He was glad he made it out of the door when he did. There was no reason for him to stay when she could so easily hurt him after he showed her how vulnerable he truly was when it came to her. He would refuse to call it a screw up on his part, letting his guard down the way he did; it was mere exhaustion from the way he had to dance around this issue for the last several years now.
"I'm not in love with you, Harvey."
The words from over a year ago ring in his ears. And they still don't hurt less than when he first heard them.
She had to have known how he felt about her then... And all those other times he thought he made himself very clear:
When he told her he didn't want to lose her when he wanted them to work together at Pearson Hardman... (they were young and he believed that he could really love her then).
When he fought for her during the trial run and she yelled at him later for doing exactly what she had asked in the first place... (and he would do it a hundred times over).
When he told her he can't be him without her... (his life has never felt that meaningless staring into her empty chair in the office).
When he called Zoe Lawford behind her back... (he respected her that much).
When he wanted it to be about her... (but of course, it was about Scottie).
When he beat the shit out of Stephen Huntley... (but it wasn't a duel).
When he wanted nothing more for her to admit that she was jealous of Scottie... (but, without her, Scottie wouldn't even be there).
And yet, she still made him explain. He said the words he knew he won't be able to take back, those were the kind of words that would alter their work relationship forever. He reckoned how stupid he was to utter those words, because he knew she didn't feel the same way. If, in the future, she leaves him because of this, he might as well have lost her to prison.
The relief, however, of laying it all out there, of telling her the one thing he's always held back, was a welcome feeling.
He still refused to believe that she didn't know how he felt. Donna always knew. She, of all people, should be able to see everything he did for everyone else, and how she had always been different. From the beginning, it has been Harvey and Donna. There was never any ambiguity to him that she has, and will always be a part of him. Somehow, during their time at the district attorney's office, from the time she barged into his life and micromanaged him no matter how much he protested, to the time they started working like a well-oiled machine, the boundaries between them as individuals have long faded in his mind.
She has never been a negotiable part of his life.
But he could see that she didn't see them that way. She has, and still thought of them as individuals. She saw, in this past week, that he was working to get her out of something. That distinction annoyed him.
It has been a long time since he's allowed himself to think of them as an entity. They have been so disconnected in the last year or so that he truly believed that he's forgotten. In the midst of going from Pearson Darby to Pearson Specter Litt, he's forgotten what it was like to love her.
The torture of knowing her rule and that she didn't feel the same all wrapped up in one giant mess that was him.
The others, they helped. They relieved his needs, sometimes allieviated his feelings of loneliness, but none of them were what he needed. And on most days, having fought battle after battle at the firm, he needed her. And the idea of losing her... he was honest when he vocalized that the thought made him want to drop to his knees.
He still didn't know why he said it. He could have fed her the same bullshit he's had for years. Bullshit that came about from his fear of losing her if he said something stupid. Something like he just did, in exactly those words. If he looked hard enough, he knew the reason. For the first time in years he was exhausted by this dance they've had around each other, he was done being frustrated by the lines they've drawn in the sand. And for the first time in years he's tired of settling for love.
'If I can't be with her then I'd have to settle for having her at work, fifteen hours a day.'
He remembered telling Gordon and Marcus over a family dinner, once.
He didn't expect her to feel the same, he wasn't expecting her to respond differently than all those times people have asked her about her feelings for him. He simply said it because he needed her to hear it, to understand the depth of his feelings for her.
This wasn't something he regret saying aloud.
As he fell asleep that night, having the burden of his hidden feelings for her lifted off for the first time in years, he could remember their conversation at the DA's office, and his own voice mocking him, "Oh, how the great Harvey Specter has fallen."
That, was a wager he never stood a chance of winning.