He is visible through the throng of the crowd, and you are angled to the side, dark suit over your broad shoulders. You see him, in the corner of your eyes. Peripheral, like he is not really there.

Notes:

Thank you to Christie and Ana for being my favorites as always and betaing/looking over this ♥

Minor disclaimer that if something seems to be inaccurate in this fic (like law or weather or something), it's not trying to be. Put a lampshade on it :B

Title from The Hush Sound's "Hurricane," which was one strong influence for this fic; the other was Ellie Goulding's "Your Biggest Mistake," which I had also considered for title inspiration. Both songs are rather fitting with this (but mostly after finishing it), so have a listen :3

Spoiler warnings in the bottom note.

B-Side/Deleted Scenes

(See the end of the work for more notes)

Flicker. That’s all it takes—you don’t miss the angle of his body, across the room. He is visible through the throng of the crowd, and you are angled to the side, dark suit over your broad shoulders. You see him, in the corner of your eyes. Peripheral, like he is not really there.

You do not think, in the moment, that he has seen you.

He has.

There are these events. Ever since he signed the check, you have been getting invited to Facebook events for shareholders. You come; he does not try to approach you. You charm the businessmen and ladies and are at home with your flute of champagne. You know he is here, because Facebook runs between conversations and words and your teeth, easy, fluid. Sometimes he is twenty feet from you. Or a hundred and forty seven. That’s the distance between the entrance of this hall (where he is, typing in the corner with a fleece over his button-up) and the other end (where the keynote speaker is flirting with you.)

He used to be a wound in your arm piercing through your skin, scar tissue in human form. He used to be the throbbing pulse around your wound, bigger and louder than before. He used to run deep in your veins, every millimeter of blood—

He used to be the pang of loneliness in New York.

No—

He used to be on an airplane, to somewhere you can’t see, and you would call to the sky that you love him. And he wouldn’t hear you, because he is on that plane, miles and miles away, shielded by metal and turbulence and leaving—

He used to be the boy whose bed you stole and whose mini-fridge you’d stock with beer. He used to be smiles that you would barely catch, jokes you’d finish under your breath, a warmth beneath your palms—

It is raining.

This is another event. You are talking, laughing with some woman in a red low-cut dress, with a man in a penguin copycat tuxedo and a receding hairline. They love you because you are young. You know this.

You turn your head to laugh again. On occasion this can feel fake, but you are long used to it—this part is real. Your eyes flicker, as they do, catching upon the periphery of your vision.

He is there. His gaze meets yours.

Your smile goes faint, and you are quiet for a moment. You do not stare, because staring is longer than half a second, and you turn to your company again.

The evening continues. You feel that if you were to look in his direction again, you might catch him watching you again. You don’t want to.

You drift in and out of the crowd like a ghost.

Flicker.

***

During the settlement, you’d been talking to your lawyer about what you were going to do afterwards. You were loud. (You didn’t care.)

“Singapore,” you’d said, and she’d raised her eyebrows and said nothing, because nothing needed to be said. Singapore is on the other side of the world. It is farther away from California than New York had ever been.

He’d passed you, then.

***

He is always at these events. Every single one that you come to. You—

He is the CEO of Facebook. Of course he is always here.

You would be, too, if you were still a part of Facebook. You would be by his side, and he would introduce you as, “My CFO, Eduardo Saverin.” Or perhaps you would say, “My CEO, Mark Zuckerberg,” and everyone would laugh. You would grab wines and champagnes for the both of you, and when you would turn to him he would already have a beer bottle in his hand. You would look at him, long-suffering, and say, “Mark,” in that way of yours. He would scrunch his nose at the wine and champagne, because there is a bar in the back and he likes the easy, sloppy way of drinking.

You. You like all the ways.

You are about thirty-two feet away from him. You pretend you don’t see him. He is like dirt that gets in your eye, that you know is bothersome, hopeless to chase. That if you look at it too hard, it’ll disappear—

No. You want him to be that dirt in your eye. You want him to disappear.

Singapore is. Singapore. Google says it’s the happiest country in the world. You suppose you are happy, half a planet between you two. Singapore has beautiful women and beautiful men, and you have a lot of money now.

At one of these events, he comes up to you.

“Wardo,” he says. He is close enough for you to reach out and touch him with your fingertips. You could grab onto him, as tight as you wanted, in case he might go away. You don’t.

“Hello, Mark,” you say.

“Can I talk to you?”

You glance over his face. “We’re talking right now.”

There is an air here, settling in. You can feel the space between your bodies. Overhead, the chandelier glows, the same musty yellow as it had been on the day that he’d brought you out into the November cold, said, I had an idea, and you were shaking in your sandals.

“No, I mean,” he says. Tries. “Alone.”

You smile at him. It does not touch the corner of your eyes, where you have begun to grow crow’s feet.

You open your mouth—

A voice behind you says, “Champagne?” You turn around. It is him, your ex-best friend, some sort of curve hidden in the slide of his lips.

You take the offered flute. “I didn’t know you drank champagne.” You don’t need to choose your words carefully.

He shrugs.

His mouth is confusing, world-changing, like code. “I don’t,” he says.

You tilt the glass up. “To us,” you say.

His mouth is a straight line, and his gaze is off-kilter.

You drink. It is minding your own business. He has said three words to you. You don’t particularly wait for him to say anymore.

“Did you need something?” you ask, civil.

He says, “I wanted to talk to you.”

He says, “No.” He walks away.

There is already a glass of champagne in your hand. You are talking, laughing with some investors. It is like Harvard, where you have friends around every corner, where Chris can get into the parties at MIT, where Dustin can find girls in Art History classes. You have the boys here and the boys back home (in Singapore) and you do not answer to anyone.

This is when he comes up to you. You have been nearly expecting it, because you have not missed the way he stares at you across the ballroom. You’re not fucking blind. You’ve seen it. He stares for too long.

He says, “Eduardo.” Every syllable sounds thought out.

The people around you stop laughing.

You turn, say, “Mark.” Your smile falters for only a bit, but you will be polite, say what you can to appease him and then get rid of him.

(like a girl approached in a bar from the back, with barely enough room for an explanation—)

He does not offer you another glass of champagne. He does not say that he wants to talk to you. You do not ask him if he needs something. His gaze burns deep into yours.

See, at these functions, you don’t know everyone. There are always new startups, new companies, new businesses and organizations and foundations to support. You smile and make friends and put everyone under the right names in your contacts list. You remember every face, every name, always remember to ask, “How are the kids?” and “When are you going to Italy again?” and “Did you kill your plant yet?” Your smile does not stray too far from your lips. Everyone drinks you in.

There is a man. He expects you to know everyone. No—he wants you to. He is old. Sometimes he is forgetful.

He says, “And this, of course, the CEO and founder of Facebook.”

He says, “This is Mark Zuckerberg.”

He says, “Have I introduced you to my friend, Mark Zuckerberg?”

You don’t know this guy. Maybe he is old, or maybe he is young. He stands between the two of you like he is ephemeral, unimportant.

This is the first time you have seen him since the settlement.

You smile, and you say, “Yeah, I know him.”

You smile, and stick your hand out, and say, “Nice to meet you.”

He takes your hand. He fixes you with one of those confused scowls. You shake hands like you are the only ones there.

He says, “We’ve met.”

You say, “I know, he was my ex-best friend and I was the CFO of Facebook before he screwed me out.” You are smiling.

***

Singapore has a lot of nightclubs. You go dancing. There are a lot of women who like to dance with you. A lot of men, too.

Singapore is a small city-country on the other side of São Paulo and New York and Miami. It is seventy degrees Fahrenheit all year round, and they speak English and Mandarin the most. You know English. You’ve picked up some Mandarin. You have some Sri Lankan friends so there are words and catchphrases in Tamil you’ve picked up on.

Singapore is worse—better than Brazil or Miami, in terms of the weather. You love the humidity, the water in the air sticking to your skin. In Massachusetts you’d complained about the dryness and the propensity to cold; you always wore thick black jackets and long sleeves underneath. Harvard was so cold outside, but inside was yellow and warm and like every other college kid you liked the taste of beer. You liked the hazy eyes at night, the roiling in your belly, the lick down your spine like the tropics against your neck.

You don’t think about the weather that much. You have other things on your mind.

***

“Pick up the check, Mark,” you say.

He rolls his eyes. He scuffs his foot under the table. “What if I don’t want to?”

You give him a look. You couldn’t make him do everything—you couldn’t even make him do most things—

You give him a look. “We all know that money doesn’t mean a lot to you.”

“Yeah, and we know how much it means to you.”

You don’t reply; you don’t need to. You can continue watching him with those eyes of yours, somehow darker in the curved booth, under the bright lights that isolate you both from the rest of the restaurant. You don’t understand him, how sometimes he’ll do things, consider things, just to be an asshole. To test the world around him. You’ve been tested before.

“I’ll get the check,” he says.

You nod. You are standing, half caught into the restaurant’s shadows, half in the light. There are dust motes under the lamp.

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“You just like being an asshole,” you say. Fond. Familiar.

He says, “Yeah, it was okay.”

Two pairs of footsteps trail out of the booth.

***

The Facebook shareholders meeting is in June. You go.

He is there, at the head of the table. He is doodling in a legal pad. You have not seen him since the settlement. This means nothing to you.

You have no reason to stop and say hello.

You walk into the room. Some people you know are already there and wave at you across the table. You wave back. You pretend not to notice who is in your peripheral.

The meeting starts. You are attentive. When he stands and speaks, you have no trouble watching him. He does not look at you when he does. You do not expect him to.

Afterward, you have said a handful of words total and are packing up your things. This is just one of the many shareholder’s meetings you have to attend annually, these days. There are lots more. There are kids in Singapore, smart kids, whom you help with their startups. There are so many companies and bright ideas and doors you have your foot in and friends you make and businesses you are a part of. This meeting is but a blip in your life.

You stand up. He is there.

“Wardo,” he says; he always has to have the first word.

You incline your head slightly. “Mark.”

You are the fastest to pack up. You are the first one out.

He lingers by the door, maybe for you, but you don’t meet his eyes as you leave.

***

Singapore is not that far.

***

Here’s the story you tell your friends:

He was an asshole, your best friend. He asked you for the money because you had it—you had loads of it, you still do. He asked you to be CFO as a formality, and he asked you for money whenever he needed it, because he knew you’d give it to him. You never had a choice in the matter. He was using you. You didn’t know.

Eventually, there was a lot you didn’t know. Eventually, he didn’t need you anymore. Eventually, instead of telling you, calling you up like a bad breakup, he made you believe that you still had all of this when he took it when you weren’t looking. When you asked him why, he wasn’t there.

You have told this story many times. You have told it so much that you’ve started to believe it.

***

He is at another function; so are you. He is at the bar.

You come up to the counter. “One beer, please.”

He hears you, glances up at you. You pretend not to notice; the bartender gives you your bottle. You crack it open and take a sip.

He is waiting for you to say something; you’d come here, after all. He is confused.

“Mark,” you say.

This is the first time you have spoken to him since the settlements.

His eyes are unfocused, head fuzzy. He is drunk. Probably wants a computer keyboard in front of him so he can crash this hotel’s network, so he has an excuse to go home. He is tired; the bags under his eyes are heavy; his skin is pale under the blue-glow of the bar, the back of his skin and his knuckles pink from the tightness, the strain. You see him from the edge of your eyes.

The counter is sticky, more like a real bar than a sleek hotel one. You leave before you can hear him say your name.

Why the hell would you get a beer when you could be drinking champagne?

***

You send your assistant to the shareholders meetings. You never come. It’s not worth the effort.

After the meeting, you stop in the office bullpen. You say hello to the interns and staff you are friendly with, the ones you’ve met at functions and have never seen you scream, the tears in your eyes and the flush in your cheeks and the hatred in your gait. These are the ones in your contacts list.

You should not stay long. He materializes by your elbow and says, “Wardo, can I talk to you for a minute?”

You look at him. You smile.

You say, “Goodbye, Mark.”

After the meeting, you drive home. You hate seeing him, hate the way that you two can sit in the same room and pretend that nothing has happened. You get spectacularly drunk before driving home and—

You take the first flight back to—

***

You think about calling him, sometimes. Half-hoping that he will call you. That he will be the one to break first, maybe say, I miss you.

Do you miss him?

Do you want him to miss you?

You want to wake up in the middle of the night in Singapore, when it’s noon in Palo Alto and he is day drunk and alone in his office and calls you up, throws back at you, “Do you remember the algorithm, on the window at Kirkland?” You want your assistant to come into your office during the middle of the day, frowning and saying, “It’s Mark Zuckerberg,” and you will deliberate for a long time before sighing and saying, “Transfer the call to me,” and it will be midnight in Palo Alto and he will be drunk. You want him to call you, completely sober, to ask you about something trivial that he has forgotten and you would remember, because you miss the sound of his voice.

You don’t.

***

There is an event. You are here (again), nursing a wine glass in your hand, listening intently to your fellows, smile tucked into the corner of your mouth. You are wearing a suit that you had bought last week. It is black.

He walks by you, with his assistant on one side and an app designer on the other. They are talking and discussing about something that is unimportant to you; you are listening to a conversation with people who are not them. You nod in all the right places. The sight of him catches your eye.

His gaze flickers. To yours.

You smile at him.

He smiles back.

***

You go back to Singapore. You always do. You hadn’t lied to your lawyer, hadn’t changed your mind, hadn’t decided to stay in the country and maybe move to New York or even hang around Palo Alto to look at the businesses starting up here. You hadn’t even gone to become a storm chaser, for all your love of meteorology; or started up your own hedge fund, next to Wall Street.

You go to Singapore.

California does not leave a bitter taste in your mouth anymore. Every creation myth needs its devil, and your story has already been told. It is over. It is not fate or bad luck, but the wrong people being in the wrong places at the wrong time, making the wrong choices. You move on.

You use Facebook like any other user. You post pictures of your friends (in Singapore), your family, visiting your parents in Florida or weather patterns in Argentina. You live your own life on the other side of the world. Every once in a while you fly out to—

***

There is a universe where he grabs you by your arm as you walk out of the Facebook offices. He says, “Don’t go.”

You laugh in his face.

“Didn’t you hear anything I just said?” you say. Your voice is cold and iron-grey even though you are warm-colored under the lights. “You kicked me out of our company, Mark. Sorry, your company. How can you expect me not to—”

He says, “You were the one who made the bad business decision.”

You say, “Don’t make me pretend to punch you, too.”

***

He has an office in his house. It is across the bedroom, though he often forgets about it because in the mornings when he wakes up he grabs something to eat, and his laptop is usually already there, and he works on his kitchen table. The office is there as a formality, stacks of papers and deposition transcripts and folders at the desk. Sometimes he uses it.

The spread on the kitchen table is white and boring. The lights are on, even though it’s pitch black behind his curtain-less windows. It’s three in the morning.

“You should sleep,” you say.

He makes a noise. You are sitting across from him, reading a book with one elbow propped on the table. It’s daytime in Singapore.

“Mark,” you say to him. “It’s three in the morning.”

He grunts.

You threaten to close the lid of his laptop. He can’t have that, so he glares at you and says, “I’m fine, Wardo.”

“You’re going to be late for work in the morning.”

“They won’t care if I’m late.” He makes a point. You hold his gaze—or try to, anyway, because he turns back to his laptop without a second thought.

You close your book. “This is worse than college.”

You close your book. “Mark, please. For me?”

You close your book.

“Mark.”

He makes another noise.

You do actually close his laptop this time. He scowls, but you can see the red rims around his eyes, thick like he hasn’t had a wink of sleep in weeks. They look like nail cuticles, picked at and raw and swollen, baring the rush of blood underneath.

“Just because we’re talking again doesn’t mean you can boss me around again,” he says.

“Since when have I ever bossed you around?” you say, surprised.

“Wardo, I was in the middle of something,” he says.

“You saved,” you tell him. You know him.

“Mark,” you say. “Please go to sleep.”

Flicker.

He closes his laptop. It’s three in the morning. He goes to bed.

Flicker.

***

You don’t log onto Facebook very much. You only log on to message your friends, the ones who don’t know you’re Eduardo Saverin, yes, that Eduardo Saverin, the one on the masthead, which you looked at right after the settlement. These are the only people you talk to on Facebook.

You don’t log on very much.

***

You don’t think about him very often. You don’t think about him at all.

All you think about is that half a second smile, at that share function. You wonder if he thinks about you. If you should start thinking about him.

It is not a fresh wound anymore, a knife to the chest. It’s been too long for that. It is a scar that has long since healed, that is permanent on your skin in intimate places, and where everyone can see. But new skin has grown over it. Oftentimes you have forgotten about it.

It no longer hurts.

Why had you smiled at him? He had never apologized to you, spoken to you after the settlement, except for perfunctory hellos when neither of you had a choice. You have not thought about him much over the years, aside from hearing Facebook from people on the street and overheard in cafes, rather than around Harvard campus or in the confines of the Kirkland suite, like a secret. And this, this is running your fingers over and at the edges of a scab at your skin, threatening to peel it off and let the blood flow, the wound in the chest that he had created. You have no reason to forgive him. He has done nothing to make you smile.

***

Flicker.

***

“Wardo,” he says to you.

You don’t look at him. “We’re not supposed to be speaking, Mark.”

This time you are in a restroom. It is private enough, but public enough to be incidental. He’s graced your presence within twenty feet of you before, and you might be willing to bet that you’ve avoided each other on purpose, by a hair.

You’re alone right now. He says, dry, “We’ve spoken before.”

You sigh. You are tired, here. You finish washing your hands and turn around to face him. “What do you want, Mark?”

You don’t look up. You continue washing your hands.

He says, “I always meant it.”

“Meant what?” You continue scrubbing between your fingers. Your nails are stubby and your callouses are rough.

“I needed you, Wardo—”

“I don’t know why you keep calling me that,” you say. No, that’s not right. “I don’t know why you’re calling me that,” you say. “We’re not—”

He says, “I’m s—”

He says, “Why Singapore?”

He says, “Do you remember the algorithm, on the window at—”

No, that’s not right either.

He says, “How are you?” It’s painstakingly civil.

You don’t read into it at all. “Fine,” you say, before turning off the tap and grabbing a paper towel. You dry your hands and walk out of the restroom without a second glance back—

“Fine,” you say. And then, to be polite, you offer him a smile that barely touches your cheeks. “You?”

“Good,” he says, shortly.

So much so that he may be wanting to say something afterward, if you were to give him an extra minute in your life. But you don’t want to; you don’t. You nod at him before continuing on with your life, outside of this restroom. You head to the door and disappear.

The door swings behind your back.

“Eduardo,” he says to you. He doesn’t seem surprised to find you in the men’s room.

You hardly think about it as you nod to him. “Mark,” you say. It’s another goddamn event. There are so many goddamn events.

“Do you think we could talk?” he asks.

You laugh at him.

“How are you?” he asks.

“You’ve already asked me that,” you reply.

***

Flicker.

***

You live in an apartment in Singapore; the city’s filled with the high-rise buildings fitted neatly into each other like puzzle pieces, the kind that you like. You are not on the top floor and you’re not too close to the bottom. You live in a reasonable, if not a tiny bit lavish building, with hard glass walls and a marble lobby.

You like simplicity; you like fashion. Most of your furniture is wooden, cherry-red, except for your glass dining table and shelves you fill with little trinkets whenever you need to travel for work, or gifts you receive from your friends. The floor is carpeted so you can walk around barefoot happily, and there’s a gym in the basement that you work out in every weekend to stay in shape and keep a healthy life.

There is a restaurant close to your apartment that serves noodles that you love, almost as spicy as the dishes your mother made for you during your childhood. On your way to work you take the subway—unless it’s raining, when you carry your umbrella and glance fondly up at the grey clouds in the sky. Everyone else around you dashes about to get away from the wetness, but you smile and take your time on your trek to work.

Sometimes there are storms when you travel. Monsoons are easier to witness in Singapore than Cambridge, and you never schedule flights during monsoon season.

***

“That algorithm doesn’t look right,” you say.

“I know what I’m doing.” He types away at his laptop. The clack clack clack fills your ears.

You lean down, peer over his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be five digits, not six.”

He looks up, huffs. He fixes it.

***

What would he say?

***

It is noon in Singapore. You are at your desk, on the floor of another tall building, smiling gratefully at your assistant and working genially with clients.

Your cellphone rings.

You look at the caller ID and smile. You’d rather not pick up to goad him to sleep, but that might make him just try even harder, and besides, eleven pm is probably early for him anyway. You wonder idly if he’s still at the office.

“Mark,” you say, as a greeting.

“I was thinking about getting a dog,” he tells you. There is clicking in the background; you try hard to hear it.

You snort. “Could you even take care of a dog?”

He makes an affronted noise. “Of course,” he says. “I like dogs.”

You roll your eyes but smile. You don’t have any clients today, just deskwork, and your assistant is long used to these spontaneous and work unrelated conversations.

“Why are you telling me this?” you ask, switching to a spreadsheet on your laptop.

“I wanted to make sure you’re not allergic to them for when you stay over,” he replies.

You stop clicking on your spreadsheet and push back a sigh. “I don’t know when’s the next time I’m coming to California,” you say. At their desk, your assistant’s head has perked up curiously. “Aside for shareholder meetings, I mean. And I’m not staying over—”

“Why not?” he asks.

You laugh a little, incredulously. “Why not? I can stay at a hotel, it’s your house, and—” You bite your bottom lip, hesitating.

This is new still doesn’t quite come out of your mouth, but he manages to hear it anyway when he says, “Wardo, I have three empty bedrooms, in addition to the guest room I already have, and I live by myself. And if you don’t want to sleep in a bed, I have about five couches.”

“It’s not sleeping in a bed I’m worried about,” you say.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” he says.

You sigh. You smile, anyway; as enjoyable as your job is, it’s not exciting.

“No,” you say. “I’m not allergic to dogs.”

“Good,” he says.

After you’ve said your goodbyes and hung up, you turn to your assistant. “Book me a flight for—”

***

The bathroom tile squeaks under your shoes as you turn to wash your hands. These places are deceiving; for how nice the ballroom looks, the men’s room is not nearly half as nice, with the dirt caught between the tiles, cracks on the walls, smudges on the mirror. You adjust your tie and turn off the tap.

He comes in. You don’t think much of it until he walks right up to you, backs you up against the bathroom sink.

“Mark,” you say; his eyes are hooded, and he looks either sleepy or drunk, or both. “What the fuck?”

He doesn’t answer. His gaze is focused on your lips, and he leans in—

He looks annoyingly good from the other end of the hall. You’ve seen him over the years, how being CEO has made him need to clean up, even when he doesn’t want to.

He never made an effort in college. It almost makes you angry now, how he can stand at the other side of the room in a suit and tie and a hoodie over it, like the fucking depositions. He’s not even that good-looking, objectively. But still your fingers tighten around your glass and you try not to stare. To make it obvious you’re staring.

You take another drink.

He leaves to go to the restroom. You drink again. He comes back out, talks to other businessmen and clients. Sometimes he scratches under his collar like it itches. You can see a sliver of pale skin, his soft neck. You drink again.

This function is long. He gives a keynote speech at one point, and you only pay attention to the words he says. You say hello to Chris and Dustin. He goes to the restroom again.

You’ve had a lot to drink. You follow him, follow him until he can glance up in the mirror and see you, and you don’t even need to take a piss.

He doesn’t say hello or even acknowledge you. Somehow, this makes you angrier.

You go right up to him and shove him against the dirty stall wall.

“Wardo,” he says, conversationally like you just haven’t assaulted him.

You growl. “Do you know how much I’ve wanted to do this?” you say.

He chuckles, breathless. “What, are you going to punch me now?”

You go right up to him and, before he can fit a word in, spin him around and kiss him hard. You shove him against the dirty stall wall and he gasps, and you kiss him hard and dirty because this is all you’ve ever wanted—

You kiss him hard and dirty before you realize what you’re doing. You let him go and take three paces back.

“Shit,” you say.

“Wardo,” he says.

“Shit,” you say again. “That was—I didn’t mean—I was drunk.” You look at him. His cheeks are flushed, pink, and his eyes are wide.

You say, “Sorry,” before escaping.

He’s never said sorry to you before.

This is the first time you’ve spoken since the settlements.

This is the first time you’ve spoken since the last shareholder’s meeting.

This is the first time you’ve spoken since you smiled at each other, across the hall—

You had come to Singapore (for the weather, for the big city, for the girls) to escape him, so you don’t know what he’s doing behind your front door. He’s in the hallway, the strap of his backpack slung over one shoulder, and you peer at him through the fish-eyeglass like a hotel. (You are used to hotels because they remind you of your apartment. Everywhere but fickle California feels like home.)

You open the door anyway, because he knows you’re looking, probably, and wouldn’t go away because of that. “Mark,” you huff out, shortly.

He inclines his head. “Hi, I was wondering if—”

You shut the door in his face.

You turn away, scrubbing a hand over your eyes. Your ex-best friend is in your apartment in Singapore and you don’t want to know what he wants. Maybe he needs more money, you think, and laugh sardonically to yourself. The sick part is that you know you would give it to him—anything to make him go away again.

You don’t know how he got here, why he’s here. Maybe he’d been in town for a meeting and decide to drop by, procured your address from Chris or Dustin or anyone else but him you’d given your address to. Maybe he’d taken the first flight out from Palo Alto to Singapore since the settlements—

What on earth does he want from you? And why the hell would you, you, ever give it to him?

You don’t mean to see him. Of course you don’t; you never mean to, catch a glimpse of his profile from the side, the sound of his knuckles cracking erratically in his palm, the swing of his backpack like he’s in school again and not the head of his own company. You don’t mean to see him and you grit your teeth.

There’s no law in the universe that says you can’t be in the same country, same town, same hotel, same sidewalk. There are only so many cities in the world, and with the way life goes, your worlds were always bound to collide again, blurry and overlapping at the edges. He sees you, too, makes it painfully obvious. You flush and look away and pretend you haven’t.

He doesn’t get the hint. Or: he does, but ignores it. “Eduardo,” he says to you.

Your name rolls off his tongue too easily. You don’t bother to feign the surprise; it would do neither of you any good.

You say, “Hello, Mark.” Politeness won’t kill you.

He stops at where he is. He rocks back on his heels, once. “What’s up?” he asks.

“What’s—” You laugh a little, disbelievingly. It’s kind of the same laugh when you’d listen to him bite out an insult to some idiot who hasn’t heard, or he’d make an honest to god good math joke, back at college.

You say, “Goodbye Mark,” and move forward to move on with your life.

You feel him watching you leave. “Aren’t you going to answer my question?” he says to your back.

You pause, laugh again. That same laugh. Maybe something crueler, something more hurt.

Spinning around on your heel, you march up to him, all up in his space. “Aren’t you going to answer mine?” you say.

He looks astonished, scowls. “You didn’t—”

“Why did you do it? Why do you hate me?”

You spit it out; you don’t even know if you want to know the answer.

And he, he doesn’t even take the time to be stunned. He’s still scowling when he says, “I don’t hate you. I never—”

***

You say, “I don’t want to try to be friends with you again, Mark.”

He says, “I don’t want friends.”

***

Flicker.

***

The Californian skyline is muggy over the grey backdrop of the sky. It’s raining.

Behind you, your lawyers and his lawyers and he are talking about the paper, the terms, the places he needs to sign and you’ve already signed. You’re wearing a dark grey suit today, stiff across your back, purple button-up tucked underneath. Your tie is black with a weird silver pattern on it. You stand by the window and watch the raindrops decorate the glass.

Your lawyer says something. You turn around, join her, ignore the weight of his gaze like he’s daring you to break focus and look at him. You only do when you’re done, a flicker of eyes on eyes, before both of your attentions are diverted by something else. More talking, more settling, more money for you. You’re lucky that neither of you have to go through the mess of juries, audiences, other people.

You sign the non-disclosure agreement.

Afterward, you pick up your bag and speak in a low voice to your lawyer. She says something; you laugh. She asks about Singapore. You walk across the glossy tile, the scuff of your heel catching onto it every other step.

You almost don’t hear it—a quick pace behind yours. “Eduardo,” he says, and his hand lifts, like it’s going to catch your elbow, before it quickly drops down without making contact.

You glance back at him. His lawyer looks pained. Everyone else in the room has gone silent. Your lawyer watches you carefully.

Your plane is the first flight out to Singapore. Everyone’s eyes say, Remember the non-disclosure agreement.

“It’s okay,” you say to your lawyer. “I’ve got this.”

Everyone else trickles out of the room.

You don’t bother putting your bag down, just stare at him. It’s the two of you, alone. He’s in another goddamn hoodie and a white collared shirt underneath. Like he’d made an attempt, but is too good to show it.

“What do you want, Mark?” you ask patiently.

“What do I—” He breaks off, glances out the window. The precipitation sticks, dripping and sluggish. It is the world around you both. It is hurricane season.

He says, “You know I’m only settling because I wouldn’t win in court, right?”

He says, “Why is it about what I want?”

You scoff. “Don’t say that you need me again,” you say.

You scoff. “Hasn’t it always been about what you want?” you say.

He says, “What can I say to make you stay again?”

You scoff. “Stay where? California?”

He says, “Don’t go.”

It is hurricane season.

He says, “I didn’t want this, you know.”

You scoff. “Of course you didn’t want this,” you say. “No one wants to get sued.”

“No, I mean.” He gestures between you two, which is so fucking stupid and baffling that you repeat it twice in your head when he’s done. “I didn’t want you to leave.”

His words are so unexpected and so late that you just laugh a little, turn on the spot. You want to leave, but you want to hear what he has to say, and your plane is the first flight out from here to Singapore.

“It’s a little too late for that,” you snarl at him. “And if you needed the reminder, the reason that we’ve been in this mess for three years is because you were the one who kicked me out of our company.”

“My company,” he corrects.

You don’t have time for this. You don’t bother laughing this time, looking at him this time. “Goodbye, Mark.” You start toward the door.

“You could’ve read the papers,” he says to your back.

Your hand is on the doorknob. “What, and not fall for your plan?”

You’ve swung the door open, but he is silent in response. You pause; a surely masochistic part of you wants to know his answer.

You peer over your shoulder. He is watching you. Your mouth cracks into a smile.

“I’ve rendered you speechless,” you say. “That’s a first.”

An unreadable expression flits over his face, before he speaks again. “Send a postcard,” he says. His voice drips with sarcasm. “From Singapore.”

“I’ll be sure to,” you say flatly.

You leave.

An unreadable expression flits over his face. “You should stay,” he says to you.

It’s more insulting than I didn’t want you to leave.

“Stay where?” you shoot at him. “Here? In California? Down the street of the company I just got kicked out of?”

“I didn’t want you to—” He bites his bottom lip and you try not to let your eyes follow the motion. “Can we talk about that?”

You laugh. This is the one you’ve crafted for the depositions; you haven’t laughed like this before them. “We just spent the past few years talking about it,” you say. You’ve spun around and let the door fall shut behind you, but you turn toward it again.

The rain pours hard and heavy outside. “No, the day you—” he says.

“I would rather not relive that, thanks.”

“If I didn’t want you anymore, I would’ve just told you,” he says, and his words sound like the biggest bullshit you’ve ever heard. Still, a masochistic part of you stays to listen. “Or unfriended you,” he adds thoughtfully.

“No, you had to make me think that you still wanted me in this for five months, before diluting my shares and embarrassing me in front of your company and all the businesses in Silicon Valley,” you say.

He glowers. “I realize that, but—”

He glowers. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

He frowns. “Is that why you’re leaving? Because you feel embarrassed?”

“I’m leaving for a lot of reasons, Mark,” you say diplomatically. “There’s nothing for me here.”

“I was here.”

You freeze, again. One of your hands is on the strap of your briefcase, the other with your thumb tucked into your pocket. He is several feet in front of you, closer to the rain-stained glass, one hand deposited in his hoodie.

“You could’ve stayed back then,” he says to you. “I was always here. Or was nothing here for you then, too?”

“Mark—”

“Eduardo.” The first syllable almost feels like a punch to the face. “Why do you even think—”

“We shouldn’t be talking about this.” You turn around again. Your head is spinning. “We signed the agreement less than ten minutes ago.”

“Do you think I cut you out because I didn’t want you around anymore? Who spent all summer in Palo Alto? Who was on the other side of the country, doing absolutely nothing for Facebook?”

“Stop.” You clutch your head. “Stop it, Mark—”

“Do you want me to say sorry? That I regret it? Because if I had to do it all over again, I would. What about you? Stay in California, or spend the whole fucking summer in New York again, for—”

“Stop it,” you scream. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

The world shakes. The windows rattle.

The rain hits the glass harder than ever.

Your head is spinning.

“We signed the agreement less than ten minutes ago.”

“You should stay,” he says again. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”

You laugh. Like you’d just gotten blowjobs together, like you are on top of the world and so is he, the masthead at your feet. “I don’t want a good word from you,” you say.

“Please.” He is begging.

“Please.” He never says that.

“I don’t hate you.” His gaze is fixed on yours, and he says this like it is the only thing he has ever wanted you to know. “I just—”

“You should’ve said something.”

He furrows his eyebrows, tilting his head. “That I don’t hate—?”

“No, I meant with the dilution.” You cave in; you’re both here already. “You should’ve just said—anything. Instead of—”

“You could’ve said something instead of freezing the bank account.”

He sneers, but it drops quickly, like he regrets it. He doesn’t apologize for his words though, eyes hard on yours.

You bite back a retort. His argument is parallel to yours, but not better, not worse.

He says, “We really shouldn’t be talking about this.”

A sigh escapes your lips. You don’t know what you’re doing here; you’ve spent too long now, giving him a chance. You’ve spent your whole life giving him a chance and he kicked you out and you sued him and here you are, still giving him a chance.

You’re going to miss your flight.

“This is pointless.” You head towards the door again. “I don’t want to try to be friends with you again, Mark.”

“I don’t want friends,” he says to your back.

Over your shoulder, his expression is determined. Your gazes meet—again—before you turn away.

He says goodbye to the empty room.

At the airport, you look up at the screen and groan. The first flight out from California to Singapore has already left. It’s thundering outside, lightning shattering across the sky in that way you like. The agony seeps out from your body bit by bit at the sight. You sit at the gate, conflicted.

Your hand goes to your pocket. His phone rings once.

“You made me miss my flight.”

“Eduardo?” He sounds baffled on the other end.

You snort, shoving your hand into your hair. You’d shellacked it today, but it’s more unruly now after arguing with the receptionist and sprinting around the building.

“What did you mean by the last thing you said to me?” you say.

“What?”

“‘I don’t want friends.'” You repeat it, though you doubt that he’s actually forgotten. “What did you mean by that?”

He is silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry you missed your flight,” he says.

“Mark.”

“What do you mean, what did I mean?” he says. “I don’t want friends. What else could I have possibly meant?”

“We were friends.”

“We were,” he agrees.

“But you don’t want any.”

“I don’t.”

You are both quiet. He waits for you.

“But aren’t—?”

“Remember what you said?” His tone is biting. “You were my only friend, remember?”

Your chest twinges with something regretful. Around you, people are bustling along with their lives, making new reservations, making their planes, buying snacks. You don’t know why you even still have his number.

“I didn’t mean that,” you say.

“Emotional testimony. I know.”

“So,” you say. Your patience is wearing thin. “What did you mean by that?”

On the other end, you can hear his soft breathing. “You should come back,” he tells you, after another minute or so. “To the Facebook offices. We moved them, you know.”

“Mark—”

“I don’t know, Eduardo, what do you think I meant?” he snaps.

“There’s only a few other ways of interpreting that,” he snaps.

“Just come back,” he snaps.

There are crowds and crowds around you. You’ve stood up, and you should book another flight—you should get out of here as soon as possible. That’s what you’ve always wanted; you didn’t want to stay here a moment longer, in the same state, same country as him.

You grab your bags and sigh. “Where are you?”

“I— What?”

“Are you on your way to work?” A woman’s voice is on the speakers overhead. You don’t hear them. “Or are you already there?”

“I’m in the parking lot,” he says. Someone nearly bumps into your bag and you say excuse me. “I was about to get out.”

“Come by the airport,” you say. “Come pick me up.”

Your patience is wearing thin. “What did you mean by that?”

On the other end, you can hear his soft breathing. “You should live with me,” he tells you.

Your patience is wearing thin. “What did you mean by that?” Your heart thumps under your throat, and you’re not sure if you want to know the answer.

“I’m going to pick you up from the airport,” he decides, instead of replying.

You rub your fingers over your forehead. You’re still sitting at the gate. “Mark, I don’t—” You look around. “I have to book my next flight out. I’m supposed to fly to Singapore today.”

“It’s raining,” he says pragmatically. “The rest of the flights will be canceled or delayed. I can pick you up.”

“You really don’t—”

You hear the start of an engine, on the other end, entirely too soon. Slumping back, you shove your phone so tight against your ear it dents your cheek. “Have you been in your car this whole time?”

“You called me right before I was going to get out.”

You’re tempted to call bullshit on this, but you have no basis. He is right, you know; one glance at the screens you pass and all other flights, aside from the ones that have already left (including yours) and you know that trying to leave tonight would be hopeless. Still, you don’t want him to drive you anywhere—don’t want to see his face—that had been the whole point of the—

“I’m getting a taxi,” you tell him.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, I’m coming to SFO, so either you’re going to be there or you’re going to let me drive all the way there for nothing,” he says.

The temptation is strong—to leave him at the airport, like he had (once) left you. You’ve made it past the gates, and security is too busy with the bickering crowd to scowl at you for causing a fuss before. Your phone is pressed tight to your ear and you’ve already talked to him much more than you had planned, post-settlement.

You huff. It’s not worth it—none of it is worth it, for him. “You’re already on the road, aren’t you.”

A noise of assent on the other end.

“You shouldn’t be on the phone while you’re driving,” you tell him, because you wanted penance from him after all these years; you didn’t want him dead—

“You shouldn’t be on the phone while you’re driving,” you tell him. “Have fun coming all this way for nothing.” You hang up.

This airport has seen too much of you, and you hate that you can’t flee as fast as possible, get your feet off this soil. Maybe there’s a plane you could take yourself, go out to Singapore before anyone knows it, just to prove something to him. But outside is a dark-grey blue and thunder crackles the dark sky, even though it’s only three in the afternoon.

You make your way out of the terminal and sit by the benches. He comes in his car, parking as soon as he sees you. The taxi line is on the other end of the terminal. His passenger seat window slides down.

“You don’t have to do this,” you say, as he bends down and the trunk pops open.

He just frowns. “Get in.”

You sigh, but slide your bag into the back anyway before making your way to the front seat. He drives out of the terminal and the airport, through the thick sheen of rain layering the streets. You don’t know why you are in the car with him, and the soft buzz of the radio is on. You turn it off. He pretends not to notice as he makes it to the highway.

A long line of silence stretches as the minutes go by, almost satisfyingly comfortable. You gaze out the window, determined not to make eye contact or conversation.

He glances at you. (You feel it.) “Aren’t you going to ask me where I’m taking you?” he asks.

You continue staring out the window. “A hotel, I presume,” you say.

“I—”

“I’m assuming you’re going to tell me what I should do.” You look at him scornfully. “I still don’t know why you’re doing this, Mark.”

“You called me first,” he throws back.

You look at him scornfully. “I shouldn’t have called you.”

“Too bad,” he throws back.

You look at him scornfully. “I shouldn’t have called you,” you say. And before he can add anything, “You never answered my question, by the way.”

“What question?” He is being obtuse on purpose.

“Mark.”

I don’t want friends. “I’ve said it before,” he says. You wait. (You are always waiting.) “When—” he keeps his eyes on the road. “During a breakup.”

“I’m sure that turned out well,” you say dryly.

“Well, you don’t—”

He cuts himself off again.

“I’m taking you to my house,” he says, instead.

“What?” Your hand bumps into the dashboard with how quickly you turn around. “Why?”

He shrugs. “I want to go home.”

You laugh, rake your fingers through your hair, are trapped in this car with your ex-best friend. “You have to go to work, Mark,” you say, and your voice is almost as sharp as the rain pouring down on the two of you, on the windows outside this tiny moving bubble. “And I have to find a hotel to stay at, and you’re avoiding goddamn my question.”

“You can stay at my house,” is his only reply.

“Do you expect me to go along with that?”

He shrugs. But for the first time, there’s a crease in his forehead—like he’s realized you can call a cab, are an adult, can leave whenever you want.

You grit your teeth together. “Last I recall,” you seethe, “you signed over half a million dollars to me, so I don’t know why we should even be in this car together.” Your fingers slide to the door handle, even though you’re on the highway and he’s not going to stop and you’re certainly not stupid enough to open the door.

He says, “I answered your question.”

“You didn’t.”

“Do you think I like breakups?”

“Most people would break up with you,” you say.

“No one likes breakups,” you say.

“I have three bedrooms,” he says. “And a guest room on the ground floor.” He’s deflecting your question again. “And if you don’t want to sleep in a bed, I have five couches, so you pick.”

“I’m not sleeping in your house,” you fume.

“Wardo—”

It’s the first time he’s called you this since— It’s the first time he’s called you this. “Let me out,” you say. You rattle the door handle ineffectively. “I’m calling a cab.”

He gives you an incredulous look. “Are you kidding?”

“No.” You’re sure to make your glare as piercing as possible. “Let me out,” you repeat.

Instead of listening to you and pulling over, he instead says, “We’re almost there.”

He drives for a few more minutes; you’re soon off the highway, and think of getting out at the next red light. But you know you won’t because you’ll get drenched to your bones, and besides, there’s only one red light on the way to his house. He turns into large winding roads, and even larger ones—it surprises you for a minute, that he’s not going back to the Palo Alto house that you’d bought for him all those years ago. But of course not; he’s moved into a ridiculously rich neighborhood with trees lining the streets, like the CEO of Facebook he is.

(You wonder, idly, if you’d never left, would you live in the same neighborhood as him? Would you live next door to him?)

“We’re here,” he says, once he’s parked into the driveway.

You get out as soon as possible and wrench your suitcase from the back. “I’m calling a cab.” Your hand goes into your pocket; the rain covers your hair and skin and jacket like a layer of paint.

He follows you out immediately, blocking your way. “No, you’re not.”

You sidestep him. “Then I’m walking out,” you say. You walk down his dark driveway, the rain battering it blacker.

“You’re soaked,” he calls after you. “You’re gonna get pneumonia.”

“I don’t care!” you shout back. “I’m going to find someplace dry and call a cab, and get as far away from you as possible.”

You don’t know how, but suddenly he’s in front of you, eyelids fighting against the heaviness of the rain. You struggle to see him through your eyelashes.

“The roads are slippery, you don’t know what—” he says. “You’re gonna get—”

You struggle to see him through your eyelashes.

He is in front of you, and then his hand is reaching out to grab your face and he’s standing on his tiptoes. His lips are moist against yours and he is warm under the humid downpour, cool against your skin. He kisses both with precision and inexperience, a hesitant flutter of lips against yours, barely a second and feeling like the earth tilting on its axis in that moment.

He pulls away. Your eyes are wide and one of your hands is still on the handle of your suitcase. Your fingers feel numb.

“What was that?” you whisper.

He steps back. “I—”

“What did you do that for?”

“You wanted me to answer your question.” He glances to the side. A faint pink is washing over his cheeks, from the neck up. “I—”

Your body and face, which had been so warm before—with him, with him—turn to ice, rushing through your veins.

“So you don’t want friends,” you say. “But you wanted me, and when I didn’t come out to California to be with you—”

“That’s not what I—” His face is even pinker; but in fury, now. The rain splotches darker and paler onto his skin. “You’re the one who left me—”

“You kicked me out of the company, Mark,” you shout. “What the fuck did you expect me to do?”

“I don’t—I don’t—”

He looks lost, and wet; his curly hair is dark and tangled under the rain, and you don’t let him finish because you close the gap this time. He gasps into your mouth and kisses back and you kiss hard because you are angry, angry, and you are standing in his driveway and he is here and he wants you to stay, wants you to stay, and his mouth is open and pliable under yours. You are angry and somehow through all this his lips are chapped and you don’t want, you want, you want him.

When you break apart you breathe. His chest is rising and falling, face red across from you.

“Jesus Christ,” you let out.

He steps backward, but doesn’t take his gaze off of you.

“Come inside,” he says.

You nod. The gel has long washed out of your hair, and you can’t feel your ankles.

“Okay,” you say.

As soon as you step into his dry, quiet house, you slam his back against his front door, tower over him. He is only an inch shorter than you, perfect posture and all, but you are close enough for him to have to tilt his chin up to meet your gaze.

You let your breath ghost over his face. “Is this what you want?” you say quietly.

He shudders.

You kiss and kiss and he kisses back, wet and messy and perfect and desperate. You shove a thigh between his and he moans, and he bites at your jaw and neck and collarbone, sucking and sucking and you moan back. He licks the rainwater off your skin and you kiss the noises out of each other; his hands trail down the front of your shirt, slide in between the wet gaps, pave the path down to the front of your slacks. You want this, suddenly—you want him, and his fingers are deft as they pop the button open. When he pulls back his mouth is swollen and red, and you nod once to the question in his gaze. He drops to his knees.

As soon as you step into his dry, quiet house, you itch to get a dry pair of clothes on.

“I need to change,” you groan; the adrenaline from the kiss (two, there had been two) is slipping from you quickly.

He doesn’t turn around as he parades up the stairs. “Pick a room,” he says, before disappearing into what is presumably his bedroom.

You sigh and watch him leave for a minute. He’d said three bedrooms and a guest room (and five couches.) After a moment, you pick the guest room. It’s on this floor, you remember, so you find it quickly.

In it are a private bathroom and a study, so you go to the bathroom first. After taking a shower, you dry off and pop open the suitcase that you had brought in, wheeled back from the bottom of his driveway. There had been a robe slung over the rack but that wouldn’t have felt right, wearing his—your towel is slung around your waist, and you pick out your sleep clothes, slide the shirt on.

The door to the guest room creaks open. You don’t need to turn around to know it’s him; his hand catches at your hip, and you angle yourself at a fraction of a degree. He could say something—you could, too, can see the blue of his eyes this close. He cranes his neck up and you put your hand at his chin. Stroke at the skin there. Kiss him back.

You are both gentle and he still tastes like the rain. You can’t help but smile.

“You didn’t shower, did you?”

He is dry, at least, and in a fresh set of clothes. “Did you expect me to?” he murmurs, and you actually chuckle.

“What were you doing then?” you ask. His hand is still at your waist.

He shrugs. “Telling my assistant where I am instead of work. Checking email.”

“Ah,” you say. “Did you mention the part about me?”

He gives you a look that says, don’t be ridiculous; but of course you both know that you’re joking. His hand slips down to find yours, taps the back of your wrist. He peeks up at you; suddenly he looks drawn into himself.

“Stay,” he says. It sounds like a command; it’s a question.

You don’t have a choice. “Okay,” you say back, and smile.

His office has a couch and a TV that he never turns on. Most of the appliances and furnishing look untouched, with the exception of the top of his desk, and a few drawers by his right hand side. He types at his office chair.

You are sitting on the couch, reading. It’s a bit like college again, except instead of an economics textbook, a fiction novel is on your lap, and other people have used this couch before, not just him or the stray friend who needs somewhere comfortable to sit for the night and doesn’t bother asking him for permission.

You flip a page in your book.

The door opens.

He says something. Noise is a fuzzy white noise against your ears. You sigh and stare at him intently, but he doesn’t look at you.

“Mark,” you chide.

“I don’t have enough time,” he says. “I’m busy.”

You snort, going back to your book. “You’re only busy when you want to be,” you point out.

“Well then, make it say that I’m busy.”

You flip another page in your book. You’re reading Chuck Palahniuk. A few pages are dog-eared and the front cover is torn in the corner; you don’t mind.

“You shouldn’t avoid your family, Mark,” you say.

“I don’t know—make something up.” He sounds agitated.

You glance up at him again. “I’m sure they’d want to see you, especially your—”

You glance up at him again. “I’m sure they’d want to see you,” you say. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

He stares, like he’s trying to come off as intimidating. He looks more tired than anything, and your chest twinges at the sight.

His expression twists. It’s even worse.

“I know you don’t want to,” you say gently. “But maybe you need this?” And after reminding yourself that he doesn’t like being told what he needs, “Or maybe they do.”

“Yes, thank you.” You’re certain that it would’ve come out more as a snap if he didn’t look so upset. You close your book, put it down on the couch, go up to him. If he were anyone else, he would’ve turned away by now.

“You can go now,” he says.

“Mark,” you say. His name rolls off your tongue, in that impatient-fond way it used to at college.

“Fine,” he says, staring straight through you.

The door closes, after some time.

He glares still, into space, at you. You rest your hand at his elbow, tilt his chin up with the other hand, trying to meet his eyes.

“Why doesn’t your mother have your new cellphone number?” you ask.

“Why do you think?”

“You shouldn’t—” But it’s not your place to say, so you don’t.

You gesture toward the door. “She’s nice.”

“Figures you would like her,” he says, rolling his eyes. She reminds him of you.

You say, “What?”

“What?” he says.

“I—” Once, twice, you shake your head. Smile. “Nothing,” you say. “I miss you,” you say.

His breath drifts over yours. “Yeah,” he says back.

Flick—

He’s driving again. It kind of terrifies you in that way that rollercoasters, tornadoes do—that thrilling, fascinating way where you want to know how it works, but you don’t want to get too close in case you might get swept in the ruckus and debris. It’s too late for you here though, and you say as much, laughing. He does, too, deep dimples in his cheeks.

“I don’t know how you convinced me to move in with you,” you say. “I’m going to have to put up with this all the time.”

He rolls his eyes, stops at a red light. “You can buy your own car, you know,” he says to you. “And considering you’ve been staying over for three weeks now—”

“Two weeks and five days.”

“Okay.” He blinks at you, before turning his attention back to traffic. His fingers drum on the steering wheel. “Do you miss Singapore?” he asks.

“What?” You’re thrown off by the topic change, smile at him from the passenger seat. “Of course not,” you say. “I haven’t thought about—” You shake your head.

He glances at you again. “Good,” he says. The smile is more hidden in his mouth now, more real.

“We’re gonna have to move all of my stuff from Singapore, though,” you say with a sigh. “And to think that I’d just finished suing you three weeks ago.”

He says, “Two weeks and five days.”

“Alright, okay.” You laugh and swat his shoulder. He can’t push his own grin back.

You touch his shoulder again, warm, like when you would wake him from falling asleep at his dorm desk, like reminding him after dinner or lunch or some conference that you had to go. One of your fingers slides under the collar of his shirt. Predictably, he doesn’t shiver.

You say, eyes crinkling, “You fixed this.”

He leans in. “We fixed this,” he says quietly.

Your tongue slips into his mouth, hot. He makes a small noise against your lips, and your elbows jam across the median for your palms to spread over his shoulders, getting him warm, his chest and sides and the ridge in his back between his shoulder blades.

No one honks when the lights turn green. He drives.

In Singapore, your things sit like chess pieces abandoned in their box; the ultimate waiting game. You like boldness; you like accents. Most of your furniture is black and glossy, except for your wooden dining table and shelves you fill with plants and books, or gifts you receive from your friends. The floor is carpeted so you can walk around barefoot happily, except for the kitchen and dining room, where you wear socks; otherwise the coldness shocks the soles of your feet, and you’d dart around quickly to grab the coffee you wanted before heading back to the living room to watch TV and work. There’s a gym in the basement that you work out in every weekend to stay in shape and keep a healthy life.

You have not had your apartment for very long; hardly been in it, even. You’d moved there in the middle of the depositions, towards the end, but you’d needed to be in the U.S. at the time, so there’s still a thick layer of dust over everything. You haven’t even stayed over for a weekend. You’ve never been to the gym before.

You don’t mind too terribly, unpacking. His house is big enough that there’s room to get around the boxes.

He grumbles, but you know he doesn’t mind that much. He wouldn’t be helping if he did. “What do you have in here?” he complains, tugging open a box in the living room. “Every textbook you ever bought in college?”

“I sold all those,” you say, amused; you had after you graduated. “It’s probably just kitchenware.” You’re sorting through another box, books and DVDs and such.

He manages to pry the cardboard open, looking at your pots and pans with an expression like he’s never seen them before. You roll your eyes, because the past few weeks you’ve been living on takeout until you’d learned that that’s all he really ever eats because he can afford it. You’d bought new kitchenware for him, then, demanding that he’s going to cook, or learn how to at the very least.

“You really had all this stuff ready,” he muses, setting them aside carelessly. No doubt they’ll be thrown away.

You nod, putting another book in the pile that you plan to donate to the local library. “Too bad they never saw anything outside of boxes.”

He shrugs. “They don’t have feelings, I don’t think they’ll care,” and you open your mouth maybe to make a senseless joke before you see that he’s smiling into his lap. You close your mouth and nudge his knee with your foot.

“Well, someone got in the way of me even moving in to Singapore,” you say. “By making me move in with him.”

“You could’ve gone during the depositions,” he says thoughtlessly.

You both cringe. It hasn’t been long enough, and you tighten your crossed legs while he fingers with the tape on the box. Neither of you had communed much outside of what was legally allowed, during the lawsuit, and there’s no way for him to know if you had gone to Singapore in that time, or if you hadn’t. Of course, you hadn’t.

“That was stupid,” he mutters to himself. When he looks at you, his gaze is a little off-focus, like he’s drunk.

You lean over, cupping his chin with your fingers. You’d never touched him so gently before all—this, not even at school; you had always been a warm presence, hesitant, barely there.

“No, hey,” you soothe. “It’s okay, it happened.”

“I hated—”

“I did, too.” You run your thumb over his cheek. His eyes flutter closed. “But it’s behind us now, yeah? Besides,” you chuckle, “I got half a million dollars out of it, so I’m not complaining.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, too. His eyes open again.

“You were going to leave,” he says.

“But I didn’t,” you say gently. “I never went to Singapore—never tried to go, really, thanks to you—” and his mouth twitches again “—never even got my shit moved in. It’s all here, and I’m here too, with you. Okay?”

He breathes out, soft against your fingers.

“Okay,” he says.

You pull back, smiling to yourself. You take out a book about meteorology from the box and chuckle, remembering that day. “It’s lucky that you made me miss that flight, anyway,” you say, putting the book into a pile. “Did you hear, I could’ve been—”

Blur,

stumble. Swim

into view,

Swim?

***

(Do you know how to—)

***

It’s been fourteen months since the settlement. A thin layer of orange and brown leaves cover the streets, roads, the dry grass on his front lawn. The Facebook offices are polished and modern with a patch of green right outside, long familiar to you. It’s cold. You rub your hands together as you make your way in.

He’s typing away at his desk: par for the course, and you smile. When you walk in he doesn’t look up, so you tap your knuckles against his doorframe.

“Lunch?” you say.

He says, “One minute,” without looking up. You wait, but after thirty seconds he closes his laptop.

Smile. “That was less than a minute.”

“Do you want me to go back for another half a minute?”

“Not really,” you say, and he smiles too, turns his body into yours.

You both make your way out; you talk incessantly about your work and assistant and clients, and he nods along, not really listening. You don’t mind.

You don’t—

Pizza My Heart is a fifteen minute drive from Facebook offices. He drives. You sit in the passenger seat, as always. He doesn’t ask you about his morning, tells you about his. The skies are clear and the air is thick and dry on your skin. You prefer the humidity; you’d always said so at school.

He breaks the silence. “We can go somewhere else for lunch, if you want.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” you say. Pizza My Heart is his preferred place if he’s going out; otherwise he’ll just get something from the cafeteria, usually a sandwich.

“If you want—”

“Mark, really,” you say, turning away from the window. “It’s fine.”

He parks and you both walk out. He looks hesitant, but you take his hand and roll your eyes. The door jangles open and he orders for the both of you.

He eats, sitting across the table. His mind is swimming all over the place, you can tell, by the way he is silent and not really looking at you, even when he is. You are used to this—he either talks all the time or not at all, mind wrapped up in himself. You are used to this—you talk a lot, sometimes, knowing that he is not really absorbing but always listening. You are used to this—fascinated by the world he lives in, so different and yet not different at all from your own—

He’s got grease all over his fingers. You offer him a napkin; he takes his own without looking at yours.

You say, casually, “You never apologized, you know.”

His eyes flicker. “For what?”

“The dilution.” You put your napkin down. “You made me live with you, and then—”

“Do you really want me to apologize for it?”

He’s still eating; your hands are empty. There’s only one plate on the table, and your spine is rigid. Your Blackberry—you still have it—it’s in your pocket.

“Yes,” you say.

“Even if I don’t mean it?”

Why are you even here? He wouldn’t apologize for the dilution; he doesn’t apologize for anything. He hadn’t even felt this way about you then, and you’re only staying because he does now? Had you even felt this way for him then? Had you ever? Or were you always too drawn into the way he wasn’t like numbers and the atmosphere, unpredictable and genius, a science of his own?

“I stayed,” you say.

“You did.” He is quiet.

“Who spent all summer in Palo Alto?” you say. Your smile strains against your lips. He struggles eating. “Who was on the other side of the country, working blood and sweat for Facebook?”

“We both did.”

This is supposed to be a nice lunch alone and out. You want to kiss him with the force of a thousand gods, shove him against a wall and make him beg for it. You want to beg for it. You want to make him hard here in public. It’s been fourteen months since the settlement.

“We shouldn’t be talking about this,” you say. Your head is spinning. “We signed the agreement more than fourteen months ago.”

He is eating again. “I know.”

After lunch, you kiss him against the car door. It is tender and his hands slide down your back, above your waist. He tastes like tomato sauce and cheese and soda. You lick your way in, lick the taste out, run your fingers under his fleece and finger with the zipper and hold him tight against you, savoring every inch of his body, warmth beneath your own.

The ballroom is big, chandelier dangling from the ceiling. This is your first function together; the first you have both been invited to. He hates them as he hates anything that requires him to pretend to impress people—he’d rather be in his sweats next to a box of pizza, coding, not here in jacket with strangers recognizing him every several feet.

He looks good. This is what you do best.

Someone says his name. He wants dearly to ignore them and move on. You say, “Mark, say hi back.”

“Hi,” he says, grudgingly.

He says something that makes you laugh. After, he is still mutinous, but doesn’t mind so much as long as he presses into you every once in a while. You pluck a flute of champagne from a passing server; he asks them to bring him a beer. No one would say no to service to him. You chastise him for it, anyway.

You both go around, you mostly leading the way, saying hello and enduring conversations that you would do better in than he would. This is your first function together.

He gets bored soon enough. With the beer nearly drained, almost all of his focus is on you, not much on anyone else’s. You can tell that he wants to grab his laptop and type in the corner. It nearly surprises you when he grabs your ass, asks if you want to check out the restroom.

“Mark,” you say pointedly. “We’re in public.”

He shrugs. His eyes glint with something like a challenge.

You’ve always been bad at saying no to him.

The chandelier rattles.

On the way back from Pizza My Heart, it begins to rain—

His office is high up on the building.

***

You might get swept up in the ruckus and debris;

***

Why do the stairs in his house go up so fucking high?

***

—it’s too late for you here, though—

What had he said? What had he said to make you stay, make you forgive him? Why did you forgive him? How long did it take? Did he apologize? Why the hell would he apologize? Why the hell would you forgive him?

He is soundless when he sleeps; he is soundless when he wakes up, too. He crawls out of bed and slinks to the bathroom. You wake up to the sound of the shower.

You had drooled a little bit onto your pillow (like you used to do, at college). Wiping your mouth as you awaken, you slip out of bed and creak the bathroom door open. His curls dangle in front of his face, and he smiles a little at you as you continue to blink yourself to full consciousness, water pattering your wild hair down as you step into the shower. The warm water makes your skin tingle, urging you awake a little more.

“Morning,” you say, tipping your head forward for a kiss.

“Morning,” he says back, against your mouth. His teeth scrape against yours but you are both too tired to get hard properly, do anything. You kiss for a short moment before your hands find the soap, and you run your palm against the flat plane of his stomach. He rolls his eyes as he pulls back, but doesn’t stop you.

Later, you are in the kitchen with your coffee and in one of his hoodies, fitting you almost just right (when you stretch your arms above your head, too much skin shows.) He is eating cereal out of the box. You cluck and take it out of his hands.

“Cereal,” you say. “Bowl.” You pour the cereal into the bowl and hand it to him.

He eats the dry cereal out of the bowl with his fingers. You sigh. He smirks.

“It was today,” he says, taking his hand out and typing absentmindedly. “When I first came to you about the Facebook.”

You hum, sipping your coffee. “Today?”

He shrugs and nods. “At least, I think.” He pauses thoughtfully. “I’m not good with dates.”

You chuckle. “That’s what I’m here for,” you say. “Drink some water before you go to work.”

He scoffs; but afterward, when he has put the cereal back in the pantry, he grabs a water bottle before heading out. There aren’t any dishes for either of you to do; his sink is quiet all morning. You finish your coffee.

Your Facebook profile looks abandoned and dusty like an obituary, even though it’s virtual and on a computer screen and can’t gather dust. Your digital footprint had never been very large; if you Google yourself, all that comes up are a few interviews you had done with the Crimson, minor articles about the lawsuit, and your profile and the masthead. Your name is still on it.

People write on your Wall; the day he had first told you about the Wall like it was a small idea is vivid in your memory. Now it is out there and being put to good use and maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, because you’ve friended so many people on this site you helped fund, even though you were nothing for some time—you haven’t quite come back for everything yet—you really should, you know, get everything—

You get private messages, too. Any hacker could easily retrieve them, especially since you don’t log on so nobody else would know. From people in Singapore, from college, investors and your assistant and potential clients.

It’s funny, how if you don’t log onto some cyberspace account, it’s like your presence has whittled away, drifting into the wind. You are daring for him to come back; to chase after you again, even though he’s already chased you out. You know how he likes challenges, know that he will think and hack his way through any problem, especially when it comes to you. You don’t log into your email, either.

These are the emails you don’t receive:

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
None of my friends are idiots.

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
Do you like dogs?

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
You should’ve said something.

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
I hate you.

***

You should really just delete your profile.

***

The couch in his office is long, you-sized. He’d gotten two and a half hours of sleep last night but woken up, though you would’ve let him come in late if he’d stayed asleep. You sit on the couch, your back against the armrest. He is at his desk. Both of you are twitchy in your seats.

Finally, you stand up.

He makes a small noise of protest when you spin him around, though he doesn’t try to go back. You don’t know what he’s typing on his screen; the other programmers have been implementing new features and he has locked himself in his office, mostly for conferring. He doesn’t need to be here, really.

You kiss the side of his mouth. He huffs and says, “Wardo, I could be doing more productive things right now.”

“This isn’t productive?” you ask. He’s wondered about office sex before, as have you, with the big wide glass window at the back, destroying the illusion of privacy you might’ve had otherwise. It’s thrilling. You think of him fucking you against that glass.

He doesn’t; you don’t. He says against your lips, “Did you finish your book already?”

You laugh, unable to help it. Breath warm against his cheeks. He smiles, pleased. You pull back and don’t mind terribly.

“Are you done with—” You gesture at his laptop, where surely everything he’s been typing will look like gibberish to you. “Whatever you’ve been doing?”

He rolls his eyes. “Eloquent,” he says, but turns back around and resumes typing on his keyboard. The clack clack clack fills the room. You watch his back, as usual, fond.

He says, “Your mom misses you, you know.”

—cold at your fingertips, you—

say, “I,”

You

“Your mom misses you, you know.” He

freezes like he doesn’t know why he just said that.

You say, quietly, “I know.”

He stops typing. His fingers haven’t moved across the keyboard at all, just still like a pianist in ready position, composing an unfinished piece.

“I miss you too,” he

says.

His office is high up on the building.

You are

against the blue blue sky, above the grass and the cities and you are smiling at him, outside, wind whistling around the cusp of your ears. It is sunny today, radiant against your skin, you

the blue blue sky

His knees are on the ground and your hand is on the bottom of his back, warm but not quite there, and you are saying breathe breathe breathe and he does not hear

(flickering)

***

The refrigerator is running low, as it does when he buys frozen and packaged shit that he can make in five minutes. There are a few fruits that he likes, at least. He frowns and opens the door, light glaring at you both. Thanksgiving is coming up soon. He probably doesn’t need to buy that much.

You say, “We could probably live off take-out.” You have enough money. His pantry is far too depleted. You want to go shopping. Thanksgiving is coming up soon.

“Yeah,” he says. He closes the door.

At the grocery store, he rolls the cart while you stride ahead, glancing over things. “Pasta?” you offer, with a sauce jar. He shrugs.

“You’ll eat anything that gets put into your mouth, won’t you?” you say with a chuckle, before realizing what you just said. Your cheeks get warm, and when you look up he’s smirking, elbows on the cart handles.

“If you’re the one putting them in,” he says.

You continue on, scanning the shelves. “I’ll put one of your dirty socks in your mouth,” you say airily. “See how you like that.”

He scrunches up his nose. You laugh.

He picks out candy—you cluck disapprovingly—and Red Bull—you wanted to lug it out and put it back on the shelf. But for practicality’s sake he could easily go through both until he has to leave. He gets some microwavables and frozen stuff and he might as well get takeout, really. His pantry is far too depleted. You want to go shopping.

Thanksgiving is coming up soon. As he stacks his cornucopia of food onto the checkout counter, you say, “You canceled your flight today.”

He doesn’t reply, but he had, at the office, with his assistant.

You say, “Just because the statistic is lower doesn’t make it diagnostic—”

You say, “My dilution is bigger than the prob—”

You sigh, put your hands on his shoulders. “Bus seats are going to be killer on your back.”

He settles into your rubbing, though it’s not until his hands are full with plastic bags and you’re back out in the parking lot when he says, “I know.” Then, “It’s not—”

“Yes, it is.” You look him dead in the eye. “It’s okay, Mark, you’re—”

“It’s stupid.” He mutters this to himself. “I just shouldn’t go—I can do more here—”

“It’s been forever,” you say pointedly. You kiss his forehead. He closes his eyes, into you. A van swerves around the both of you.

“Yeah,” he says, before loading the car. He is glad to have you here, though.

He orders takeout for dinner, Chinese food that you both eat in the living room while watching a movie on his ridiculously large flat-screen TV. His laptop is open on the armrest and the glow his so bright on his face his skin is white as sheet. He laughs at all your jokes, even the bad ones, and scuffs his toes under your ankles. You get distracted by kissing, tasting like lo mein and kung pao chicken, that you both forget to throw out the trash until tomorrow morning.

Look, maybe you had always been in love with him in school and had thought nothing would come of it, because he was always looking in the other direction, at Facebook, at his computer, at not you. Maybe you were in love with the way his back sloped under your palm, brief but memorable, had his schedule memorized because you wanted to catalogue all the times during the day and night and weird winks in the morning when you could see him blinking at you, realizing he had fallen asleep at his desk, and you couldn’t say much because you had fallen asleep on his bed. You don’t remember the smell of his pillowcase or the angle of his calves when you switch places, when he curls up and you head to the door, ready to leave. You don’t linger by the doorway to watch him, you waited up when you told him you were, and it was never a surprise. Maybe you never loved him in the first place; never would.

***

The first flight out of California to Singapore—

***

He is stirring a little as you jostle him awake. “Mark,” you say gently, smiling. His eyelids twitch, eyelashes sweeping over each other. He nestles more comfortably into his chair; you say, “Christ, Mark, wake up.”

He grunts.

“You fell asleep at the office.” You are exasperated, affectionate. You don’t know what time it is. “You’ve got to stop doing this.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

You prod his elbow. “Up and at ‘em,” you say, chuckling as he pries his eyes open bit by bit. His phone is on the desk and he unlocks it; it’s two in the morning.

“Fuck,” he says. “I’m too tired to drive.” He props his elbow on the table, head on his hand. He starts to doze off again.

You pull him by the arm, anyway. He doesn’t budge. “Get something to drink or something so you’re awake enough to drive, then sleep in your bed.”

“Wardo,” he protests.

You’d been home alone, waiting for him, and now you’re here. He spends his nights at the office a lot, because taking a lot of time off would cause people to notice, to turn around and stare and say shit that isn’t true.

“Fine,” he says, standing up. “I’ll go home and sleep.” He wobbles a bit when he stands up; your body righting him up doesn’t help very much.

“Get Red Bull or something,” you say, following. Leading the way.

He shakes his head, walking out, locking up as he leaves. His office has been moved to the same floor as the lobby, smaller and all wall and no glass for you to fuck him against. He goes to his car and starts the engine with his eyes half-lidded.

“Mark,” you warn. He ignores you.

The drive home is reckless. He is half asleep still, but it is lucky that the drive is muscle memory at his wrists and fingertips, and is in the direction opposite of the university and cliffs and mountains and rivers and such. The roads are big and safe and he drives mostly on the shoulder. His eyes sting and his teeth are hard.

“What the fuck?” you say when you get home.

He ignores you.

You shout, “Mark, look at me. What the fuck?” He doesn’t listen to you at all, makes his way into the guest room.

You scream after him, “You could’ve killed yourself, you—”

Singapore is so fucking busy. You like high rise buildings. You travel a lot, overseas. You take the first flight out of—

***

The bus’s hums vibrate under the seats. You tilt your head towards his; he looks tired, eyes closed. His laptop is on the table in front of him, and the cushions are plush, too soft against your backs.

You say, looking at him, “Is a four day trip really worth it?”

He peeks an eye open, for you. “It’s too late for that now,” he says, before closing his eyes again.

You smile, nudge your head under his, on his shoulder. He lets you. His shoulder is bony but you don’t care.

When you get to New York, he takes the bags and rents out a car. Both of your spines are stiff and it feels weird standing after mostly sitting for the past ninety-six hours; maybe it hadn’t been worth it. There are no statistics available for buses, though. Maybe it had been.

He drinks five sodas to shake himself awake before driving. You roll your eyes— “Really, Mark?” you say, as he tosses his fifth can into the nearby trashcan at the bus terminal.

He shrugs. “Making the four day trip worth it,” he says pointedly.

You join him in the car.

He parks outside of his house and driveway. You’ve never seen it before. “This is where you grew up?” you ask, looking over the front lawn and white wooden mailbox.

“I’m sure it’s nothing compared to your childhood home—”

“No, it’s,” you say quickly. You’ve never seen this before, not the playset in the back that had broken when he was fourteen, not the sprinklers that would spurt on every summer which his sisters used to drag him out to play in. It looks— “homey. Nice. Really,” you add, when he glances at you dubiously.

He heaves the bags out of the car. “Come on,” he mutters.

He rings the doorbell, out of formality.

You’re led inside, not letting yourself look around too much. He says something; you elbow him and say, “That wasn’t very funny,” although your tone is light. You try to smile, for him. He doesn’t look at you.

“Tell me when it’s time for dinner,” he snaps, walking across the hall.

He heads to a room at the far end of the house, ostracized from the rest of the warm food smell and noises from the kitchen, even though it’s on the same floor. He closes the door. The furniture has a thick layer of dust and the bed smells vaguely like old linen. You’ll probably have to check the closet for mothballs.

“This is nice,” you say, browsing around. Nothing much is in the drawers. He’s already made himself at home at the desk. “This is really your childhood bedroom?”

“Of course not,” he says without looking up.

You chuckle, going over to him. “I know,” you say, climbing onto the chair with him, bracketing his body with yours. You take the laptop from his hands and set it onto the desk before kissing him. “Too bad we can’t christen your Star Wars sheets,” you murmur against his lips.

He crinkles his nose, but grins against your mouth. “I like how you just assume that I have Star Wars sheets,” he says. His hands are splayed across the top of your shoulders, and you drag him by the waist to the stuffy bed. You flip yourselves over so he’s on top of you, biting the slots of your buttons open as your hands slide down to his ass, squeezing and kneading lightly. He moans. The chair from the desk squeaks.

A short time later, his mother calls for dinner. He groans from beside you on the bed, and you prod him on the shoulder.

“Don’t skip,” you say. “You just got here and you’ve barely talked to your family. You haven’t even seen them yet.”

“I saw my mother,” he says pointedly.

You incline your head towards his. “C’mon,” you say, tugging at his hand. “Put a shirt on.”

He gets up from the chair, yawning and stuffing his hands in his pockets. You follow, never too far behind. He stiffens, but waves.

Someone speaks.

“You still shouldn’t believe her,” he deadpans. “I’m a ghost.”

You laugh. He is terrible at making jokes. “Mark, really,” you say. “That’s not going to make anyone feel better.”

He shrugs and sits down at the table. He says something. Your ears buzz for a moment. The next second, you tug him by the elbow.

“Don’t sit there. Come on. Let’s help set up the table.”

“Okay,” he says.

Tension reeks in the air over dinner. You bump your foot against his comfortingly, which seems to help him, as he sends you half moon smiles and pokes his food around on his plate. When you notice, you gesture toward him, and he eats. You don’t notice very often.

You help with the dishes, after. They get loaded into the dishwasher.

You can tell that he wants to leave; you wrap an arm around his waist and he settles into you. “Come on, you know he’s right,” you say against his cheek.

His spine straightens then, defensive. “I have,” he says.

“Barely,” you say into his skin.

Your voice is rusty, so rusty.

He goes back to the dishes stiffly, ignoring you. He moves with a twitchiness like every nerve is itchy and he’s straining not to scratch, not to let the wind tickle. He could leave, but he doesn’t. You don’t, either.

He turns, bowl in his hand. “No,” he says, and you sigh.

“I did want to see your Star Wars sheets,” you say sadly. His mouth doesn’t twitch.

The dishes are finished quickly, and you escape to the guest room together. “You know,” you say, as the door shuts behind him. “With your father as a dentist, I would’ve expected you to have a better diet.”

He shrugs. “Defying expectations is in my blood.” He walks over to you, twines his hands in yours.

You snort. “Your parents seem like perfectly good law-abiding citizens,” you say.

He hums, tilting himself toward you. “Maybe it’s just me,” he says, before meeting your mouth with a kiss.

The couch is much cleaner, even though it’s smaller. You make do.

Lunch the next day is with his sister, who is kind and witty. California had a large variety of things that he’d taken you to, and there are so many streets that you have driven together. This is all new to you, welcome to your presence.

He goes with her while you don’t, hang back by yourself. He wishes you came.

When they’re back, he goes to you before anyone else. You are reading, again, on the couch in the guest room. He sits down next to you. You smile and card your fingers through his hair.

“How was lunch?” you ask.

He grumbles, “It was fine.” He opens up his laptop.

You don’t bother glancing at his screen; you wouldn’t understand anything he’s typing, anyway. “Was it, really?” you ask, amused. You flip a page in your book.

“Apparently my sister frequently contacts my assistant,” he huffs. He doesn’t type. “And she said I could talk to her about you—”

“You could,” you say. When he turns to you, you are smiling. “I give you my permission.”

“Thanks,” he says dryly. “But if I wanted to, I would’ve.”

“Mark.” You place your book down gently, rest your palm on his knee. He doesn’t shake you off. His fingers twitch toward yours. “Maybe you should, you know, have someone to talk to,” you tell him. “I don’t have to be here—”

“I want you here,” he says.

You fli

You flicker.

The door opens, a few days later. He is surprised, and you laugh from your place next to him. On the couch. He is at his desk.

You wouldn’t understand what he’s typing; no one would. He closes his laptop lid and spins around, to say, “Nothing.” You snort, because he says it in that way where anyone would think he’s lying. He’s not lying and you say, “Don’t lie to your mom, Mark.” He isn’t. He is.

He pries his laptop back open. “If you mean you talk while I listen, sure,” he says.

His mother is a psychologist. He never told you this.

He says he’s listening.

You listen, too. You don’t mind it, even though he does, because you—

Well, he is—

“Too late,” he mutters under his breath.

He spins around in his chair. “Thank you for making a comment on my appearance, Mom,” he says sharply. The edge of his eyes strain and feel bloodshot itchy. His face feels heavy like a layer of dirt he can’t quite scratch off. Why would you kiss him? Why would you—

No. He’s fine. You’re here.

It is not your palm on the back of his neck—you have never been this warm. He swallows, swallows, swallows,

“You can say it,” you say.

“I don’t have to,” he says.

He says, “Great.” He says, “I’m glad you read the news.”

You hadn’t seen—hadn’t been there. By all technicalities you had, with the casket, except you hadn’t. He had wanted you to be there, and you were. He hadn’t. You

blinding, bright

blue blue sk

clear skies

it had been sunny that day, you know? i hated it and i didn’t want to say

if(funeral(went.false()){


wouldi(behere);
}
else{
you arent gone you are gone youre not
you;
if(you=here)
if(you=alive){
2008{
february{
8{
weather=clear;
weather=blue;
you=not6ftbeneaththeground;
}
}
}
theres no point
theres no algorithm
i can barely remember your face i remember your smell i remember you but your face will slip from my memory and what then i cn just check facebook but
thats not you thats from 2 years ago
who were you when you died
if(you(tookadifferenflight)=true){
you=here;
and i wouldnt think about you fucking me why am i ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT YOU FUCKING ME
}
else{
i(desecrating your memory = true);
}
what a fucking joke
why singapore
for you!=coward;you->any other country;++countries
you=here
you=ALIVE;
stuck in a permanent loop
why did you fucking have to
do you remember the algorit
i cant stop thinking about everything you ever said to me
ea=1/(1+10[rb-ra]1400) eb=1/(1+10[ra-rb]1400)
if(ea=1/(1+10[rb-ra]1400) eb=1/(1+10[ra-rb]1400)){
facebook = true;
}
else{
we = wouldbefriends.true();
you = wouldnotbedea
else{
i = fallin.love.with(you).false();
you = here.true();
it’s been too long you won’t pick up did you have your blackberry is that why are you in singapore is this a joke i hope it’s a joke when’s the last time you had indian food do you like dogs i keep thinking about getting a dog they say that dogs help and animals help and animals are okay i gues si dont’ want kids do you want kids? do you know ho wt o
swim you never tried out the pool we never tried t he
why did you sue me why did you have to fucking sue me why couldnt you go on through life like a coward ignoring facebook ignroing me ignoring everything we ever had instead of wanting millions of dollars back why the fuck did it matter that much to you WHY ARENT YOU HERE
if(lawsuits!=true){
you=newyorkprobably;
i=california;
us=acountryapart;
instead of a world apart instead of an entire mortality apart instead
if you!=coward {
if(you!=gaveashitaboutmoney){
lawsuit.false();
{
reconciliation.possible();
you.mylifeagain(possible);
}
if money < me
here = you
maybe
can you
ea=1/(1+10[rb-ra]1400) eb=1/(1+10[ra-rb]1400) ea=1/(1+10[rb-ra]1400) eb=1/(1+10[ra-rb]1400)
ea=1/(1+10[rb-ra]1400) eb=1/(1+10[ra-rb]3000000000) eb=1/(1+10[ra-rb]3000000000) 3000000000 e8 0 3 3 3 3 ea=1/ 3 fucking million 000 0
0
0 0
0
.03 %% % 1400 eb=1/
i dont
what will it take for you to come back
if(i!=madefacebook)
you = here;
you = mybestfriend;still
you != billionsofdollarsricher;
i didnt care about the moeny i dondt care i didntcare why did oyu care so muhc
do you want me to say sorry
do you want me to say it that badly
is that why th

is that why its raining

He snatches his laptop back.

“Jesus fuck, Mom,” he snaps. The scrollbar is tiny and seems to go on forever. White on black on white on black on green on purple on white.

“Go play doctor on someone else. Please.”

His eyes are raw.

You rest your hand between his shoulderblades, waiting to hear the door shut. He can talk to you about it, you know, but you don’t say it. He stares at the computer screen. You still don’t understand the senseless text. He closes his eyes. You kiss his temple.

“You never say please,” you say, and he snorts, low.

“She’s my mom,” he says.

“I, I want, I need you out here,” he says.

They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you

it’s raining it always feels like it’s raining you liked meteorology i dont know shit about the weather but i woudlnt have been so stupid t o why did

The bus ride home is quiet.

Shake.

Sh—

He asks, “Would you forgive me?”

You say, “I don’t know, Mark.” You smile at him. Your warmth is old and you don’t need to touch for him to feel it, phantom over his skin.

He closes his eyes. He closes his eyes. He closes his

He asks, “Is this worth it?”

You say, “You only fell in love with me after I was gone.” You’re furious. “How could you possibly think that I would—”

You say, “If it works for you.” This company is his.

Your name is on the masthead. Your name is everywhere. Your name is in his untitled.txt. Your name

you

You are in his dream. You are at his kitchen table and reading something. You are laughing.

“What are you reading?” he asks, with interest.

“Look at this.” You turn your laptop to him. It is the CNN website. “Co-Founder of Facebook Eduardo Saverin was also on that flight, and pronounced

“And I bet what you hated the most was that they identified me as the co-founder of Facebook,” you hiss. “Which I am. You better lawyer up, asshole, because I’m

You smile at your lawyer. “Singapore,” you say, on your way out of the room. It is high up on a building. It is raining.

You ask, “Why did you go?”

“I was invited,” he says.

You say, “What if I didn’t want you to come?”

“You wouldn’t have been able to—”

You say, “You didn’t have to—”

You say, “Did you think I would forgive you?”

Your eyes burn. You hate him so much.

Your mother misses you.

You are not in his dream. He is at work, on the lowest level of his building. He lives on the lowest level of his house (of every house.) His feet are solid on the ground. It is raining. You are there. You make out on the couch like you are teenagers. You slot your knee between his, perfectly, perfectly. You have forgiven him. You have forgiven him.

He does not try to touch you, to kiss you. You

—were on the first flight out of California to Singapore—

say, you say, you look up and you say, “It’s raining.” It’s raining. There are no windows in this room but it’s raining. You were on the first flight out of—

It’s raining. You have forgiven him. You are standing next to the window. There are no windows in this room. You are standing next to the desk. You are standing next to him.

“We should get lunch,” you say.

“No,” he does not say, petulantly. It’s raining.

You do know how to swim. You had tried, maybe you were bleeding from your forehead in the water. You don’t know how to swim. You drowned on first impact. Your body was crushed before you hit the ground, your feet still in the air, against the blue blue sky, between metal and the statistic is one in 30 million, did you know? The statistic is literally 0.00000003%, you had a fucking 0.00000003% chance of

He has a 0.00000003% chance of

He takes buses and trains and

It’s raining.

You were on the first flight out of California to Singapore and then you were blue blue

blue

like the ocean, the sky, Facebook, the stupid thing we built together, you know? Well, you barely built it, you just gave him the money because you were always giving, you were good at it until you weren’t, and then the lawsuit and then Singapore and

did you have a 0.00000003% chance too? The chance of you suing him. Of you fucking up. Of

The statistic is probably higher. Isn’t that funny, you had a higher chance of fucking up your friendship with him than dying on a plane crash but instead both of them

What’s the statistic of that, then? The both of them together?

“What is it, Wardo?”

You don’t know.

“Did you think I would forgive you?” you ask.

He doesn’t answer.

“Do you think I would forgive you?”

He doesn’t know.

Would you?

***

Flicker.

***

He thinks about

He doesn’t try to touch you, to kiss you. You exist between his ears.

you. He thinks about you a lot. And rain. And

blue.

***

He walks across the street. You are holding his hand. He doesn’t turn his face to kiss you. You kiss him as he turns his face. He gets into his car. The passenger door does not open. You open the passenger door and sit beside him. He says something. You laugh. He drives. The car ride is quiet. It is raining.

These are the emails you don’t receive:

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
I hope you regret it. Everything. I do.

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
You shouldn’t have gone to Singapore. You shouldn’t have gone anywhere. You could’ve stayed with me. You could’ve lived next door to me, or moved in with me. I have three bedrooms and a guest room.

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
Is this a joke?

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
I hate this I hate this why won’t you come back is this a joke please be a joke it’s been two years and I don’t know how to breathe or do anything and I want you to see this and laugh at me for how stupid I am how you finally fucking won how you’ll NEVER FORGIVE ME I WANT YOU TO SEE THIS YOU WIN I DON’T CARE YOU WIN I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE YOU WIN I DON’T CARE WAKE UP WAKE UP I DON’

(FROM) Mark Zuckerberg
(TO) Eduardo Saverin
come back please be here i need you i want you here just here please
please
please

Notes:

spoiler warnings: hallucinations, acrophobia, suicidal thoughts

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by aroceu

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© 2009-2026 aroceu