Harvey noticed the difference the next morning.
Not in anything obvious. No sudden change in mood, no sense of urgency. Just the way people moved around him, slightly faster, slightly more certain, like everyone else already knew where they were going.
He sat down at his desk and opened the report he had left unfinished the night before. The numbers were familiar. He adjusted a few lines, checked a projection, saved the file.
The project email was still unread.
He left it that way.
A few minutes later, someone stopped beside his desk.
"Harvey."
He looked up.
Laura Bennett stood there with a tablet in her hand, already mid-thought. She didn't ask if he was busy. She rarely did.
"I'm reviewing the demand assumptions from last quarter," she said. "Your report flagged a slowdown that didn't show up in ours. Can you walk me through it?"
Harvey straightened slightly. "Sure."
She leaned closer to the edge of his desk, turning the screen so he could see. No small talk. No hesitation.
"The spike here," he said, pointing, "was temporary. It came from delayed orders being released all at once. If you smooth it out, the growth isn't as strong."
Laura nodded, following along. "So the baseline is flatter."
"Yeah. Not bad. Just not accelerating."
She tapped the screen once, thinking. "That helps."
She looked up. "If this holds, it changes the rollout timing."
Harvey nodded. "Probably safer to slow it."
"Okay."
That was it.
Laura stepped back. "Thanks."
She walked away without waiting for more.
Harvey stared at his screen for a moment after she left.
The interaction had been clean. Simple. He hadn't second-guessed his words or worried about how he sounded. He hadn't felt the need to explain himself further.
He had just answered.
Jake passed by a few minutes later. "What was that about?"
"Assumptions check," Harvey said.
Jake raised an eyebrow. "Nice."
Harvey didn't respond. He turned back to his work.
Around noon, Emily stopped by his desk. She didn't sit down this time. She rested her hand lightly on the back of the chair across from him.
"Lunch?" she asked.
"In a bit," Harvey said. "I want to finish this first."
Emily nodded. "Okay."
She hesitated for half a second, like she might say something else. Then she didn't. She walked away toward the break area.
Harvey watched her go, then looked back at his screen.
The afternoon moved quickly. Harvey handled a few follow-ups, sent a short clarification email, and reviewed a draft Laura sent later in the day. She made the changes without comment and moved on.
No one praised him. No one ignored him.
He felt useful.
That realization unsettled him more than it should have.
On the way home, he thought about the difference between being useful and being present. The thought didn't fully form. It lingered, half-finished, like most things he avoided looking at directly.
At home, his phone buzzed.
A message from Emily.
*Did you eat?*
Harvey stared at it longer than necessary.
*Not yet,* he replied. *Probably will now.*
A few seconds passed.
*Okay,* she sent back.
Nothing else followed.
Harvey set the phone down and went to the kitchen. He stood there for a moment before opening the fridge, listening to the quiet of the apartment.
No words appeared. No brackets. No warnings.
Just the steady feeling that something was being shaped, slowly, by the things he did and the things he didn't.
He ate standing up, barely tasting the food.
Later that night, he opened his notebook but didn't write anything. He closed it again and turned off the light.
Sleep came easier than before.
That worried him.