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Harvey lets Mike drive.
It’s the last bit of control he’ll have. It’ll be two years before Mike will feel the grip of the wheel beneath his palms again, before he’ll be able to choose the direction on these open roads. But it’s also because Harvey isn’t sure if he can actually do it—to be the one who steps on the gas himself.
And so it’s Mike who pulls the car away from the church, leaving Rachel and their friends in the rear view. They turn the corner slowly, but his eyes don’t find the mirrors to look.
They leave the city. They leave everything.
Harvey stares out the window and counts trees. It’s something he and his brother used to do as kids when their parents’ car felt like a prison of its own, filled with the stifling air of arguments past and imminent. It would keep Marcus calm and distracted, and it gave Harvey’s mind something to do, even though he always lied and said a smaller number so Marcus could win.
In the city now, at first, there’s few. Then, more, as they leave the city streets behind and cross the Hudson. Harvey counts until he loses count and starts again from the beginning, the evergreens and oaks and maple trees.
He counts until he isn’t even sure the order of the numbers anymore, and his head feels like a fishbowl, and his stomach starts to churn.
1…2…3…
Mike is going to prison.
He counts, higher. Loses track again.
1…2…
You’re losing him.
His chest burns.
“Mike. Pull over.”
Mike doesn’t glance his way. But he does take the car down one of the little roads by the reservoir, toward the water, and pulls off to the shoulder.
Harvey unbuckles before the car has fully stopped and shoves open the door.
The ground moves. At least, that’s what it feels like. He turns his head, and it’s like looking through a wide-angle lens or a fucked up panorama, where the image stretches wrong. He can’t see straight, and his chest heaves, and Harvey leans both hands against the side of the car and braces himself to be sick.
He isn’t, though. Just stares at his shoes, watching the sight swim. And when Mike’s hand appears on his arm, he almost doesn’t feel it.
“It should be me.”
“No, it shouldn’t.” Mike says it automatically, as if there’s a universe in which that’s true. “And we don’t need to rehash this again.”
They don’t. He knows this—that it won’t be productive, and there’s nothing they can do about it now. There was a time to fix this, and the time has passed. And he hates that of the two of them, it’s Mike whose voice doesn’t waver. Mike, who shouldn’t be going to prison but is. And Harvey, who should be going in his place, who gets to walk free, is the one who’s about to vomit onto his shoes.
Still, Harvey manages to whisper: “I just wish I could make it all go away.”
It passes. They way it always does. Harvey feels his breath coming back to him, the pain in his chest growing dull and distant. And slowly, his surroundings start to feel real—he can see the trees again. Can feel Mike’s hand on him, the hum of the still-running car beneath his palms. He looks up, and turns so his back is against the door. Stares out at the reservoir—which one, he doesn’t even know. Mike turns too. And shoulder to shoulder, they stare out at the water.
“I think I’ve been here before,” Mike says. “When I was a kid, maybe.”
Harvey forces himself to scoff quietly. “I don’t know how you could remember that. It looks like any other stretch of water and trees and sky.”
And he hates the words as soon as he says them. Insensitive, to take it all for granted—to look at something beautiful, something Mike won’t see again for two years, and call it mundane.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really looked at anything before. Recently, that’s what it feels like,” Mike says. “Like, this morning I poured my coffee and I looked at the way the mug is worn on the handle from years of holding it there, and I thought—you know, I’ve never really noticed this mug. It’s been part of my morning for like three years, what is that, 1,095 mornings? And I never even noticed that until today. I’ve never really noticed how blue the sky is, either. I never noticed that there are so many different kinds of trees. And how many chances have I had to notice? To really look?”
Harvey is pretty sure if he speaks, it’ll come out as a sarcastic bark that’ll break this moment between them, or his voice won’t work at all. So he just nods.
“There’s just so many boring things,” Mike continues, “that I’ll miss. That’s all.”
There are boring things Harvey will miss too—the way Mike’s handwriting is atrocious in his notes, the shared glances at the negotiating table. The exchange of movie quotes and the way that Mike is so much smarter than him, even if he’s such an idiot too. Mike showing up at his door, the way his fist sounds against the wood. The feeling of someone seeing the worst parts of you and still choosing to stay. And to go to prison in your place.
There’s a stirring noise above them, and Harvey and Mike look up.
There are birds launching from the tree—not just a few, but dozens. Probably more than dozens. Harvey doesn’t know anything about birds, has no idea what kind they might be. Mike probably knows—he probably memorized the National Audubon Society guide books for fun as a kid, something ridiculous like that. But he saves the tart comment, and just looks up. They both watch the birds, maybe hundreds of them, soaring above the reservoir and into the sky.
“How many chances do you think we get,” Harvey says, still looking up, “to see something like this?”
But when he turns his head, Mike isn’t looking at the birds.
“Not enough.”
Harvey meets his eyes.
There’s never enough time to look at beautiful things.
The birds pass over them. Into the distance, they get smaller as they rise. And now, Harvey’s chest doesn’t feel tight anymore—just heavy. Like someone’s reaching between his ribs and pulling out whatever’s inside, and bringing it to Danbury with him. Or maybe, like it wants to follow the birds, to be dragged where the hopefulness takes it, instead of left here. Missing him.
Harvey finds Mike's eyes. “You’re going to get through this,” he says. “One minute at a time. Until you’re on the other side.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will,” Harvey says. Automatically, because there isn’t a universe in which it isn’t true. “And when you do—I’ll be here.”
Mike’s eyes flicker down. And if there are tears in them, Harvey doesn’t say a word.
He’s not sure how much time passes. Between when the birds disappear, and when Mike looks up at him again dry-eyed. Between when Mike folds into him, when one of Harvey's hands cuffs his neck and the other around his back, holding on. And when finally, they get into the car.
They go on. To Danbury. And whatever else comes next.
And this time, Harvey doesn’t count the trees. This time, he finds just one thing—and he notices it. Maybe Mike has had 1,095 mornings to notice a coffee mug, or maybe 6,243 opportunities to look up at a bird, or something like 12,395 chances to see a tree.
But Harvey has this—15 more minutes. To watch Mike drive.
To find this one beautiful thing, and drink it in while he is here.