On the elevator ride down, he texted Karen to meet him at the fountain a few blocks from their hotel. By the time he got there she was sitting on the rim amongst the tourists and business people on their lunch break.

“Hey Halpert, they let you down easy?” she said, grinning.

He looked at her kind of sadly; this bright, lovely woman he’d been dating for the better part of a year. There wasn’t a single thing wrong with Karen, or even with he and Karen as a couple. But…he didn’t want her. When it came down to it, his feelings , even his friendship with her, paled in comparison to those things he felt for Pam.

“Hey, Karen,” he said softly.

She looked at his face and stopped smiling. She reached for his hand. “What’s wrong?”

The lines in his head were so firmly drawn now that he retreated from even that small touch.

“Jim?” she asked questioningly.

“I want to break-up, Karen.” He held a hand up beseechingly as she opened her mouth in stunned silence. “Let me get this out, please.”

He looked at the fountain as he went on calmly. “There’s something else I need and it’s not in New York…and it’s not with you.” He looked at her again. “I have to go back to Scranton now. I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, but resolutely. “Good luck with the job.”

Karen had started crying somewhere along in his speech. He had finished and was even now several feet away before she found her voice and her anger. “What the Hell Jim! That’s it?” She screamed at him across the square. She had stood up on the fountain rim as she continued to scream, but she only saw him adjust his satchel bag and square his shoulders as he made his way back to the hotel. She sat heavily down on the fountain again as she let the tears come.

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