Karen watched him closely as she sipped her take-out coffee. She could only see the back of his neck, the rest was turned to Pam as they traded Jelly beans for witty remarks.

She was used to doing this. She was used to staring at him, making the most of any opportunity to get a glance unnoticed. A walk past his desk to the copier. A brush past him in the breakroom to get to the coffee machine. A brief stint answering the phones when Pam was on vacation a while back had given her the best position of all. He had grabbed jellybeans at the desk several times a day and she had managed to keep him there for at least half an hour, getting him to help her with transferring calls, or using the shredder. Sometimes by just talking, talking about everything.

Karen Filapelli was madly in love with a man called Jim Halpert. She had met him three years ago, when she had started her sales career at Dunder Mifflin Scranton. At lunchtime, he had offered to take her for food at Chilli’s. He had only been there a week so they had lots common. They had laughed over Michael and Dwight’s strange behaviour. They had sworn each other to secrecy to the fact that they were both still registered with every temp agency in Scranton.

She was already a little bit in love with him by the time he paid the bill.

She knew she was pathetic. She knew she just tell him. He was single, she was single. But that night after work he had taken her for beers with Pam, the receptionist. Karen didn’t usually get on with women in the office, they were either obsessed with men or shopping, or both. But she liked Pam. They talked a little about TV. A little about Scranton and after a few glasses of wine they had made a pact to join an art class together at Scranton Community College. Karen lasted one lesson, she couldn’t draw. Pam lasted two, before quiting because it meant spending too much time away from her fiancé, Roy. But they had been friends ever since. The three of them had been friends ever since.

And it was nice having friends. She was new to Scranton and it was nice having a guy to take her to football games and a girl to watch chick flicks with (the one girly trait she allowed herself). It was nice going out for pizza straight after work, sometimes the three of them, Jim usually drove, leaving Pam and Karen to get a little tipsy. She didn’t want to ruin that. She didn’t want to lose Jim. Didn’t want to lose Pam. Pam would take Jim’s side if something happen, she always knew that, he had a week over her after all.

So she had stayed. Like this. But it was getting worse. She had started to watch him closely, watch him around her. She started to watch how much time they spent together, she had started to get jealous. Of her two best friends. Which was just ridiculous. Pam was marrying Roy and Jim was still Jim. But it had started to feel like it was taking over her life, like it was getting bigger than her. Bigger than the three of them. So she had decided she was going to tell him. Tonight.

She had made her mind up.

*************************

Jim reached over and put another jellybean in his mouth, his hand resting casually on the receptionist counter. She was laughing and it seemed to him like this was art. This was what beauty looked like. What happiness looked like.

“You were the one that made it work,” she said, in hysterics. “I don’t know how you do it Jim, you’re so awesome.... at pranks I mean.”

He sensed that her tone had changed and neither were laughing anymore. He was suddenly aware that her hand was casually placed on top of his. She was holding on to him. They both looked at each other. He didn’t move it.

Jim Halpert was madly in love with a woman called Pam Beesley. He had met her just over three years ago, when, straight out of college, he had started his sales career at Dunder Mifflin Scranton. At lunchtime, she had offered to take him for food at Chilli’s. She had told him it was her duty to warn him about Dunder Mifflin. To warn him about Dwight and Michael and how they were crazy. He had told her he had pretty much already figured that out for himself and was she interesting in playing a few pranks?

He was already in love with him by the time she told him about her fiancé.

He had met Karen Fillapelli a week later. She had started as another new salesman and he had offered to take her out for lunch. She was a nice girl and they quickly became friends. It wasn’t like it was with Pam, he knew that, but it was fun to have a friend to go out for beers and to take to football games. She made him laugh. They could talk about most things. One time he had even almost told her about Pam, figured that he could trust her, but his mouth had gotten dry and she had changed the subject.

They were still looking at each other, hands almost holding, when he noticed Roy, walk through the door. He quickly moved his hand and walked back to his seat as she greeted Roy with a kiss. He smiled at Karen as she walked past him to make some copies but couldn’t get his mind off Pam. He knew he needed to tell her. It had begun to feel as if it was taking over his life, getting bigger than him. He was going to tell her tonight.

He had made his mind up.

************

Pam waved at her fiancé Roy, as he walked out of the office and back to the Warehouse. That was close. A second before he had walked in, she had been gazing at Jim, hands touching. This had to stop happening. They had to stop doing this. Almost saying saying something. Almost doing something. Something that would change everything.

She needed to concentrate on Roy. Her wedding. There life as married couple.
She was going to talk to Jim tonight. Tell him, she needed some space, to cool things. Not that there was anything to cool, but lately, their friendship, it seemed bigger, something bigger, something that was started to take over her life, her soon to be married life.
She was going to tell him tonight.

She had made up her mind.

Pam flushed as she saw Jim take in her appearance. She had spent several hours taming her frizzy hair into loose ringlets, which she let fall down past her shoulders. Her red dress lifted her cleavage, clinched her at the waist, and then spread out into a 50’s prom style. Her lipstick had been carefully chosen to match her dress. She told herself it was for Roy. She told herself it was because this was the first formal Office party she had been to, even if it was in the warehouse.

She knew she was lying.

Seeing him, here, smartly dress in a black tux, one arm casually resting on the black jack table, the carefully constructed speech in her head began to fall apart.

Despite the time she had spent putting herself together tonight, she felt like she was falling apart. Seeing him like this had changed everything.

He was still staring as she made her way over. She was very thankful that Roy had opted to start tonight off at Poor Richards and was not heading over for another hour or so.

“Hey” he whispered into her ear as he hugged her. “You look...you look beautiful.” His boldness surprised her.
She went to whisper into his ear but somehow reached out and boldly kissed the very tip of it. He just held her closer.

It was an accidental kiss, she tried to explain it away in her head but she knew immediately this was getting out of control. She glanced around the room as she pulled away. No one seemed to have noticed yet. Karen had waved to Pam when she had entered the room but she now seemed to be engrossed in conversation with the new temp.

She whispered into his ear, ‘meet me in the office, 5 minutes.’

As Pam walked towards the stairs of the warehouse a few minutes later, it suddenly struck her that the husky sound of her voice and the tingles of excitement had made it seem far more like a come on than arranging a place to bring your best friend down gently.


****************
Karen took another sip as she desperately attempted to keep track of the conversation she was having with the temp. He was new this week and had most of the ladies in the office in a flutter. He was tall, good looking and seemed to have a decent sense of humour. He had spent the last thirty minutes by her side, so she sensed he was keen and she wanted to like him, she really did.

He just wasn’t Jim.

She had noticed, of course she had. She was almost an expert at seeing things out of the corner of her eye. She had seen his face light up when she walked into the room. She had seen the embrace go on for a second too long. They looked like a couple.

But then they had parted, eventually. Pam had rushed over to to talk excitedly about Karen's new dress, before heading of to find Roy. Jim had gone to grab another drink from the bar.

Except now, as she quickly scanned the room again, she realised neither of them were anywhere to be seen.

She told herself she was overreacting. She told herself that that nothing was going on between them and that she could still get everything she wanted if she just told him.

She knew she was lying.
**********

Jim felt as if didn’t matter now. The fact that he had told her she was beautiful without thinking. The fact that he had grabbed and kissed her without an explanation as soon as he had walked into the office. The fact that ten minutes later, he was still here, still kissing her.

He felt as if his carefully constructed ‘Best Friend Jim’ charade had fallen apart as soon as she walked in the door. That dress. Those lips. He could go on.

He was trying. He was trying to stop the kiss and tell her properly how he felt. But he didn’t know when or if he would kiss her again. So he kept taking chances. With his lips. With his hands. Almost daring her to stop him.

She hadn’t yet.

Pam Beesley had been kissing Jim Halpert for exactly 15 minutes. She’d checked. Occasionally she’d see the clock in the corner of her eye as she was about to pull away and tell herself that she’d stop him in another minute or two, she really would. She just needed a minute, just another minute. Of this.

She finally gently pulled away from his embrace, but she was still clasping his hand firmly. Still pushing her body towards his.

“Pam.”

“Jim”

The words came out simultaneously. Both of their speakers desperate to get the words out of their head. Before they lost them. Before they lost the courage.

She squeezed his hand tightly. “Jim, I came here not to kiss you, but to tell you, to tell you that this needs to stop, I am getting married, I can’t feel like this married, I can’t do this married and....” Her voice faltered as she saw the tears trickle down his eyes. She had to force her voice to continue “I am, I am getting married.”

It sounded unnatural. It sounded wrong. She knew that.

She didn’t loosen her grip on him, knowing as soon as he left, as soon as either of them walked away, that the full consequences of her words would hit her. With him here she could still take them back. Or kiss him.

One of the two.

***********

Karen saw Roy approaching in the distance and walked up to greet him with a hug. She liked Roy. He seemed decent enough. He also seemed a little juvenile at times, but she didn’t tell Pam that of course.

“Hey, so the warehouse looks pretty good, huh? How was Poor Richards?”

“Yeah, well we ran out of cash after a while, so thought we’d hit the party a little early than planned. Free bar! Yeah!” he high fived Daryl who walked past with a tray of beers. “You look pretty. That’s uh a pretty dress.”

He also has no idea how to compliment women Karen thought.

“Ah thanks, Pam helped me picked out. Where is she? I thought she was going to find you?”

He shrugged. He didn’t seem concerned. “So shots Fillapelli! You in?” He motioned towards the bar.

She shook her head. “I'll pass, I’m actually going to head up to the office, I’m freezing here, with the air con on full blast and I left a sweater on my chair. Have fun.”

She approached the steps of the warehouse with a determined air. She was going to grab the sweater then search high and low for Jim, ask him to take a walk with her outside and then tell him how she felt. Seeing Roy had reassured her a little. It had always been Pam and Roy.

Hopefully by the end of night it would be Karen and Jim too.

***************

Her voice was faltering, she was faltering. Jim knew that. He sensed she wasn’t sure, not really. He sensed that if he said the words loud enough he might be able to convince her.

“so I guess you don’t want to hear what I have to say, don’t want to know what I was going to say to you tonight.”

She knew. He knew she knew. Because she kissed him again.

This time he stopped her, after a minute or two. “You know, so ask me to say it, if you want to know, if you want to hear it....”

“I feel the same” she said “You don’t need to say it when I feel the same, but I’m getting married Jim, I’m getting married and...” she leaned up to kiss up him again.

He didn’t respond to her advances. "So this" he said "is when you’re in or out" with a sense of constructed determination that he certainly didn’t feel. But he needed to do it. He needed to know what he meant to her.

“I don’t want you to kiss me again. I don’t want you to tell me you feel the same. I just want you to make a decision. I can’t be afterthought. I want you to be with me. Not Pam and Roy, but Jim and Pam. Are you in or out? No halfway."

She stared at him for a minute, half playing with her wedding ri, half tilting her head towards his in the hope that he'd kiss her again. Then she spoke.

"I’m out"

He knew deep down it was coming but it didn’t make it any easier.

At first he waited in silence. Waiting for her to come back and do something, say something, anything to stop his heart from breaking. But after five minutes, he started to sob and it had quickly consumed his whole body.

He stayed that for quite a while. Sobbing in his own world. Failing to notice anything around him. Not least, Karen, who was on the other side of the office door.

Watching him.

Pam’s stomach lurched as she saw her fiancée propping up the bar, a beer in each hand. She felt sick. Sick that she had chosen him, sick that this was her life. Mostly just sick that she had broken her best friends heart.
As she made her way across the room, she thought back to earlier. That moment on the stairway. When she had paused. When she had been about to turn back. To tell him that she was ‘in’. To tell him it had always been Jim and Pam.

And then she’d seen Karen.

Pam had surprised herself at how quickly she was able to construct her ‘I’m so happy to be getting married and working as a receptionist’ face, which meant Karen hadn’t seemed to suspect anything.

She nodded along to Pam’s story of forgetting to send a fax earlier and had quickly changed the subject to the fact the new temp wouldn’t leave her alone.

So Pam had gone to put her make up back on, to put herself together again and was now making her way over to Roy.

He greeted her by shouting ‘Pammy’ and grabbing her towards him kiss. He smelt like beer and his words were starting to slur. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t go from a kiss like that to a kiss like this.

After a minute or two she told him she was going to find Karen and he waved her away. She went outside and breathed in the cool night air. She finally started to cry, crying for everything that she had just lost, crying for everything she could have had.

She stood there for quite a while. Crying silently, in case anybody found her, tears trickling down her face, make up ruined.

She was used to this.

**************

Jim had expected someone to interrupt him, but he hadn’t expected it to be her. He had expected Pam might find him, to say something different or more likely to say something the same. He had expected Roy might find him, probably to knock him out. He had expected the late night cleaners to interrupt him, to send him on his way. But he hadn’t expected that he Jim Halpert would have spent the last ten minutes in the arms of Karen Fillapelli. Karen who had said nothing but wiped his tears and held him.

She finally spoke, her words soft and slow, desperate it seemed not to break him. “Jim, you don’t need to tell me, I overheard you and Pam the other week talking about your parents last week. It’s rough. My parents divorced when I was twelve and I guess however old you are it doesn’t get any easier. When you’re younger, you think that you’re parents....you think that it’s true love and it should last forever.”

Jim didn’t answer, after all she hadn’t asked him to. And she was right, his parents were getting divorced. She didn’t need to know the rest. She didn't need to know the real reason.

“I just wish Pam had told me when she saw me on the stairway.”

He couldn’t help but blurt it out. “You saw Pam, was she ok?”

Karen nodded, “yeah fine, I mean she gave me this whole story about a fax, obviously she was trying to protect you, but yeah she’s gone to find Roy.” She rolled her eyes, “he’s at the bar.”

“Jim I know this isn’t probably a good time,” she continued “but I need to speak to you.” She didn’t break eye contact and continued to stroke his arm.

He looked at her, comforting him, watching out for him. Whilst Pam had already pretending like nothing had happened and rushed back to her fiancé. Since their first lunch date Karen had tried to be there for him, tried to be his best friend, but he had resigned her to beers and football games, resigned her to second best. Because of Pam.

He gently removed her hand from his arm and kissed her. It seemed like the right thing to do.

He was surprised at how good it felt.

****************

Karen pulled away from him gently. She didn’t want to kiss him like this. For it to be a kiss that was about pain, or fear, or loneliness. She wanted it to be about love.

She didn’t know if she should have pushed him. Forced him to tell her something, because she didn’t know for sure what was going on. But she had seem them earlier together and then Pam had been here. With him.

Sure Pam had told her about a fax, but she had noticed that her eyes seemed vacant and her voice sounded high pitched. Like she was desperate to say something, or do something, but couldn’t.

So Karen had nodded and changed the subject, desperate to avoid an emotional outburst. Her and Pam did lots of things together. Shopping, movies, dinner, catching an exhibition. They didn't do emotional outbursts. They didn't really talk about things beyond the surface, which suited Karen just fine.

And then she had found him, like this, lost and alone and she had tried to tell herself that it didn’t have to mean anything, that Pam could have just been consoling him.

She wanted to ask him outright but she was scared about what he would say. Scared that they wouldn’t be able to go forward once he’d said it, scared it would change everything.

“Jim”, she murmured, “you’re upset, let’s not do this now, not like this, you don’t need to do this.”

“I like you Karen” he said simply, before kissing her again.

It was enough for now.

In the last two weeks, Pam had started to hoard things. Just little things at first. It had begun with an advert for a new still life art class at a college just over an hour away. It seemed different to anything on offer at Scranton Community College and she had eventually worked out on her route finder that she could make it there in time if she left straight from work each week. It would mean not getting home in time to cook Roy’s dinner, but by then she didn’t care about that.

But the hoarding had gotten worse. Wherever Pam went she started to gather things. An advert for a new art exhibition. Apartment listings from the newspaper. A flyer for a removal service. A phone number for a new hairdressers that Karen had left on her desk. A travel brochure on New York because she’d always wanted to go there. Discount vouchers for Wallmart. An information guide on how to cancel a joint account that she’d just happened to pick up from the bank.

It got so bad that the bits of paper were eventually everywhere. Her office. Her handbag. Under her pillow.

So today, she had finally decided to grab a plastic wallet from the store cupboard and put all the papers inside it. She grinned as she shoved the papers of all shape and sizes into it and grabbed a sticky label. She hesitated when she went to write on it, struggling to find words that summed up its contents and what they meant to her. She settled on ‘Pam’s things.’

She knew that what she wanted to call it was ‘Pam’s things to start a new life with Jim.’ But she hadn’t told him yet. She hadn’t told him anything since that night.

She was waiting, waiting until it was time to leave, waiting until she was ready to tell him ‘I’m in.’ And she knew she could, knew that she could wait.

It wasn’t like he was going anywhere.

*********************

His kisses were getting more and more comfortable, Karen though as Jim kissed her good night. And she meant this in a good way. She could feel his neck relaxing a little more each time he leaned it and it seemed now that the kisses were about enjoyment, passion, pleasure. That night they had seemed to be about desperation and loneliness, but then she had been lonely too.

Deep down, what she really wanted was for the kisses to be about love, but she could settle for passion and pleasure. For now.

He ended his kiss and enveloped her in a hug. “I had a nice time” he said, his voice gruff and low, and for once she felt like she didn’t have to convince herself he meant it, because it really seemed like he did.

She grinned “me too, I really did Halpert.”

It wasn’t until he was halfway down the path that she suddenly shouted out. “I want to tell someone Jim, it doesn’t matter who.”

He turned around, for a moment his expression was frozen.

She shrugged “I need to tell someone” she said, softer this time, as he walked towards her, “I need to feel like this is real.”

She watched him, his eyes focused towards the ground, his feet gently kicking a few stones out of his way. She wanted him to say that it was real to him and that was all that mattered. She wanted him to say they could tell anyone and everyone. She wanted him to say they could tell Pam.

But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Considering the fact that Jim hadn’t talked to Pam for over two weeks. Jim had talked to her. Pam had talked to her. But neither would talk to her about each other. And she had no idea why. Well at least, she told herself that.

He grabbed her hand and looked into her eyes “This is as real as I can be Karen, I am trying to be real. I really like you Karen, I do really like you.”

“Then why aren’t you talking to Pam?” she blurted, before she had chance to think. But she was desperate to know something, anything.

“You know why really, don’t you Karen. She’s your friend too. But I am trying Karen,” his voice pleaded and he sounded almost exhausted. “I am giving you everything I can give you. I am doing everything I can do. This is all I have for now.”

She kissed him hard and let her hands run themselves roughtly through his hair. “Okay” she said gently in between kisses, “okay.”

She told herself again that this was enough for now. But that was mainly because she had ran out of things to tell herself.

*******************

Jim decided to park his car a little further from his apartment tonight. He needed to walk, to feel the sharp wind in his face, to feel his feet pounding on the pavement.

Why did it feel like he was hurting everyone whatever action he took? He and Pam had not spoken since that night. He knew deep down that the best friend Jim role he had carefully constructed could not have lasted past that night, that it was bound to slip, whether he had told or not.

He knew deep down he had in some way wanted to kiss Karen that night, regardless of what feelings it was out of, and if he had turned her down the day after or carried on dating her he was always going to keep hurting her.

The truth was he really did like Karen. He hadn’t lied to her when he told her he had a good time. He hadn’t had to force the pleasant feeling associated with their kiss. He hadn’t had to pretend that he was trying, because he really was.

She just wasn’t Pam.

He let himself into his apartment and crashed down on his double bed. He slipped his feet out of sneakers and shut his eyes. He couldn’t help but feel that there was no right answer to this one.

After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, he stretched his arm underneath the bed and tried to reach out for the folder. It didn't take him long to find it. He sat up and flicked through the bundle of papers inside. Job advertisements. Holiday brochures. A guide for 30 things to do before your 30. A pamphlet from a local University for a degree in Journalism. Apartment listings in New York. 3 Bedroom house listings in Scranton. Life Insurance forms. Torn out pictures of Plasma TV’s from a catalogue.

He had kept this folder for years now, some of the papers were old, some more recent, but he hadn't looked at it for a few weeks.

The label on the front read ‘Jim’s things for starting a new life with Pam’ but after he noticed it, Jim quickly picked it off with his fingernail. He didn’t replace it. Truth was he didn’t know what it should read.

He picked up 'A guide for 30 things to do before your thirty' and read it slowly. The more he read, the more he was beginning to think maybe the folder should be renamed, ’Jim’s things to start a new life by itself.’
Surely it would be easier that way.

There was only so much planning you could make for a new life until you finally had to start living it.

He had to be more.

More than a pile of papers.