To Build a Home

Trevor Makes Bad Life Choices

CHAPTER 5: WE MIGHT AS WELL BE STRANGERS

I don't know your thoughts these days

We're strangers in an empty space

I don't understand your heart

It's easier to be apart

We might as well be strangers in another town

We might as well be living in another time

We might as well, we might as well

We might as well be strangers

From "We Might As Well Be Strangers" by Keane

Harvey was surprised by how quickly life changed after Mike's mini-panic attack and their ensuing discussion after the files fiasco. Now that Mike was acting like a normal teenager, things had gotten exponentially much better. There were, however, a couple of strange downsides to Mike's new level of comfort in inserting himself in Harvey's life. For one, Harvey was working on resigning himself to the fact that hewas inevitably going to break an ankle one of these days, seeing as how he had tripped over Mike's converse every day for the past week. Mike had taken to kicking them off and leaving them all over the place— right by the front door, in the kitchen, by the couch, and once he had even found one shoe in the bathroom and one under the kitchen table.

And it wasn't just Mike's shoes that had begun to get scattered across the apartment. More and more of Mike's belongings had been creeping in and mixing with Harvey's stuff. Harvey found that he didn't mind this really as it seemed to make the kid feel more at home. But it had caused a few problems— once he had accidentally mixed up some of his files with Mike's homework. He had shown up in court with Mike's calculus homework and Mike had gone to math class with the Lombard contract. Harvey had had to ask for a recess so he could go and swap the two back and the judge had been less than pleased but Donna had thought it was hilarious.

It had been a rough but ultimately successful transition. It had been a long time since Harvey had lived with someone else and it was a strange feeling for him to know so many little details about someone else; those little idiosyncrasies that you only know about someone when you spend a lot of time with them. For example, Harvey now drank his coffee and read his morning newspaper with the sound of Mike singing in the shower as his background music. Apparently he now felt comfortable enough around Harvey to belt it out every morning. To be fair, the kid didn't actually have a terrible voice and he did have a pretty good repertoire, but it was still unnerving to prepare for work listening to the strains of "Hey Jude" or "Danny Boy" wafting from his guest bathroom. It was crazy how much life could change in the span of 2 weeks. And it was even crazier how things had changed over the past week since their talk. Ever since Harvey had basically given Mike permission to act like the kid that he was, he had been doing it.

"Hey, Harvey, Donna told me to give you these files," the current subject of Harvey's reflections had just entered his office.

"Thanks, Mike," Harvey said, accepting the files. That was probably the most hopeful sign that they were going to be okay; Mike was no longer calling him Mr. Specter, but Harvey instead.

Mike sighed and tossed his backpack and helmet on the floor before collapsing on Harvey's couch. He had gotten in the habit of riding his bike to the office after school most days and he would sit on the couch and do his homework in companionable silence with Harvey (with intermittent bouts of bantering) until Harvey was done working. If he finished early, he would sometimes look over cases with Harvey. Jessica didn't mind if Mike was in the office— she had laughed at Harvey for 5 minutes straight when she found out that he had agreed to take the kid in and was greatly amused by the whole situation. Harvey was quickly discovering that Mike was a veritable fountain of legal information and he was actually proving to be a great asset to Harvey. He still had a lot to learn, of course, but what he did know was truly astonishing. The kid had potential, that was for sure.