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8
Eight, and Michael’s wins beats his own personal record for his achievements—national quiz bee, spelling bee, grand winner of junior jeopardy, and literary genius. Name it, he’s won it. It’s the best year of his life, marking him as the young talented genius who can one day change the world.
At the same time, he still has his baby teeth, is knobby-kneed and awkward, shy around strangers, hides behind his mother’s skirts, clings to his dad’s pant legs, gets bullied in school for being a nerd, and loves his grandmother’s oatmeal raisin cookies.
Nothing can stop him at eight.
16
Sixteen, and he changes his name to Mike instead of Michael. It’s cooler and shorter and kids at uni stop calling him pipsqueak. He beats them at every single exam—top marks all around. He lost everything but hope when his parents died. He’s still his grandmother’s grandson and, for her, he wants to succeed.
But she’s frail and sickly. He needs money that he doesn’t have. One of the kids tell him to go steal a test and sell it to the highest bidder. He’s got nothing to lose, nothing more important than saving his grandmother in the hospital and paying the bills.
He steals the test and gets caught. He gets kicked out of school, out of the special program, out of his scholarship grant. He loses everything but her.
It’s okay.
24
Twenty-four, and he becomes someone he doesn’t recognize—the pot, the booze, the bad taste in friends. He tries to find work but no one will high an Ivy League dropout, or kick-out rather. They belittle him like the kids in uni, the adults who pretend to be better than their adolescent counterparts—they aren’t; they are worse.
Mike is someone inconsequential. He delivers messages on bike because he can’t afford a motorbike or fuel. He eats power redbull and corner-kiosk sandwiches for five dollars a piece which lasts him the whole day. He does it because he works three to four jobs just to barely scrape-by. He does it in order to survive.
At twenty-four, he doesn’t understand how this can be his life. How someone who started out with so much potential ended up lower than the low, a pitiful case of a human being, ended up not better off than trash. Sometimes, he wants to just waste away and let it go.
There’s nothing for him, not at twenty-four.
32
Thirty-two, and he doesn’t believe this is his life. He’s a senior associate at Pearson-Hardman, on the partner track. He didn’t graduate university. He doesn’t have a law degree. He hasn’t passed the bar. But, by some bizarre twist of fate, he ended up at Harvey Specter’s interview room when he was twenty-eight with a briefcase full of pot and he got hired !
The work hours are unbelievable but the pay is a lightyear away from what he’s used to. He gets Grammy the best medical care in the world and has enough savings to buy his own apartment. His new life is nothing he ever expected, not at sixteen, not at twenty-four, but maybe when he was eight. This is what dreams are made of.
He’s also, maybe, a little bit in-love with his boss, his friend, his Senior Partner, the man who gave him a shot, who gave him a way in, who got his life back on track. No, it’s not simple hero-worship. While he never hated Harvey for the sour treatment at the beginning, all those negative thought dissipated when he helped bail Trevor from those drug-dealing crooks.
Respect to admiration to something else which he isn’t prepared for. He isn’t prepared for love.
There are days when he’s content with sitting in the same room, eating cold pizza, sharing a beer, and watching a game on the flat screen while they work on a case.
There are days when he wants to rip out Dana Scott’s throat for constantly stringing Harvey.
There are days he wishes that Zoe Lawford never left so he doesn’t see Harvey’s broken heart.
There are days that he wishes he didn’t know of Donna’s feeling for Harvey. He wishes he didn’t care. He wishes he didn’t respect her. He wishes she wasn’t so in-love.
There are days he wishes that he wasn’t in-love with a man that he can’t have.
At thirty-two, it’s the best and worst time of his life. He has a jobs he loves, a family he loves, friends he loves, and a boss he loves. He can’t wish for a better life than what he has now. As long that his secret is kept, his poltergeist never released, and the pandora’s box is close, nothing can harm him.
Then, the inevitable happens.
40
Forty, and he’s a changed man. He isn’t a lawyer. He isn’t a failure. He isn’t a fake. He’s the loving husband of one Harvey Specter and the second father to their lovely children. He loves his husband and their kids. He loves being a full-time dad, running a side-blog on new-age gay parental rights, and keeps their financial portfolio afloat despite the financial crisis. He also is the den father and part-time co-coach, with his husband, in the little league. Seeing their kids smile is the best feeling in the world.
He was acquitted of all fraudulent charges and released a freeman. They countersued and won, but he never want back. He didn’t want to be a phony, a fake, an imposter. He wanted to be his own man, live his own life, and stop blaming fate for everything.
The trial had only brought them closer together. Harvey, never backing down and willing to risk it all, nearly lost life, limb, and job winning Mike’s case. For what? For love—the ultimate declaration of I love you in Mike’s life. He didn’t expect it. He didn’t know… not until he was taken out of the holding cell and kissed senseless in the middle of the Justice Building. Donna was there with a smile on her face. He was grateful that she accepted it.
They say life happens at forty. Mike says life started with Harvey.
“Hey,” a tap on his head bring Mike out of his reverie. Harvey’s face, slightly wrinkled and grey, is in front of him. He is still as handsome as ever to Mike who smiles and pulls the older man in for a kiss.
“I’ve just been thinking,” Mike says when they part. They are dressed in adult-sized Little League jersey with their names embroidered on the back. The sun is high over their head and the sky is clear. Nothing obstructs their view of the large baseball diamond on the field.
Harvey slides beside him on the bench.
The big four-zero, and Mike can say, for the first time since he was eight, that he’s happy and content.