"Does he know that you are, in your own words, "simmering in anger"?" His therapist's voice echoes in the small room.
He thinks about how he got here, ranting about one text to his therapist but really, it just came out. His therapist is pretty good with accessing what he is most bothered with and bringing it out, what can Eduardo say. He thinks about the question posed and is taken back to his poor choice of wording. Yikes, Eduardo. Look at what you said. A bit dramatic, don't you think?
The fact that he is actually simmering in anger is besides the point.
"I don't think so, no. But he wouldn't care?" Eduardo replies, not meaning to make it seem like a question. All his therapy sessions go this way: he says a statement but it comes out as a cry for help. He just wants his therapist to validate his words, he thinks. Perhaps that's another reason why he is going to therapy.
"Would he?" His therapist prods gently.
"I don't know and I think that is what bothers me the most." Eduardo blurts out the truth.
Fuck therapy. When it doesn't work, it's shit. But when it works? That's when it's the actual worst.
His therapist nods like they knew this all along and Eduardo realizes that huh, they probably did. Like he said, therapy is the worst. He wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, not unless they were ready to learn more about themselves and become better people. Which is the utmost worst thing you can do to someone. Fix them and give them hope. It's worse than death. It makes you feel like perhaps anything is possible and isn't that the most dangerous thing you have ever heard?
"It is okay to feel that way, Eduardo. Emotions are messy so you can be angry and hurt at the same time." His therapist shifts towards him slightly and Eduardo notices that they have really sharp brown eyes that seem to pierce your soul as you look at them directly. "Anger is a secondary emotion so if you are feeling angry, you are probably feeling hurt or sad and that is manifesting as anger."
He really regrets not taking a psychology class as an elective at Harvard. It would make him seem less freaked out whenever he comes here because as much as he's a people person, he can't figure people out as easily as his therapist gets him. Maybe his therapist is just that good and it is not something he could learn in an introductory psychology class. He probably shouldn't look down on a career thinking that he could learn it easily when people spend their entire lives on it. Not that he was trying to look down on it, but perhaps there was a subconscious bias there. He's trying to be better at that. He's trying to be better at a lot of things, actually.
"I don't know why he would bother reaching out is what I'm saying," Eduardo says, moving on from his inner monologue.
"Well, we can't pretend to understand Mr. Zuckerberg's actions but what we can do is help you understand what you feel in this whole situation," they say, after taking a sip from their cup of water. Eduardo acquiesced by taking a sip from his cup in return.
That's fair. What does he feel? Apart from hurt and insulted and insecure and completely insane, actually? He doesn't really know. He spent this week just being aware of himself more. Aware of his reactions to things. Making his week kind of surreal with the amount of self-awareness he had. It was very uncomfortable but also made him feel closer to himself and his emotions. Though, apart from that, he just spent a lot of time at work to distract himself.
And also checking his phone an insane amount because that distraction didn't work. Ultimately, he knew it wouldn't but he really hoped it would so he could stop being this adrenaline fueled all the time. He spent each day with this awareness of Mark in his life, but not in the way that made him hurt and angry all the time, more like the way where he realized that Mark was just a text away. He was so close. All this time he spent running away and constructing all these walls between them but they could crumble so easily, so quickly with just the reminder that he still exists and he is out there, in his Facebook office most likely (when Eduardo pictures Mark, it's doing what he is doing best, being a workaholic), breathing and existing.
He doesn't like to picture Mark because that just reminds him that they were so close that they chose to start a company together and now, they legally aren't allowed to talk about it. What a tragic picture they paint. It is fucking tragic, alright. He knows he's rich now and therefore all his problems are minimized (or maximized, depends on who you talk to) but he feels them all the same.
"We are almost out of time, Eduardo, but let's say you think about that before next week, and then we can continue from there?" His therapist makes a move to get up and he gets up in return.
"Sounds good, thank you." Eduardo says, genuinely.
Alright, next week. He can manage that. He just has to get through this week intact and he shall be better next week.
As an actual adult now thank you very much, he can say that most of adulthood is convincing yourself that this week was bad but next week shall be better and doing that every single week of your life. It sounds awful but he doesn't have to live with his father ever again, so he counts it as a win. It could be worse. He could be thinking about his former best friend who betrayed him and cast him out of their company with no remorse so Eduardo had to do something drastic to gain back his attention and his rightful place at the company, like legal action. Imagine if that had happened. It would really fuck him up, huh. The sarcasm was strong with this one (and Star Wars just made him think of Mark — with how obsessed he was with it, how could he not — and oh, he hates this).
He sighs and leaves his therapist's office, emotionally exhausted but satisfied. That's how he usually feels after his therapy appointments. He thinks it's a good thing. He feels like he could nap the whole day after having a long glass of his cousin's homemade iced tea to soothe his churning stomach. He settled for going to Starbucks and getting one of their summer drinks as he drove back home. Not home, he thinks, but his apartment.
His apartment isn't home and he doesn't think it will ever be. Home is the taste of salt in the air in Rio. It's his green swim trunks and the blistering heat. His father's cigar scent and his winks. His mother's perfume and her dresses. His cousin's laughter and her husband's blatant adoration of her. His room with ugly pale blue walls and worn out The Strokes posters. When was the last time he had visited home?
He looks to the sky as he drives. It slowly seeps into a grey slumber from the clear blue it was a few hours ago. Ophelia by The Lumineers come up on his phone and he lets himself get lost in the lyrics. This song always reminds him of himself. He took an English Literature class with Chris at Harvard in which they discusses Hamlet and he always felt the closest to Ophelia. He never told anyone that because he knows how it sounds like. He sighs as the song ends and his phone moves on to the next.
After he reaches his apartment and freshens up, he looks outside his window where the skyline of Singapore looks back at him, idle and ominous. What a beautiful place he lives in, yet he yearns for a place he can't return to. We are all yearning for something beyond our reach. That's all that unites us, he thinks, though deep inside he knows that it is all bullshit. Or at least, that's what he would like to think. His phone beeps, interrupting his thoughts.
He stares at the message, knowing it is from Mark. He now knows that he memorized Mark's number, without even trying because he had spent so much time obsessing over it. He re-reads the message in confusion. Without even thinking about it, he replies what, because he is just that bewildered. Typical Mark. He sighs and moves on to prepping for his early morning meeting.
As he gets into bed and looks at his phone once again before finally sleeping, he replies to a message from Francisca about her day. He smiles at that. When he went to meet her last week, it was like they clicked and though they aren't the best of friends, he knows that they are heading in a promising direction. He really appreciates her friendship because he is slowly realizing that adulthood is just an exercise in being alone. So, he is very grateful for companionship, no matter how stilted. He replies back, telling her about his day in return.
He looks at the next message that was sent a few hours ago and bolts up from the bed so fast that he is slightly dizzy. He barely remembers sending Mark the message but he did it. His confusion blinded him that it was Mark that had sent the text and he had just responded with familiar tones, just like nothing had changed.
In movies, Eduardo thinks hysterically, to signify a great source of distress or sudden change in atmosphere, the characters hear this encompassing but somehow still muted ringing sound in their ears and their surroundings shake and shift rapidly showing distress. Eduardo felt that ringing sound envelop him. What had he done?
It may not seem like much to an outsider but he knew what this signified for Mark. He would think that Eduardo was open to conversation, which he was very much not, thank you very much. And he did not know when he would be (he hates that he thought about when he would be and not if but he is, if nothing else, always honest with himself).
Deleting it would only make it worse. Mark would be way more curious to a deleted message than he would to a plain reply, so deleting was out of the books. Perhaps it is for the best that he replied now, so that he could crush whatever Mark was doing right in the bud.
There are no take backs in life (he learnt that from his father first and then, (and this one was quite unexpected) from Mark) and so he had to come to terms with it. He sent the message and now it was time to deal with it.
Mark may think of this as a new project: getting a reaction from him and now that it was done, he will probably never reach out again. Eduardo tries to convince himself that he feels good about that but he knows that, despite everything, he is just sad. He is so sick of feeling sad about this Mark that he just lays back down in his bed in defeat.
What is done is done. He puts the phone down and attempts to sleep. His last thought as he is drifting off to sleep is: what a change a week can do.