaneous decision that it is our best course of action.”  

“How much are you selling per stock?” one shareholder representative asks. 

Eduardo tears her gaze away from yours. “We’re aiming somewhere between twenty-eight and thirty-four,” she answers. “But we also can’t underestimate the state of the economy in the next year.” She turns back to her Powerpoint—when she addresses the audience again, her eyes are on you. “Of course, this will affect the stock restructuring, but having public investments will only allow the capital to increase…”  

She keeps staring at you hard, so you stare right back. You know that she’d wanted to discuss and talk out a lot of the—money shit, that she’s just telling everyone without their input now. That had been the plan she’d discussed at the last meeting; but even if this were your fault, it’s your company, anyway. Well, on paper it’s Eduardo’s, too. But you’re CEO and she’s not. 

Afterward, she smiles sweetly at you and says, “I could’ve used half the time outlining the plan for next year catching everyone up to speed, instead.”  

“It’s all in the handouts,” you say. You do roll your eyes now, since she can properly see you up close. “And you caught everyone up to speed pretty well, anyway.”  

“I appreciate the approval, but that’s not what I meant.” You’re walking out of the conference room together, at the head of the crowd. “And stop staring at me like that when I talk.”  

“Staring at you like that?” You turn to her with surprise. “I’m supposed to be looking at you when you’re speaking, aren’t I?”  

“Whatever.” Eduardo’s not looking at you now, walking at a brisk pace that you have to jog a little to keep up with. “See me in Conference Room 2A in an hour so we can discuss the corporate restructuring for next year’s IPO.”  

You whine, “We can do that months from now.”  

“And we’re getting started today,” Eduardo snaps. “I don’t care if you hate every one of my decisions, but this is something we have to discuss as soon as possible.”  

Yeah, because she wants to prove to you that she can make smart business decisions now, you think to yourself.  

* 

Walking Beast is not a chore for you, though there are days when it feels less of a necessity and more of indulging this fluffy yapping thing that is now in your life. “Calm down,” you mutter as you take the leash out from the hallway closet. Beast barks against your leg, but you nudge her out of the way and grab your keys from the kitchen counter. You do actually have a keyholder next to your door, you just often forget to use it.

Fastening the leash onto her collar, you step out, the cool autumn afternoon breeze tickling your skin and between your curls. You lock the door and hold Beast back as she starts trotting eagerly, wanting to run after leaf that dances down the sidewalk. It’s the weekend, and your usual walk path takes you to the outskirts of the excitement of the city, down Hamilton and past your offices, looping around a nice neighborhood that has a library that Chris liked to visit. 

But today, as you trail out your block with Beast running this way and that, there’s construction around a pothole that interferes with your usual route. You take a glance to the side—that way gets really in University, and you don’t trust Beast amongst the craziness of cars, especially towards the end of a weekend. Up ahead looks peaceful though, the same street still. You try not to think too hard as you drag Beast forward from trying to jump into the blocked off pothole, and say, “C’mon Beast, we’re going this way today.”

Despite your aversion to the outdoors—which really was just incidental with the whole programming thing, until one summer when you were sixteen you went on a family vacation and got sunburnt like a lobster during the first hour and then the rest of the week—walking your dog is not the worst thing in the world. And with the sun fading behind purple and smoke from pollution, in a flurry of purple and golden clouds cascading over the sky, it’s even enjoyable. Beast obviously thinks so, anyway, with the way she trots forward so fast, gets distracted by something on the side of the road, and you have to pull her back along.

You make a loop back when it feels like it’s a good halfway point, where the road has turned into nothing but residential houses and faux white suburbia when it’s really just college kids. Like the house you bought way back when with Eduardo’s money, here in this city—not here here, on this street, but, you know, close. These houses are closer to Stanford campus though so they probably don’t have a pool.

You’re pondering this, anyway, when a jogger on the other side of the road catches your eye. It doesn’t register at first until you do a double take—and your stomach lurches annoyingly. It’s been doing a lot of that lately.

Eduardo is not decked out in the forties-mom gear—just simple shorts and a t-shirt, hair tied in a high tight ponytail, listening to music with white headphones. You pretend you haven’t noticed, hadn’t fucking looked back to make sure your eyes were seeing correctly, and resolutely continue on your walk with Beast. Maybe you walk quicker. Maybe you walk slower.

And, anyway, Eduardo escapes your line of vision because she’s going in the opposite direction.