All that effort comes smashing back in his face again. Typical. Mark can only blink in complete confusion, nothing more than flabbergasted for a minute, as though his code has suddenly come up with a bright red ERROR, only it's not returning the precise line and character on the status bar so that he knows where to go about fixing things. He meant for the comment to be comforting. Conciliatory. And in the end, it'd be fine if it doesn't do its job completely, because there's a whole lot of crevice between Eduardo and himself and it's going to take weeks, months, maybe even years to even start filling it up so that they're floating again. That's why he first tries to think, did he phrase it poorly? It's enough of a question to bring him to a halt on the track, but that's when he realizes.
No. That was exactly how he meant to phrase it. He thought it was the first thing to do. It wasn't an afterthought formed after talking with his lawyers. It wasn't his lawyer's idea, even. But the fact that Eduardo suspects that, or even if he doesn't and only said those things to wound Mark, it's suddenly too much. He can't process. Error, error, does not compute. Everything's coming up a blank blue screen. His eyes rove, back and forth, back again, trying to read lines that aren't there in the first place as he feels like he can hardly even pull a breath together, then does the unthinkable.
He drops his laptop. It's a sturdier brand than the last (after the destruction of the VAIO, of course Mark's gone about finding laptops that won't break with a simple drop), and has likely survived the fall. But Mark makes no effort to pick it up. "Did I say it was what my lawyers thought, Eduardo?" he asks, every syllable in place and perfectly timed, like an automated voice, if not for the strain. If he knew where he was, if he knew which way to turn to get out of there, this would be infinitely easier.
Instead, he just continues on ahead on the path they've been walking on, slippers brushing along the boardwalk.
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Date: 2011-05-20 04:45 am (UTC)No. That was exactly how he meant to phrase it. He thought it was the first thing to do. It wasn't an afterthought formed after talking with his lawyers. It wasn't his lawyer's idea, even. But the fact that Eduardo suspects that, or even if he doesn't and only said those things to wound Mark, it's suddenly too much. He can't process. Error, error, does not compute. Everything's coming up a blank blue screen. His eyes rove, back and forth, back again, trying to read lines that aren't there in the first place as he feels like he can hardly even pull a breath together, then does the unthinkable.
He drops his laptop. It's a sturdier brand than the last (after the destruction of the VAIO, of course Mark's gone about finding laptops that won't break with a simple drop), and has likely survived the fall. But Mark makes no effort to pick it up. "Did I say it was what my lawyers thought, Eduardo?" he asks, every syllable in place and perfectly timed, like an automated voice, if not for the strain. If he knew where he was, if he knew which way to turn to get out of there, this would be infinitely easier.
Instead, he just continues on ahead on the path they've been walking on, slippers brushing along the boardwalk.