Chapter Text
Chapter one – The voices in my head
Harvey tried to drown out his brother shouting something after him. He didn’t turn back so he wouldn’t have to watch the disapproving headshake, the disappointment and the hurt in his brother’s eyes. He handed his suitcase to the waiting cab’s driver and got into the car.
“The airport please“, he said once the driver sat down behind the wheel and was surprised by the shake in his own voice.
Harvey knew the panic attack was coming before it arrived. Something inside him tingled and without another warning, he fell down the anxiety spiral. Everyone was leaving him or pushing him away. He was all alone. His breathing got uneven and his chest seemed to tighten when the shaking started. He glued his gaze to the window, kept staring at the suburban streets rolling past. Nausea crept up from his stomach into his throat and he knew he was going to be sick. His eyes started stinging. Here he was. Harvey Specter, feared shark in the big ocean of ruthless lawyers, ready to puke into a dirty old cab. „Can you pull over for a minute, please?“ His whisper was barely audible, but the driver, who had already been eyeing him in the rearview window, did as he said and stopped the car. Harvey was out before he even thought about it. His eyes registered that they were on an empty road leading out of town when his body finally let him bend over and throw up on a grass verge. He steadied himself holding onto a light post and just waited for it to be over. When there was nothing left inside him to throw up, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth. He took a deep, shivering breath and tried to remember what his therapist had taught him. He tried not to fight the anxiety but to let it wash over him like waves that come but also go and finally calmed down enough to get back into the car.
The driver looked at him with concern. “Everything alright, sir?”
“Must have eaten something spoiled.”
“To the airport then?”
Harvey just nodded and leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, closing his eyes and swallowing the tears in his throat.
Back at the condo, Harvey just threw his suitcase into a corner and fixed himself a scotch before he even got out of his shoes. The liquid burned in his sore throat, but he immediately refilled the glass, fuller this time. He moved to the window overlooking the city and stared at the glittering lights in the darkness. The streets were crowded. People had somewhere to be, something to do, someone to see. Harvey hadn’t. He checked his phone only to see that Louis and Donna had called him a couple of times. He sighed. Donna had also texted him. Twice.
Donna, 02:04 pm
How much do you think you owe me for sending you home? Thank me later.
Donna, 07:35 pm
Hate to disturb your domestic family bliss but will you be back tomorrow? Louis seems to be losing it a bit and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to calm him down.
A third one arrived just as Harvey had finished reading the second.
Donna, 11:43 pm
Are you alright? I bet you are and I know you hate texting but just a quick note would be great. Otherwise I’ll cancel tomorrow’s appointments.
He emptied his glass and texted back.
Harvey, 11:45 pm
I’m fine. Will be back at the office tomorrow.
Then he turned off his phone, grabbed the scotch-bottle and moved to the bathroom with it.
The hot water running down his spine relaxed his flight-sore muscles but not his restless thoughts. He kept replaying the conversation with his mother over and over in his mind, asking himself how he could have thought that they’d ever get along again. She hadn’t changed one bit. She still thought that her behavior could be excused, that what she had done to him could simply be erased. That it was partly his fault that they had no relationship at all when she had been the one that made him who he was. It had taken Harvey years and hours of therapy to understand that his fear of letting anyone close was rooted in his mother’s abuse of his loyalty and trust. She was the one who raised him into a man doubting everything and everyone by putting him in the position of lying to his own father. By making him stand between his parents, having to choose his loyalties between two people he equally loved. He knew his father had forgiven his mother. But Harvey couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not as long as she didn’t understand that as a parent she should have never done what she did. Because she had destroyed a part of him forever. A part that could neither be fixed by apologies nor accusations. It was lost forever, tearing him apart whenever someone left him behind. How dare she still believe that he was the one who needed to be forgiven? He wanted his mother back in his life, yes. But not if she only wanted to make him feel guilty again. He’d had enough of that already.
He was still lost in thought and anger when he wrapped a towel around his hips and poured himself his sixth scotch. He swallowed it quickly and avoided looking at himself in the mirror. It would only make the lump of guilt in his throat ache even more. He grabbed the half-empty bottle instead and went to bed with it.
He woke up from a nightmare at the middle of the night, knocking his glasses and some paperwork he had been working through before sleep off his lap. Harvey sat in the dark, panting and rubbing his shivering hand over his face. The nightmare still sat in the back of his head, making his skin crawl. He had dreamed of Mike again. Of watching him walk inside that prison, not turning back. Harvey swallowed. Mike was out of prison now, safe. He knew that. But the nightmare still haunted him the same way it had for months. His chest ached and Harvey tried to take a deep breath to make the pain go away. It didn’t work. The lump is his throat was back and darkened his thoughts. He knew the nightmare still haunted him because he deserved it. It was his fault that Mike had gone to prison. His fault he had been mistreated and beaten. His fault that he would never be a lawyer again. His fault that Mike was angry with him for barging in with his life without even asking permission. If he hadn’t employed Mike, supported him to commit fraud, covered up proofs of him not being a lawyer, endorsed him to keep going even when it got dangerous…maybe all of this would never had happened. He should have helped him to get into law school. To become a proper lawyer. Instead, he had ruined his life. He had let him go to prison for something that should have put himself behind bars as well. He hadn’t taken the fall for Mike as he should have. And now he had lost him. Lost what they’d had. It was his fault. All of it. Harvey felt his eyes sting again, and this time, in the empty silence of his bedroom, he let the tears come. They rolled down his cheeks, hot and sticky, and he just let himself fall back onto his pillow, squeezing his eyes shut to stop them from falling. Why did he always make everyone miserable? Why couldn’t he ever do anything right? Why was he such a horrible person?
He didn’t find answers or sleep that night. The tears had dried when the sun rose, leaving him with emptiness instead. He got up, got dressed and went to the office without even stopping at the coffee cart.