Jim had been dating Sandy for almost all of senior year.  She was pretty and smart, and they got along well enough, for the most part. 

They lost their virginity to each other about two months into the relationship.  They were at her house watching TV in her basement, and her parents were upstairs in bed, asleep.  Things got a little out of hand, and when Jim revealed that he had a condom tucked away in his wallet, they wasted no time.  It was over in a matter of seconds, but since he had nothing to compare it to, at that moment he thought it was the best thing that could ever possibly happen to him in his lifetime.

Until their second time, when it lasted a lot longer.  That was in the backseat of his car.  He got a lot of use out of that space for the next several months.

When they weren't having sex, however, Jim was aware that they didn't really have that much in common.  She had a totally different sense of humor than he did, or so he thought when he was being generous.  Secretly he felt that her "different" sense of humor was actually "no" sense of humor.  She took everything literally, and his sarcastic remarks were often greeted with irritation.

So he knew, as the school year was drawing to a close and they were preparing to go their separate ways to different colleges, that his relationship with Sandy had to come to an end.  He couldn't see himself trying a long distance thing when the only time he was having fun with her was when they were fucking.

He tried to drop hints here and there, but she was either completely ignoring him or was totally oblivious.  Even after the prom, when they had just done it in their most romantic setting yet - a motel room - he casually mentioned that next year would be so different and it was too bad they wouldn't be together anymore.  She corrected him by saying that sure, they wouldn't physically be in the same location, but Boston is only a five hour drive from Scranton. 

Over the next two weeks he tried to let her down easy, but every attempt ended up being an opportunity for her to reinforce the idea of a long distance relationship.  He was starting to get nervous, but he figured that over the course of the summer, when they weren't seeing each other in school every day, he would be able to slowly distance himself from her before they were both due to start college.

So graduation day arrived, and Jim was both relieved at the prospect of ending high school and terrified of what the future may hold.  He found himself feeling all sorts of emotions that day, and he was looking forward to Sandy's big graduation party the following night so that he could just relax and not have to think about anything for a few hours.

Sandy's parents apparently looked the other way over there being alcohol at the party, and Jim found himself totally and completely drunk for the first time in his life, after he lost track of how many beers he had.  At one point he and Sandy sneaked into the laundry room and shut the door.  It took all his remaining energy and then he pretty much passed out in a clothes hamper when they were done.  When he came to, he opened the door to the main part of the basement, where Sandy was chatting with her friends in a corner.  It took him a minute to actually hear what she was saying.

"I hope Jim will think about moving up there with me.  I mean, why bother staying here when there is so much more to do in Boston..."

"What are you talking about?" he said, stepping closer to their little circle.

"Oh, I was just saying how I hoped you would change your mind about going to school there," she replied, happily.

"But you and I aren't even going to be together in three months."  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.  Sandy and her friends just stared.  So he continued, "I mean, we have nothing in common, all we do is have sex, and you never even laugh at my jokes.  Why would I move to a totally different state for you?"  More stares.  He suddenly realized that he actually had said his thoughts out loud. 

Sandy burst into tears and promptly threw her beer in his face.  "You know what, Jim?  Go to hell."

Somehow he got a ride home from someone, and then had to endure a stern lecture from his dad on the perils of underage drinking.   When he woke up the next morning and realized what he had said to Sandy, he wanted to just crawl under a rock and die.  But he had to go pick his car up at her house, and he readied himself to make a sincere apology.  But she wouldn't even come to the door to see him, and he left, feeling miserable and guilty.

Five years later he ran into Sandy at Wal-Mart.  She just smiled politely and kept walking.

He thought college would be so much different than high school, but as it turned out, it was pretty much the same. During his freshman year, he went out on dates with a few different girls, but nothing ever progressed past a second date (or second base, for that matter). He just didn't click with any of them. Then he met Kathryn.

She was in his creative writing class and was assigned to be his partner for a collaborative project that was due at the end of the semester. They spent a lot of hours working on it, perhaps more than was necessary. But she was funny and brilliant and he loved spending time with her.

The only problem was that she had a boyfriend. He went to another school, three hours away, and they saw each other every other weekend. Jim was disappointed, but not terribly so. He was okay with just being her friend for the time being, and even considered pursuing another girl who was his lab partner in biology.

Then one day toward the end of the semester, as they were wrapping up their class project, Kathryn showed up crying at his dorm room door. She told him that she had broken up with her boyfriend, that it just wasn't going to work out between them.

Jim was as sympathetic as he could be, and let her cry on his shoulder for close to a half an hour. Then suddenly, she surprised him by pulling back slightly and kissing him full on the lips. He was initially shocked, but he responded with enthusiasm. That night, he locked his roommate out of the room.

They stayed together for two years. At times, Jim was sure that he was going to spend the rest of his life with her. Unlike Sandy, Kathryn seemed to "get" him. Most of the time they had a lot of fun together.

There were other times, however, where they would fight, and those fights could get nasty. Kathryn had a very quick temper and would lash out at seemingly minor infractions. Jim was always a mostly laid back person, and he always felt out of his element when she would explode and apparently want him to fight back. So most of the time he let her get it out of her system by acting as a verbal punching bag, and then they would make up and everything would be fine again.

But then one day he snapped. He was never sure why exactly he snapped. Maybe because finals were coming up and he was struggling in a couple of his classes. Or maybe his blood sugar was off that day. No matter the reason, when Kathryn picked a fight over something trivial, this time, he yelled back.

As it happened, Jim was supposed to go home with her that weekend to visit her family. She was so upset at him, however, that she kicked him out of her apartment and told him she was going home by herself. As he started to walk away, she called after him, "And Jim? Don't call me!" and slammed the door behind him.

Jim stormed back to his own campus apartment, cursing to himself. He had never been this angry at Kathryn before. He considered her last words to him, and it dawned on him that she had just broken up with him. This made him even angrier, and he paced around the room, kicking things.

His roommate Mark emerged from the shower and said, "Dude, what the hell is your problem?"

"Kathryn and I broke up," Jim replied bitterly.

"Well then, today is your lucky day," said Mark, with a glimmer in his eye.

It turned out that Mark was going to a frat party that night, and since Jim was now free of the chain that was Kathryn, he invited him to come along. Jim resisted at first, saying he didn't feel like partying, but Mark pointed out that Jim never felt like partying, and that was all Kathryn's fault.

Jim relented, and four hours later he was playing drinking games with Mark and his buddies down at the frat house. He had already had a lot to drink by the time someone passed him a joint.

"Oh, um, no thanks. I don't smoke," he said.

"Halpert! Are you kidding me?" Mark scolded him. "Come on! Live a little."

Jim nodded, a bit uncomfortable, but took a drag anyway.

A little while later Mark pointed out that a pretty blond girl was checking Jim out. Jim shook his head. "No, I just broke up with..." It wasn't that he couldn't remember her name, but his head was so fuzzy he was having trouble completing his sentences. Mark laughed and nudged him over toward her, and so he started talking to the girl, flirting a bit, and even danced with her. It was a surreal experience for him. He almost felt like he was watching a movie, like he wasn't connected to his own body.

He woke up in the middle of the night in someone else's bed, naked, with the blond girl's arm draped across him and her breasts pressed against his chest. "Holy shit," he mumbled, extricating himself from her, and feeling around for his clothes. She stirred but didn't wake up, and he slipped out of the room, tripping over someone who was passed out in the hallway.

The next day he nursed a hangover and felt miserable and guilty. "Why should you feel guilty?" Mark asked. "She broke up with you, dude. It's not like you cheated on her." As much as Jim wanted to believe that, he still couldn't shake the enormous weight he felt in his chest. He spent the rest of the weekend just sitting on the couch, staring at the TV.

Then on Sunday afternoon, there was a knock at his door. He wasn't sure why he was surprised to see Kathryn, but he was. He stuttered a bit before finally opening the door enough for her to come in.

"So I'm sorry about the other day," she said, sitting down on the couch.

"Uh-huh," he managed, before taking a seat next to her.

She reached out and put her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. "So are we good?" she whispered.

"What do you mean?" Jim asked, panic rising up in him.

"I mean, are we okay now, after our fight."

He stood up quickly. "Fight? You broke up with me!"

She stared at him, puzzled. "I didn't break up with you, you dumbass. It was just a fight."

Suddenly he felt like he was going to throw up. "What do you mean? You told me not to call you again."

Kathryn stood up as well. "I meant for the weekend! I needed some time to think."

Jim just stared at her, mouth open, unsure of what to say. He didn't want to lie to her, but he knew he couldn't keep his secret without the guilt crushing him.

"I slept with someone else," he blurted out, so fast that she wasn't sure she heard him.

"What?"

"I went to this party, and I thought we had broken up, and I had a lot to drink, and then I smoked something, and there was this girl, and - "

"Are you kidding me?" He waited for her to erupt with rage but instead she grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

"Kathryn, wait! I'm so sorry, it was just a huge misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding? I go away for one weekend and you turn into a drug user and a cheater? That's just great." She opened the door to leave.

"I didn't mean for it to happen, honest! I didn't even know what I was doing, it just happened..."

"Well maybe you should have thought of that before getting drunk and stoned and screwing some random girl." She slammed the door as she left. He fell back onto the couch and put his head in his hands.

Even though he would see her on campus all the time, Kathryn never spoke to him again. When they graduated he tried to approach her to clear the air, but she looked him in the eye and promptly turned her back on him.

The day he started working at Dunder Mifflin a year out of college, he was certain that he had found the love of his life in Pam Beesly. That certainty was short-lived, however, when she revealed in the middle of what he thought to be their first date that she was actually living with a guy, apparently happily so.

Jim was crushed by the revelation, but never let on to Pam. Instead he struck up a friendship with her, because even if she was romantically unavailable, at least she was a nice, normal person in the craziness that was Dunder Mifflin. He still harbored a crush, but in the early days, it was truly innocent. He respected her relationship (even though he found her boyfriend to be a giant lughead) and just enjoyed spending time with her while at work. He had no illusions that it would ever be anything more than that.

So when he met a nice girl at his gym, he had no qualms about asking her out. Denise worked at a nearby insurance company and was a couple of years older than he was. She was very sweet and easy to talk to, and he thought the potential was there for him to fall in love with her someday.

They took things slowly at first, a date here and there, a chaste goodnight kiss, maybe some hand holding. It took a couple of months for him to sleep with her, and after that they gradually settled into a comfortable relationship, spending the majority of their free time together.

But it was strange, because even though he was spending all his time with Denise and had even pondered the possibility of longterm relationship with her, it was still Pam who occupied his thoughts. He would actually look forward to getting up in the morning - sometimes with Denise lying right next to him - and going to work so he could joke around with Pam. Still, he managed to convince himself it was just a harmless crush, that it meant nothing.

The turning point was the day that he found Pam crying in the stairwell. He had been working there for six months and all that time, he had assumed she was happy with her boyfriend. But on that day, a small crack appeared in her facade. She was sobbing uncontrollably, and it was over something Roy had done.

"Hey," he said hesitantly, reaching out to lightly touch her on the arm.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She was embarrassed, and tried to compose herself.

"It's okay. Do you want to talk about it?"

She paused for only a moment, and then admitted, "Yeah, maybe I do."

They went out for a cup of coffee and Jim learned that Roy's favorite pastime was getting drunk with his brother, and that he never took Pam out anywhere with just the two of them, and that she was starting to wonder if they actually had a future together because she had been with him since high school and he was pretty much the same as he was then.

Being a friend, he tried to encourage her to talk to him about the way she was feeling. Internally though, he was starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, he had a chance. Maybe she was close to dumping Roy, realizing that he was all wrong for her.

But sure enough, his advice proved to have the opposite effect, as Pam came into work the following Monday sporting an engagement ring and a huge smile. She thanked Jim for being such a good friend, because she had taken his advice and had it out with Roy and he had actually listened to her. "We're getting married!" she beamed.

Jim felt like a piece of his soul had died, but he cheerfully offered his congratulations.

He spent the rest of the week acting mopey, although he wasn't sure why it bothered him so much, seeing as he had a perfectly wonderful girlfriend himself. A girlfriend who incidentally asked him several times what was bothering him. He could not give a satisfactory answer.

Then to rub salt in his wounds, Michael insisted that everyone go out to Poor Richard's Pub for a happy hour on Friday celebrating the engagement of the happy couple. Jim tried to get out of it at first, but Pam was so sincere in wanting him to go that he couldn't resist her. He did, however, immediately call Denise and invited her to meet him there. "A work get-together," he called it, noting as a selling point that it was a chance to see the real Dwight Schrute live and in person.

The night went just as he had expected, with one exception. He was not prepared for how well Denise and Pam got along. They were like long-lost best friends, and he found it somewhat disconcerting, although he wasn't sure why. His nightmare came to fruition when they were in their old little world chatting and Roy, half drunk, told him how Pam was all "blah blah blah why aren't we engaged yet, maybe we should break up" so he went and borrowed money from his dad to buy her a ring at Kay Jewelers down at the mall and proposed to her after the football game on Sunday.

That was when Jim decided he had had enough, and he politely interrupted Denise's and Pam's conversation, telling Denise that he was tired and maybe they should go. Pam looked sad that they were leaving, but Denise promised to get her number from Jim and give her a call so they could talk some more. Jim felt queasy.

He and Denise headed back to his apartment, and when they got there, he looked at her with her beautiful smile and her shiny brown hair and thought, what am I doing? This girl is perfect for me.

So as he backed her up against the wall and kissed her deeply, sucking on her tongue as his hands moved up her skirt, he decided to let go of the idea of Pam once and for all.

His brain, however, had something else in mind. When she reached down and undid his zipper and circled her hand around him, he saw Pam. When his tongue teased her nipples, he imagined what it was like to kiss Pam's breasts this way. When he pushed himself inside her, holding her legs up around his waist, he felt himself fucking Pam against the wall in this way.

And of course, as he felt himself lose control and the world started spinning, he made his fatal mistake. One word, whispered into Denise's ear as he came back to earth: "Pam."

She pulled away, looking him with disbelief. "What did you say?"

"What?" He was momentarily confused, not realizing he had said anything. And this time, he couldn't even really blame alcohol.

"You just called me Pam."

"No I didn't." He shook his head vehemently.

"Yes. You did. Just now. You called me Pam." She pushed him away. "What the hell?"

"You must have heard me wrong. I'm sure I said...." The problem was he couldn't think of anything else that he could have said.

The tears spilled from her eyes before he could even get his bearings. "Do you have a thing for Pam or something?" she demanded.

"No," he chuckled nervously.

"Oh my God. You do. I can't believe I didn't see it before." She quickly started getting her clothes on, and he could see the rage building.

"Listen, Denise - "

"No. I need to get out of here. Where's my purse?" She was sobbing now, and he reached out and tried to touch her arm.

"Don't touch me," she hissed. When she reached the front door, she turned and said, "I'll give you one last chance to tell me the truth."

He just stood there, stupidly, with his mouth half open and shook his head slightly. She looked at him with disgust before she turned and left for good.

When Pam asked him if he had given Denise her number, since she was looking forward to having a girl friend for a change, he awkwardly lied that Denise had moved away, hoping that Pam would never randomly run into her somewhere. And he stopped going to the gym.

He met Katy at the office.  She showed up one day looking to sell purses, and truth be told, he knew right away she wasn't his type.  But he asked her out anyway, and, of course, she accepted.

That first night they just went out for drinks, and while he found her nice enough, he really didn't think he would see her again.  But two days later she called him at work, and he ended up asking her out again, this time for dinner.  Afterwards, he ended up back at her place, where she broke out a bottle of wine, and that was it.  He awoke in the middle of the night naked, tangled up in her legs and her sheets.

He wasn't really sure what Katy expected, but was relieved when she seemed to want something casual.  She was coming out of a relationship and wasn't looking for a commitment.  For Jim, that was perfect, because he certainly wasn't either.

The end result was many nights of great sex, with very little substantial conversation.  Despite this, he was mildly surprised when one day when out of the blue she told him that she needed some time, because her ex wanted to get back together with her and she wasn't sure what to do.  But Jim was strangely okay with that.  He didn't feel jealous, or angry, or sad.  He didn't feel anything really.  At least not toward Katy.  Pam was a different story. 

It was around this time that he first started to admit to himself that his feelings for Pam were no mere crush.  He knew he was in love with her, and he also knew there was nothing he could do about it.  He fantasized about it though - telling her he loved her in some romantic way where she would immediately dump her jackass of a fiance and ride off into the sunset with him.  At Christmastime he even put his feelings down in vague words on a Christmas card, but chickened out and took it back before she could read it.

A week later, Katy called him and asked if he wanted to go to a New Years' party with him.  He was a little surprised to hear from her, but since his plans currently consisted of staying home, getting drunk, and feeling sorry for himself, he accepted.

When he picked her up that night, she looked gorgeous and had a huge smile planted on her face.  She greeted him with a kiss, and whispered, "I missed you."

He smiled back, and replied, "Me too," but he didn't mean it.  Still, he ended up back at her place that night.  And the night after that.  And almost every night for a week, which was a departure from their previous relationship.  It was as if her brief reconciliation with her ex had brought about some epiphany for her, but he didn't really care enough to ask.  He didn't notice the change at first, but soon he realized that Katy was talking to him more, about the future, about a hypothetical "someday" when she would be married to "someone" and have some hypothetical kids.

But it wasn't until the booze cruise that it finally occurred to him that she thought he could be that "someone."  As he stood there and watched his own "someone" dancing with her fiance, a radiant smile upon his face, he barely even noticed Katy blabbering next to him.  Many beers and a broken heart had dulled his senses.

"Do you ever think that'll be us?"

He didn't even bother lying.  "No," he answered, flatly.

"What is wrong with you? Why did you even bring me here tonight?"

He shrugged slightly, still not looking at her.  "I don't know. Let's break up."

She spun him around to look her in the eye.  "Whoa!  What?"

He blinked once, and said, "Look, it's just not working for me, okay?"

Her eyes were already brimming with tears.  "What exactly is not working for you, Jim?"

He shook his head and looked down.  "I am just not... in a very good place right now.  It's not - "

"If you say 'It's not you, it's me,' so help me God I will throw you overboard."  So he said nothing, and she turned and went back inside, heading for the bathroom.

He spent the next hour trying to avoid her tearful glares.  He knew, however, that he had to make sure she could get home when the cruise was over, so when he sought her out as the boat was docking, he was dismayed to discover her huddled in a booth, weeping openly to a comforting Pam.  Pam looked up and caught his eye, and all he could do was shrug.  She then whispered something to Katy and got up and walked over to him.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I... really don't want to talk about it," he sighed, not wanting to look her in the eye.

She stared at him for a moment, and he thought maybe, just maybe, she knew.  But that was when Roy came over, and her smile returned as she went back to beaming over their fucking wedding date.  Jim backed away as the two embraced, but Pam quickly turned her attention back to him and said, "Don't worry, I told her we'd give her a ride."

He was beyond mortified at that point, so he just nodded and headed toward the exit.  He had to get the hell off this boat.  It was only when he got to his car that he remembered that through an unimportant yet unfortunate sequence of events earlier that night, Katy had ended up holding his car keys.

---

It was a year later that he ran into her at a Super Bowl party.   The party was something he was looking forward to as a distraction from the long series of talks that he and Karen had been having during what she termed their "rough patch."

He was watching the game with his guy friends and barely noticed Karen chatting with a group of women outside on the deck.  When he approached Karen during halftime, the redhead sitting next to her turned to him and said incredulously, "Jim?"

His jaw dropped open and he stuttered, "H-hi Katy."

Katy looked uncomfortably at Karen, who looked questioningly back at Jim.  "You two know each other?"

Katy nodded hesitantly.  "We used to date.  You two...?"

"Yes, we're together," Karen said, still smiling but with wheels obviously turning.  She added jokingly, "Hey, Jim isn't that guy, the boat guy, is he?" 

A painful silence fell over the group of women, and Karen turned back to Jim, mouth open in surprise. 

It was then he knew it would be yet another late night.

He asked Brenda out when he was at his lowest.  He had had only the briefest of conversations with her on the booze cruise, but she was literally the first name that popped into his head when he pathetically tried to think of someone - anyone - to date to get his mind off Pam and her impending nuptials.

It was pretty much doomed from the start.  While she did surprisingly call him back after he fumbled his way through asking her out via voicemail, it took a week before she was available, and then he had to drive all the way to north Jersey to take her to dinner, and then the dinner was awkward and uncomfortable.  They had nothing much to talk about and they had no chemistry whatsoever.

Still, he thought he would be polite by sending her a quick email the next day, saying he had had a nice time.  He didn't expect to hear from her, but she called him back almost immediately.  She was nice and gracious and he thought maybe he had been wrong, that maybe he should give her a chance.

So the following week he drove back up to New Jersey and proceeded to have a pleasant dinner with her that was less uncomfortable than the previous week.   When he dropped her off at her apartment, he expected nothing more than a pleasant handshake, so he was taken aback when she essentially jumped him, throwing her arms around him and planting a big wet kiss on his lips.

He still wasn't feeling it, but somehow he let his imagination take over with thoughts of Pam, and soon he was fucking "Pam" from behind with "Pam" bent over Brenda's coffee table.  He stayed over that night and when he drove home in the morning a thousand conflicting feelings circled in his head.  He knew he was using her, but he didn't care... but he felt bad that he didn't care, and then he felt angry at himself for feeling bad that he didn't care. 

He usually only saw Brenda on the weekends because of the long-distance thing, and that was okay.  During the week he maintained his friendship with Pam, and then on the weekends he would fantasize about her while having sex with Brenda. 

The conversations they would have were generally dull and without much humor, yet he soon got the sinking feeling that she was taking the relationship far more seriously than he was when she started hinting that maybe he should transfer to the corporate office.  One day in particular they were sitting on her couch watching This Old House, and she said, "You know, there's a lot more opportunity for you there.  You shouldn't be wasting your talents in Scranton."

He didn't reply, but she pressed on.  "Hey, I have an idea - why don't you come with me to the cocktail party they're having in a few weeks?  It would be fun, and you could meet some folks and do some networking, maybe get your foot in the door."

Jim sighed and tried to politely decline, but she persisted.  He finally agreed to go with her, but internally thought there was always a last-minute case of food poisoning that he could use as an excuse.  Or even real food poisoning, which would be preferable to a corporate cocktail party.

Meanwhile, he found himself slipping back into old habits with Pam at work after several weeks of trying to distance himself from her.  They would flirt and play pranks and run errands together, and every day he would feel wonderful and awful at the same time.  He started having trouble sleeping, thinking about how in a few short months she would be someone else's wife and he would lose her forever. 

During this time Pam had no idea he was seeing Brenda.  Not that he wanted to keep it from her, but because most of the time Brenda didn't even cross his mind, so he never mentioned her.  Plus he didn't feel like Brenda was his girlfriend per se, more like the girl he sometimes slept with and ate Chinese food with on the weekends, and since that made him sort of pathetic, he didn't feel the need to bring it up.

The delicate balance he had maintained finally all unraveled due to a game of jinx.

It pretty much boiled down to him wanting to impress Pam, and since, as she put it, the rules of jinx were unflinchingly rigid, he couldn't fold.  So when Brenda called him that day while he was still jinxed, and Pam, with ever the slightest bit of suspicion, transfered the call to him, there was just no way he could answer the phone.   He knew she would call back.

And she did, forty-five minutes later.  On his cell phone, which he had turned off.  He figured if he can't talk to anyone, there was no use using up his battery.

Later, after a coke had been bought and shared, breaking the jinx and bringing about an engaging discussion about volunteer sheriff's deputies and their urine, Jim was on a sort of high.  It was days like this that he lived for, spending time with Pam and laughing with her over the absurdities of their workplace.

For the first time in a long time, he went home that night feeling content, and not thinking about Pam's wedding.  He sat down, watched a baseball game, had a beer, and went to bed early.  The next day he woke up, headed over to the Y to play basketball, stopped and ate some lunch at the mall, and went home to see if he may be able to take a nap since he had been so tired lately.

It wasn't until 4:00 that he remembered to check the voicemail on his cell phone.

"Jim, it's Brenda.  I was just wondering what time you were going to be here, since the party starts at seven.  Give me a call."

"Hi, it's me again.  I haven't heard from you.  Call me."

"Jim, it's Brenda again.  Your phone is still off.  I hope everything is okay.  Call me."

"Um, it's now six fifteen and you still haven't called me back.  Where are you?"

"Okay, it looks like I'm going without you.  Please call me anyway just to let me know you weren't in an accident or whatever."

"I am at the.... I'm ON THE PHONE!  Sorry, someone was trying to... um, talk to me...  I've had a few drinks and I'm still wondering what the FUCK happened to you tonight... and I told all my friends you would be here and you didn't show.  ASSHOLE."

"Jim, I'm sorry about that last message.  Wait, no I'm not.  You really are an asshole.  But call me back anyway in case you're dead or some other valid reason for standing me up."

He slowly shut the phone, horrified.  Not only had he totally forgotten about the stupid cocktail party, he had also totally forgotten about Brenda.  He hadn't even given her a thought in days.  He swallowed, then flipped the phone again and with shaky fingers found her number in his contacts list.  She answered on the first ring.

"Hi, it's me," he began.

"Where the hell were you?" she demanded.

"I can explain.  I had terrible food poisoning..."

"Stop.  Just stop.  You forgot, didn't you?"

He paused, unsure of whether to continue with the food poisoning story or just tell the truth.  He opted for the latter.  "Yes, I forgot."

Click.

In a way, he was kind of relieved.  It wasn't like he was going to ever see her again anyway.  Since she lived in New Jersey and worked at the corporate office, the chances of running into her were pretty slim.  It wasn't like he would ever take her advice and transfer to corporate.

So when he ran into her a year later before interviewing for a job at corporate, one could say it was a tad awkward.  But as luck would have it, being on an eternal elevator ride with his bitter ex-sort-of-girlfriend and his current but soon to be ex-girlfriend turned out to be the least awkward part of his day.

Karen was different.  Or so he tried to convince himself.  He did like her a lot, and wanted to love her.

But the truth was that try as he might, he just... didn't.  He told her he did though, as if by saying it out loud it would magically become true.  He knew that she genuinely loved him, and she had big plans for their future.  He figured if he just went along with those plans, it would all work out, because he certainly wasn't managing his own life very well.

There were two times that they came perilously close to breaking up.  Once after he admitted that he still had feelings for Pam, and then again after Roy tried to kill him for acting on those feelings for Pam.  Both times her solution was to talk it out.  His solution was to drink a lot while she was talking, so he could tune her out more easily.  It worked, and they stayed together.

He had fun with her and enjoyed her company.  But deep inside, he was dying.  He couldn't shake his anger at Pam for getting back together with Roy, yet he knew that logically, it wasn't any of his business.  It consumed him though, even after Pam had dumped Roy and Roy had attacked him, but it wasn't like he actively thought about it all the time - in fact, the opposite was true, as he tried to block it out.

The result was that he couldn't even look at Pam because doing so would stir up those feelings, so he acted like she didn't exist.  If Karen noticed, she didn't say anything.  She seemed to have no idea about his inner turmoil and seemed happier than ever with their relationship.

He knew it couldn't continue this way, so when the opportunity to interview for the corporate job came up, he jumped at the chance.  Unfortunately, that also was the same day Pam decided to make her dramatic lakeside confession in front of all their co-workers, including Karen.

"Jim, I called off my wedding because of you."

Pam's words echoed in his heart as he approached her standing at the water's edge, soaking her feet.

He began, slowly.  "The real reason that I went to Stamford... was because... I wanted to be... not here."

"I know," she replied.

"And even though... I came back, I just, I feel like I've never really... come back."

She paused, stared out at the water, and said firmly, "Well, I wish you would."

The thing was that even though he thought he knew what she meant, he wasn't sure that he knew what she meant.  So he did the only thing he could think of under the circumstances - he let her down easy.

"The thing is... I'm with Karen now."

"Yeah."  She stared back out at the water.

"But you'll always mean a lot to me, you know."  He was struggling, trying to find the words.

She nodded, clearly fighting back tears, and he gave her a hug and made a joke and that was that, they were back to being friends. 

And for nearly a week, he convinced himself that that was all they ever would be.  It was over.  He was going to move to New York, maybe with Karen, and start a new life.  Karen, strangely enough, did not question him or try to talk about it much.  Instead, she told him to get a haircut and she made a list of what he would need for his interview, and every night she stayed over at his place, sleeping with her arms around him, clutching him with all her might.

She didn't even mention the incident at the beach until they were in New York and had just had a pretty good night out on the town.  She clearly wanted to know what the future would hold.  At first he tried to joke his way out of her question, but when that didn't work he gave her a non-answer and led her back to the hotel.

It wasn't until he found Pam's note - a simple, polite good luck note affixed to an old yogurt lid - that all his anxieties that he had bottled up over the past week came bursting up to the surface, and he knew he was making a terrible mistake.

He found Karen where she said she would be, sitting quietly at a fountain, reading a magazine.  He took a deep breath and approached her.  She looked particularly pretty today, and she beamed at him when she saw him walking toward her.

"Hey you!" she said cheerfully, kissing him on the lips.

"Hi," he replied softly.

"So?  How did it go?"

"Um, okay," he said, his eyes averting her gaze.

"Just okay?"

He sighed, and replied, "Maybe we should head home.  We can talk about it later."

"Jim?"  He could tell she was getting scared.  "Jim, talk to me.  What happened?"

"I withdrew from consideration," he blurted out in one breath.

"What?  Why?"  She was shocked.

"Because I... I can't move here, Karen.  I am not ready.  I need to stay in Scranton."

"Why?" she demanded, getting visibly angry.

"Karen, please.  Let's just go home and we'll talk about it on the way," he pleaded.

"No, I am not getting in the car with you until you tell me what's going on," she said, with her hands trembling and her eyes reddening.

People were starting to give them a second look, and suddenly Jim felt very exposed.  He tried to whisper.  "Please, let's just go."

She stared up at him.  "Is it about her?"

"No," he lied, but he was tired of lying.  "Yes."

She raised her eyebrows in alarm.

"Okay, you want the truth?  I'm still in love with her."  There, he said it.

"'Still'?" she questioned.

"Yes, still.  I've always been in love with her, and I probably always will be, and... I'm not the one for you, Karen.  You deserve better than me.  I..."  His voice faded, and he didn't know what else to say.

"So that's it, then?  How long have you known?  This whole time?  You lied to me."  She was sobbing now, and he wanted to hug her and make her stop, but he couldn't.

"I was trying, okay?  I wanted this to work out, I really did."  His breath caught for a second before he continued.  "But I just can't do it anymore.  It's not fair to you."  He tried to get her to look at him.  "I am not the person you thought I was, Karen.  And at this point, I don't even like the person that I am."

She shook her head slightly, trying to control the tears.  "So now what?  You're going to run back to Scranton to be with her?"

He didn't say anything, just looked down at his feet. 

"Go, then," she ordered.  "Get out of here."  She weakly punched out at him with her fists.  "JUST GO!"

"Ow," he muttered as one of her punches caught him on the chest.  "Karen, stop.  I can't leave you here."

"I would rather stay here than ever get in a car with you again, Jim."

Jim looked around and realized they were officially making a scene.  People were actually staring.  He lowered his voice and said as calmly as possible, "Karen, your stuff is in my car."

"Leave it at the hotel then," she hissed.  "Just get out of my sight."  She sat back down at the fountain's edge and wept into her hands.

He felt like an ass leaving her there sobbing, but he reluctantly backed away and walked back to the street to get a cab back to his car.  He didn't look back.

"You're lying!"

"No, I swear to God it's all true."

They were lying in bed.  It was an early evening in late spring, and a cool breeze was blowing in from outside.  Pam was staring at him incredulously.

"So you expect me to believe that every single relationship you ever had ended in some horrible way?"

"Oh come on," he said, sitting up.  "You knew about Karen..."

"Not that you left her crying at a fountain!"

"Okay, maybe I left that part out before.  But you knew about Katy..."

"Yes, I did know about that one," she agreed, nodding.  "Wow, Jim, I don't know what to say, except maybe I should be careful next time you want to take me to New York.  And I am never going on a cruise with you," she teased, smiling at him.

"Okay, first of all, we are definitely going on a cruise someday, and second, there is no way I am going anywhere, ever.  That ring on your finger means I will follow you to the grave."

"So now I have to worry about you killing me?" she giggled into her pillow.

"Shut up!" he said, laughing back at her.  After a moment though his smile faded and he became contemplative.

"What now?" she asked.

"It's just that... I was a total jerk."

"Yeah," she said, then quickly added, "But you're not now.  I think you worked it all out."  She sighed, and reached for his hand.  "How did we even get started on this conversation anyway?"

He grinned again and said, "I believe it was when you said, 'I hope she finds a guy just like her daddy when she grows up,' and I said, 'Oh God, please, no!'"

They both looked down at the tiny baby nestled between them who was happily nursing at her mother's breast.  Jim reached down and stroked the soft downy hair then leaned over and kissed his wife gently.

"I love you," he said.  "Both of you.  And you're stuck with me."