Chapter Text
1) Movie Night
First of all, Mark doesn’t know if this is a good sign, but Eduardo has invited him to a Movie Night—something they used to do back when everything was still alright. When there were no lawsuits between them, when the biggest problem they had was choosing between Star Trek or Star Wars. Most of the time the movies were playing, they ended up bickering over the smallest things, not caring about the film at all.
Back then, Mark would be busy pretending to listen while Eduardo made a failed attempt to stop Dustin and Chris from strangling each other. The usually calm Chris would always lose his temper whenever it came to Dustin, and Mark found it mildly entertaining.
But today was different. They had lawsuits. They had been trying to bite each other’s heads off for months. And now Eduardo wanted a Movie Night.
So Mark gave him the only explanation he could think of—the only one that felt safe, even though it was, ironically, complete bullshit.
“Sorry, I’m busy with Facebook.”
2) Graduation
Eduardo had his graduation party in a house he rented for a month somewhere in California. It was near the beach—because of course Eduardo would rent a place near the beach. He grew up under warm sunlight and in short beach pants.
Mark didn’t come. He hated the sun, he hated the atmosphere, and more than anything, he hated how he felt that Eduardo had faked the invitation. Eduardo had invited him only out of politeness. Because he was Eduardo. Eduardo was the kind of person who would do that.
Did he ever think about their broken relationship—friendship, at all?
Mark wondered if Eduardo had really had sex in Widener Library like he once claimed.
And if he did… with who?
3) Birthday
Honestly, Mark never understood why people celebrated their birthdays every year. He didn’t get the concept. Why celebrate the day your life was counting down? Every day was already counting down, and a birthday was just a date—a symbol that you had survived another year.
Eduardo didn’t seem like someone who wouldn’t survive anything except maybe mental breakdowns or humiliation. Or maybe he wouldn’t survive anything at all.
Facebook had proved otherwise. Mark had proved his own assumptions wrong before he even realized he had made them.
Chris looked at him as if he had murdered a cat and thrown the corpse on the ground to feed a starving wild dog. But that was exactly how Chris looked whenever he disapproved of something. Chris always thought every decision Mark made was either stupid or insulting. Mark was used to it.
“At least greet him, and then you can go back home and pretend you were never there, Mark!”
Mark didn’t listen, not even when he could clearly hear the desperation in Chris’s voice. Chris never dramatized anything, but it felt like he was doing it now.
Mark found himself doubting his own decisions for a second, but Facebook needed him. Or at least, that’s what he told himself.
He wasn’t ready—not to see Wardo, well, Eduardo—in a crowded room without thinking about everything they had been through. People would ask questions, and Mark wouldn’t be able to answer them without snapping. He would spit something cruel, something disgusting, and it would end up hurting either him or Eduardo. Probably both.
It was better to stay at the office.
Once again, he wasn’t coming.
He needed time alone.
4) Wedding
It was early December when he received another invitation from Eduardo. A wedding invitation.
Not Eduardo’s—someone else’s.
It was being held in a private hotel, and the Saverin family mentioned that they would provide guests with their own rooms. They were being generous, of course, but Mark had enough money to not only book a room—he could buy the whole building and tear it down if he wanted.
But that wasn’t the point.
He couldn’t just walk in there and pretend nothing had ever happened between them. Not when there was clearly a whole history—pages of it—written into both their lives. Pages where they fought each other over something stupid. Something that should have never broken them.
Mark wasn’t stupid. That’s why he decided what was best for him, and what was best for Eduardo.
He wasn’t coming. Because standing there, looking painfully out of place among people who were supposed to be there, would be humiliating. Degrading. It could cause a scene. And he wasn’t interested in risking another lawsuit.
Instead, Mark sent a gift: a week-long vacation to the Maldives.
Because he had money, right? And this was him being “generous.”
5) Christmas
This is the fifth time this year, and Mark is beginning to suspect that Eduardo is simply bored—or lonely. Almost unlike the Eduardo he remembers. Or maybe this is the real Eduardo, the one Mark never managed to understand.
Back at Harvard, Eduardo used to hide in the dorm whenever girls flirted with him—girls who always fell head-over-heels for him. Sometimes boys too. It was exhausting, overwhelming. Mark would never say it out loud, but he knew then, and he knows now, that he was jealous. Jealous of how easily people approached Eduardo while he couldn’t.
This is the fifth invitation this year, and Mark has no intention of going—just like the others. It’s Christmas, it’s been snowing hard, and Facebook is busy. He’s spent the last three Christmases alone and has grown used to it. Christmas feels like any other night, just louder. And he hates loud things.
But one phrase beneath “Christmas Party” catches his attention: *Farewell Party.*
Christmas and a farewell at the same time—it sounds stupid, ironic, unmatched. Joy and grief pressed into the same room. Unrealistic. But Eduardo always has a way of making unrealistic things feel real.
Just like what Eduardo once did to him.
Turning the silent, nerdy kid with one friend into someone who’d fight that friend over shares.
He heard through the grapevine that Eduardo was moving to Singapore—to avoid taxes, supposedly. It might not be true, but that’s what the media does: fabricates stories, twists rumors. And Eduardo is the perfect raw meat for them to pound into whatever shape they want.
Eduardo said he wasn’t moving. He also said he wasn’t incompetent as CFO—even if everything suggested otherwise. But he *is* good at telling the truth. The media is blind. They don’t see what Mark sees.
When the printed invitation lands on his desk, Mark knows instantly: he isn’t going. Not for himself, but for Facebook. For the company. For the image.
There will be another Christmas. Another birthday. Another wedding. He can attend one someday—when he’s ready to stop flinching at questions about Eduardo. When he can listen without snapping. When loud rooms don’t make him want to leave.
Just… not this year.
Not yet.
1)
There’s no invitation.
Turns out, the last invitation in December was really a farewell—
meant to be loud, happy, wholesome.
A celebration disguised as something casual, something normal.
A curtain call he tried to make gentle.
Mark could have held him.
Shaken his hand.
Or, if Eduardo wanted—like he always secretly wanted—they could have kissed.
Somewhere stupid, like the bathroom, with the door half-locked and laughter leaking from the hall.
But there’s no next time.
There will be no movie night, no house-moving party, no birthdays, no wedding.
And certainly no Christmas or New Year or final goodbye.
He already had all of that.
And Mark didn’t get access to his one last party—
if a funeral even counts as one.
It’s a February morning, just days before Eduardo’s birthday.
He didn’t wake up.
He stopped breathing in the middle of the night.
That’s what the media said.
But the media doesn’t have eyes.
They can’t see what Mark wanted to see.
None of it is broadcast, and the Saverin family made sure that every predator with a camera stayed far away—
that no one could smell their grief or hear the way a family howls when a young soul is taken from them.
Mark thinks…
maybe if he had gone to all those invitations last year,
he could’ve seen him—
could’ve waved goodbye to the living version of Eduardo before he found his final resting place.
Chris had come straight from the funeral.
He’d gone to all those parties Eduardo held last year.
Dustin had been invited too—because of course he had.
Dustin was nice.
Unlike Mark, who wasn’t.
Not the way Chris was.
Not the way Dustin could be.
No one speaks.
Dustin looks worn out, and Chris looks like he was hit by a truck.
Mark can’t decide who to ask.
But something inside him is dying to know.
Why him?
Of all people, why him?
Of all time, why now?
“They said he had it all during first year in Harvard,” Chris says, voice shaking, eyes avoiding him.
“He had it worst this time.”
He says it like a clue—
hinting at something Mark can’t grasp.
What had he had?
For the first time in his life, Mark hates puzzles.
“What happened? He looked fine.”
He never expects Dustin to explode.
“**Fuck you, Mark. Everyone knew.
He’d had leukemia since the depositions—since back then, Mark.
He was fighting it for years, and you… you didn’t even notice.
And now he’s gone because his body couldn’t take the treatment anymore.
And you still say he looked fine? Seriously?
You should’ve come to that party.
You should’ve seen him with your own eyes.
We all did. Except you.**”
That party.
That party.
He could have looked at Eduardo better.
He could have touched him without hesitation.
They could have kissed, because Mark knows Eduardo would’ve wanted that too.
They could—
they could—
They could have had a better farewell than this.