It starts out with a conversation that's kind of like a curl of steam. It's low and subtle, snakes and tricks you, until you realize you're talking to a beautiful girl who's laughing with you, suddenly single, and talking to you a certain way for a certain reason.

It takes an hour or two for me to convince myself, after we're off the phone. And maybe it starts with folding clothes on my floor that I think maybe I can wear again, that don't smell too bad, when they end up on my disheveled bedspread instead of back in drawers, or up on hangers. I start to think I can chase her, find her and rewind. There are several moments where I talk myself down, remind myself that I've already tried this and she said no. And there have been several times in the past where I've declared a certain time my last time (on the boat, in the breakroom, in the parking lot) I'd ever try, but I do it again. I promise myself just one more shot and I'm honestly not sure if I plan on stopping after this or if I would do it again and again and again at her mercy. But I throw a few etcetera pieces of clothes on the bed into a pile that is something like an overnight bag. Whether it works or not, it's too late to drive from Stamford to Scranton and back, so I know I'll end up somewhere for the night.

I think about all of this with my hands on autopilot and my eyes out of focus, my lips parted and my head overwhelmed. I'm grateful for the distance between the two cities. It's enough time for it to be a waste of gas if I chicken out and it's enough time to piece together my thoughts.

When I'm on the road and looking at the directions on post-it notes, she becomes a wave. She becomes what keeps crashing into my life and knocking me over, just all of the time, all of the time.



The speedometer reads steady eighty and it's ten over the limit, but it doesn't seem fast enough, and since I'm the only car on the road, it doesn't feel like I'm even going that quickly. For the first few minutes, my thoughts are moving too fast for me to keep up with, and I'm constantly readjusting my ten-and-two on the wheel. With my cruise control on, my feet are busy and tapping out my uneasiness on the floor in front of the pedals, and I can't decide which music fits with the situation. It's either a three-hour drive of top forty pop remediation or soft rock telling me to go get the girl or it's too late or it's meant to be. Either way, I'm too keyed-up to listen to any of it, so all I hear is the pavement under the tires for miles.

Eventually, I can't feel like it's a chase anymore, that it's some big and important sudden whoosh of spontaneity and improvisation because, though it really is all of those things, it's still a nearly three-hour drive. And after ten or fifteen minutes I'm flying down the interstate with occasional strangers around me and their headlights don't care about what I'm doing, so I relax my head against my headrest and start to wonder if I smell like I should. If what I'm wearing is okay, if what I'm doing is anything correct. It all feels too try-hard, and it all feels too hopeful.

With her, I'm always hopeful. She becomes a church, something I need to bow in front of and beg at. She becomes something I need to save me, just a little.




When I reach Scranton, I feel like I could get out of the car and get on my knees, look at the sky and say, "I need this, because I'm done if this doesn't work." When I park at a gas station close to the city limits, and get in line for a soda and chips, I shake it off. It's true, it might be nothing short of repeat devastation if this doesn't work, but I figured I can live through it again if I absolutely have to. I don't want to. God, I don't want to. I bounce on my heels when the next guy moves ahead in line, and I wonder what she's doing. I wonder if she's even thinking about our conversation earlier on the phone, and how easy it was for us to fall back into what we were before I opened my mouth in May and ruined everything. I mean, do people do that? Normally? Can people come back to each other and have conversations like everything that happened never did?

Do all girls mix up 28 Days and 28 Days Later and make me fall in love with them because of it?

I take a deep breath and close my eyes -- it's midnight, after all -- and the cashier clears her throat. I step forward quickly and apologize, but I think all she wants is a cigarette break.

I roll my eyes at myself when I get back into the car, thinking about joking about three kitchens and new apartments and fancier versions of ourselves. Is that we are? Just fancy and far apart instead of impossible? Because I'd rather be fancy and far apart and go find her than have a brick wall between us that works in the warehouse. Two hours and forty-five minutes and two Dunder-Mifflin branches apart seems like a smaller distance than before.

Assuming she wants me. Assuming I would make her happy. I like to think I would. I like to think she'll open her door tonight and she'll say, finally and it'll all work out.

And that's when I realize that I don't even know where she lives. My throat closes up because I've been so spacey that I've assumed she would be living where she used to be. And that's stupid because she told me earlier than she lives in a new apartment. With one kitchen. Oh, come on.

I don't even remember if the spare key to the office is on my key ring, but there's one I don't recognize so I figure I might as well try. I drive through the streets around the business park. I go by her old house with Roy and see his truck in the driveway, and it makes me feel sick, thinking about the past and how close to something else she was. I think maybe I helped her change her mind, and even if she didn't change it for me (to be with me), I'm happy just knowing she's not living there anymore.

I slip into the parking lot and turn off the car. The key that I'm holding could easily be for the office upstairs but it doesn't work for the front door. I bow my head against the glass and close my eyes. By now I'm just tired, and I think, gratefully, that maybe I could drive home and go to sleep and she'd never know I was here, and we could go about our lives. Maybe I can take this as a sign, instead of the chance that she worked late tonight and picked up the phone when I called.

I sit down on the ground in front of the building, the place where we met and where I ruined everything. I bend my knees and hang my arms over them, press my forehead into my sleeve and sigh. I consider it my low, and let it be my rock-bottom. I make myself promise ten times in my head that when I get home I'm going to start acting like anything but this. I'm going to start eating and sleeping right, move on. It's not happening, this thing with me and Pam. It's not taking off and maybe it never was. There are plenty of nice girls who are pretty and charming that live in Connecticut and I just need to put myself out there.

I consider staying in town and seeing my mom and dad in the morning, because I know they'd love it, but my mom told me to gain weight last time she saw me and I've done the opposite unintentionally. Plus, I know she'd sense my unrest.

Pam. She becomes ice in the heat, slipping out of my grasp and being cool and unattainable again. She could easily slip down the sidewalk, become a puddle there I can't hold, and rise in steam from the pavement. It hits me that she's gone this time. That's what she's become.




I drive back in absolute silence. I don't cry or kick anything or turn any angry music on. It's okay that it failed. Because I'm in my twenties, that's it. Someone's going to happen for me, I'll find someone, and if I'm marrying her, I'll love her and she'll be a hundred times what Pam is to me now.

Except it feels like I'm not missing being in love with anyone. I just miss Pam. And I can't imagine wanting anyone besides Pam Beesly.

I promise myself, again, that things are going to change. That I'm smart enough to know this is unhealthy now and I need to figure shit out. I grit my teeth a couple of times because I really wanted this to work. I still do. I feel like I can't give up tonight, so I'll save it for the morning instead. Never mind that I made a six-hour drive, or that I drove past a dozen places that reminded me of her somehow (and unintentionally, I can't help that she's just everywhere in my life), I just miss her. Even if I can't have her and even if she really, really doesn't want me. I just miss her: talking, phone-answering, doodling, giggling Pam Beesly. So bad that I grit my teeth again. Wasn't she amazing?

I'm glad I moved. Not really, but I can say it in my head. I cross the state boarder into Connecticut and promise hard that when I get home, I'll go to bed and spend this last night thinking about how much I wanted it. And then I'll be done and it'll be nowhere but up from there. I fell for her, hard, but people do that without ever getting what they want. Doors close so others can open, etc. That kind of thing.

It feels like forever, and my brain feels weighted with sand and sad thoughts, when I finally get back to the duplex I'm renting. I have to park far away tonight, about a block or so (the disadvantage to no off-street parking) and the walk in the cool air wakes me up and makes me exhausted at the same time. The only thing I want, almost as much as Scranton, is a warm bed and pitch-black.

I kick the hide-a-key rock out of the way from the door and put my hand on the doorknob, and that's when the finality of coming home without her, without even having seen her, hits me. There's a wet burn in my eyes that I pinch away before it can begin. It's the hardest things have ever been, but all I'm going to do is go to bed. I throw my coat in the closet, quickly onto a hanger, when I notice something that makes my heart hurt.

She's right there, curled up on the couch, and I know it's her before I have time to suspect some random stranger or serial killer broke into my house for a nap. She's in her coat with her shoes off, feet tucked under her. Her hair falls in front of her face and her side rises slowly and I wonder what would make me hallucinate, or why life has to be so cruel.

But she's real, and my rational side is completely blown away. I have no idea what to do. I've been impulsive enough tonight and it got me nowhere. There's a brief thought of us passing each other on the interstate, miserable and hopeful, but it promptly disappears when I kneel down in front of her and sit back on my heels.

I watch her sleep, and I don't intend to, but I can't wake her up. I want to, but I don't know how. Because I don't know what I'm about to say to her if she would wake up.

The next act is improv, too, but I do it anyway. It's four in the morning and I lost control a long time ago.

I touch her hair, and then gently brush it away so I can see her face. She looks like I figured she would look like asleep. Pam, simply with her eyes closed, and beautiful. Like, doesn't-have-a-clue beautiful like she always is.

She stirs, so I sit back and frown while she wakes up. I wait for it and try to think of the best thing to say, but she doesn't wake up. I sit and stare at the curls on her shoulder for a moment, the curve of her lips and the angle at her shoulders. I reach my hand out to touch her there but I retreat. I just can't picture what I'd say and I'm thrilled just to have her here, even if I don't know why, and she'll be here in the morning, right?

I stand up as quietly as I can and confidently anticipate her being here when I wake up. We can have breakfast. I can ask her why she's here. What gave away the hide-a-key rock outside. What she wants. For breakfast and, you know, in general.

My knees crack and I make my way to the hallway, but her voice stops me.

"Jim?"

I turn back to her and feel my expression fall. I'm desparate for it. For her. Could I move on, and make another life where it's not all waiting for Pam Beesly and working at Dunder-Mifflin? Yeah, I could. But I just don't want to, so I can't.

"Pam," I say quietly and walk back to where I was. She sits up on the couch slowly as I lower myself to the floor again and we look at each other.

Her hair is flat on one side, and she's busy running her fingers through it, looking at me in the dark, when I raise my eyebrows in question: Is this what I think it is?

She shrugs and itches behind her ear, nods. She nods more, she's nodding yes and blinking and balling her fists in her lap. She looks nervous. She's still nodding when she leans forward and carefully puts her arms around my shoulders, testing my reaction, and softly leans into me from the edge of the couch. I pull my own arms around her, too stunned to wear any kind of expression, really.

She murmurs, "Can I stay?" and I nod and then we both do. I close my eyes and rest my forehead onto her sleeve instead of mine tonight, and rock her gently, barely moving. I'm stunned because we haven't been this far yet. I've kissed her and touched her hips and seen her happy and this is better than all of that. When we both hold tighter and sway some more, she becomes a rock. She becomes bricks and a bridge and a fountain and a fire and a foundation, because she stays and it works and we never leave and it lasts.




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Wow, so sad, hardly any time to visit or contribute to this place lately. I think you should leave me lots of lovely notes (or terrible ones, either/or) because I miss all of you.

Disclaimer: Nothing's mine, but shouldn't Steve have an Emmy?

A/N: Pam's up, and decidedly less metaphorical. Thanks for all of your wonderful reviews last time! Your guys' comments make all of the time put into these so much fun and so worth it. And Schrutebucks to Vampiric Blood's review for totally calling my next move.

Disclaimer: Nothing's mine!





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I run out of excuses. I mean, there might be plenty of practical excuses (somewhere, I've made a list). But, while I'm sitting at my desk, feeling like I the noise of hanging up the phone could easily be echoing off of the angles of this office, I already know what I can do. From this desk, anyway. Because I work for Dunder-Mifflin and because Jim is still in the system, it's easy to find his mailing address.

It just takes over thirty minutes for me to actually to do it.

It comes onto me in a slow build, because I'm smiling (kind of) when I hang up the phone. Okay, well I'm not crying. So that's something. But I'm putting away all of my things, and I get as far as the door before I slump against the wall. I figure the camera crew thinks I'm gone because they whistle and mutter "intense shit, huh?" before noisily packing up all of their things. I roll my eyes at the "intense shit" my life has become in the last few months, and I think I would normally be upset and misty-eyed about this comment, if something else inside of me wasn't busy and absolutely burning with missing Jim so much all of a sudden.

I've missed him since he left. Since he came up to my desk and said, "I think you should know this is my last day." In front of Roy and everything, which I know was deliberate, and that's okay. But I missed him in that moment, and when I broke my life with Roy one night, I missed Jim more than I did the security and routine of Roy Anderson. And now, tonight, talking to him on the phone makes me realize that I've lost a wonderful friend.

And that's why it's slow. Because I think about all of the wonderful things that friendship gives you, in the most trite ways, too. It's nice to have someone to talk to, and joke with, and get through the day with. Jim taught me friend-things because I know how to giggle at work and get through the day just being amused by myself, finding a sense of humor in the mundane and trivial. It's his sense that stays with me when I spread all of my bills out on the counter -- the first collective since being on my own -- and laugh to myself alone, wondering how much I'm going to miss money.

It switches from friendship to something else that I've never felt before, something so totally Jim, faster than I can keep up with. Because suddenly, I'm walking back to my desk to sit down after the crew leaves. My chair squeaks with my weight and I turn it to face his desk -- where he used to be everyday -- and try and picture his face there. It should be fuzzy, but it isn't. Because I've remembered so much about him out of fear for him being gone for good. Which I'm afraid is actually, finally happening.

Jim is a paper salesman, who relocated for personal reasons, and he was the pick-up of my every single day. I feel hot all over with bad decisions and, for the thousandth time, remember that he kissed me and I could have done something about it.

I open three windows on my computer, which takes too long to start back up. I open the database of employee information for his new address, MapQuest, and my email. Because I know he checks his as soon as he gets home.

I spend the thirty minutes deciding which one (or three) to chicken out on. The idea of giving up on the first two makes me want to cry. So I close out of the last one and decide it's going to be a surprise. There's something calm about the way I click methodically through everything to find Jim's address. Like a small part of me is ready to not go through with this.

Jim Halpert. He never goes by James, ever. I don't know why, but just the letters of his name make me love him more. The thought makes my chest ache and swell and breathing gets harder while the pen scratches his address onto a pad. I breathe out through an open mouth when I type our addresses in side by side in the other window.

It's going to take two hours and forty-nine minutes. There are tolls. Okay.




I spend time at the grocery store by my apartment trying to think of something I can eat that won't make me nauseated. It's hard. When I decided on a bottle of water and a granola bar at the check-out line, my eyes roam over the selection of candy bars and his favorites are catalogued in my mind. I'm reaching for a Snickers -- thinking I'll just grab something for him -- when I pull my hand back like I've been burned. The cashier has no idea and doesn't speak to me while she places the granola bar and bottled water in a plastic bag I don't want or need. I can't just pick up a candy bar for him. There's a good chance this effort could be lost. When you tell someone you don't want them, they don't always want you, either, in the end. You know?

The roadblock is when I'm sitting at home on my couch with my granola bar in my hand, staring at my closet. I decide I won't pack an overnight bag, because that's just jinxing myself. I can't exactly show up on his doorstep with a dufflebag and a Snickers bar, right? This is ridiculous, this is stupid, this is crazy and unrealistic.

(I'm already tired from not ever being able to sleep. I usually come home and crash, wake up and think from midnight to five. It's horrible, but it's aftermath. May screwed me up.)

Normal people don't do these things. Sometimes I wish it was easier. It would be so much nicer, and more normal to meet someone through friends, date him, like him, love him, and get married. Or bump into him in the mall and let him ask me out. Or date him in high school and just wind up together.

I unfold the address from a pocket in my purse and know that I wouldn't want any of that unless Jim was the very exact same way. And in thinking this, I realize that I don't want to meet anyone, unless they are... Jim. Thinking about "love" and considering "forever" with someone who might be two hours and forty-nine minutes away and who may or may not return the sentiment gives me an adrenaline rush I wasn't expecting. I make myself think only of the positives. Just this once. It doesn't work.

I call my mom and give her the short version. In which I lie a lot. Mostly that I want to "call him back" instead of, you know… two hours and forty-nine minutes. She's encouraging. I tell her I love her and I smile, find my keys. I'm exhausted, and I look at the clock. He'll be awake in three hours, right? So will I.




The three-hour drive costs me three dollars in tolls and half a tank in gas. It's nothing, absolutely nothing, in my head when I cruise past his duplex. I park across the street and don't even think about sitting in my car, I just get out and walk. I bite my lip while I'm walking up the steps and swallow when I get to the door. I knock once, quietly. Very Pam-like, which makes me roll my eyes. I'm going for something else tonight, right? I ring the doorbell instead.

There's no sound from within the house, so I step back to survey the second floor. All of the windows are completely dark and covered with blinds, on both floors.

Damn it, I think, feeling my eyes start to burn. I turn around quickly, and notice there's not even a driveway to tell if he's home. I guess I just assumed he'd be in his pajamas or something, slowly winding down. I don't know, I don't know. I scan all of the cars I can see on the block, and none of them are his little car. My thumb fits between my teeth and I start to panic.

While I'm shuffling my feet and feeling slightly crazed, I hit the heel of my shoe on the fakest-looking rock, which I easily recognize from my and Roy's porch (Jim and I bought them together). I'm crying a little when I turn the rock over and see his key, brassy and shining in the light from the streetlamp. I don't want to think about why he's not here as I decide to just leave him a note. Pam Beesly is going to make her mark somehow, because she just drove three fucking hours to get here and there's no point in going home without something right?

It's so quiet in his house that I feel like he's going to be around every corner. I don't go very far. I aim to only find stray paper and leave him a note. I have no idea what it's going to say. When I sit on the couch, though, I'm able to see the entire living room. And it's so... it looks broken, unfit for being a comfortable living room, so I wonder if that's what Jim is like now. Broken, uncomfortable for living. It makes me put my face in my one hand, while I clutch my keys in the other, and once again I'm crying.

I acknowledge my one, black and white fear in my head, but it hurts to entertain. If Jim is with someone else, moving on, loving someone else -- joking, flirting, laughing with someone else -- then Stamford is horrible, and so far away. I don't fit here on this couch, and I don't really belong here, maybe. I figure if he's not here at midnight on a Friday night, he's not coming back anytime soon, is he?

I let that sink in. I'm trying to be realistic. I'll collect myself and drive home. Eventually I get up and write a note -- something simple like "It feels far. I miss you." It doesn't feel right and it ends up at the bottom of my purse. I feel like instead of reading my easy script, he'll just get a blaring "I broke into your house and hung out here for a while. Remember how you hated me?" from the note instead of the sentiment I'm trying to get across...

I pick at the t-shirt I chose for this. It's kind of a fancy one, but not really. It's purple and has pretty sleeves. And only for the reason, that the first time I wore it, Jim called it pretty.

I came into the office on a vacation day to talk to Toby about something I can't remember (probably insurance issues or a paycheck thing), and when I was about to leave, Jim flagged me down to look at something on his computer. I was smiling as I read it (I think it was one of those really long jokes), when he said, "That's pretty." I looked over at him and he pointed at my shirt, just at the sleeves. I regarded him in a funny way, I guess, because he rolled his eyes and said, "No, I'm not... I promise I won't buy a matching one or anything." I laughed and he said, "It's different than what you wear here, I guess. That's all." He just smiled and asked if I'd finished the joke yet. That's all it was, it was before I even knew about what he maybe thought of me, and, yes, I can't help but wonder if I got there first. If I got to that point before he did, because I think of him every time I pick past this shirt in the closet...

I lean back into the cushions and think about Jim. Only Jim, because I know he's not going to be home tonight and because while I'm being a criminal and staying in his space, I want to indulge. Just a little before I start moving on. Tomorrow. Next week. I don't care, just not now.

In my mind, tonight, May never happened. Or -- no, it did. It happened. And it worked. And he loves me so much. There's one big thing I miss about being in a relationship with Roy: loving someone else. And while I know that Jim loved me, oh man, did I love him, too. Even if I never said it. Because even while I was committed to someone else, I was loving Jim back everyday. Nudging a coat rack, sticking up for his ideas in meetings, smiling at him because he smiled at me.

I think I fall asleep with my hand over my heart.





I don't dream about anything. A sensation on my face wakes me up and when I finally open my eyes, I hear a sigh and I don't even run it through my head because I already know --

"Jim?" My voice is louder than I think it should be, and I'm still waking up as he comes back to me in the dark. It feels like my nerves are all on fire, and my fingers don't work as I sit up on the couch. He murmurs my name and he looks as surprised as I am paralyzed by my nerves. I can't even talk.

His hair is pushed away from his face like I've never seen it before. His eyes are sore-looking. His t-shirt is gray and fit on his body. He lowers himself down while I fidget and touch my hair, and we're looking at each other, and it makes me want to cry. I don't know if I'm relieved just to see him, wild circumstances aside, or if it's because I know that it's either going to be really good or really bad in the next few minutes.

He raises his eyebrows at me, and instead of saying, "Please?" like I want to, I just shrug. Pleading for him to get it. Somehow, I pick up speed and confidence and finality and start nodding. Nodding, and nodding and it's all I do. I feel tight and wound-up all over and avoid his eyes when I lean forward, circle my arms around his shoulders and wait. My life is blindingly white for a moment, like I'm at a crossroads, and I let our bodies touch. When he hugs me back without a word, part of me thinks it could be a formality. If someone hugs you, you hug them back. I don't let that thought get any further. Instead, other words fall out of my mouth before I can stop them.

"Can I stay?" He nods immediately. His skin feels like it's all over me, warm and smooth. I back up and look down between us, see how close we are as I'm on the edge of the couch and he's stretching up to eliminate the space between us.

"Are you seeing anybody?"

He licks his lips, looking stunned, still. "Uh. No."

"Oh. Okay."

He's looking at me but I don't meet his eyes. His arms fall so only his hands are on my hips. All I remember from our kiss in May is that it was electric and intense, and that he did it so well. I want to be reminded. "Are... you?"

I shake my head. "No."

He gives me one of those smiles that disappears really quickly. He starts to look over my face and my hair, which makes me self-conscious. I look down and barely have time to cover the sides of my face when he puts his hands over mine and presses his lips against my mouth. I close my eyes hard when I kiss him back, because I don't care about anything else anymore -- the time of day, what I'm wearing, what my hair looks like, who we've hurt, what everyone else is going to think -- I just start kissing him and he kisses me, and it's soft and slow, just like last time.

When we pull apart, he presses his cheek to mine and I hug him with one hand in his hair, letting him rock me again while we sigh into each other's skin.

I kind of see where this is going, and I might want it more than he does. There's a rush in my body I haven't felt in a long time, maybe ever. He takes my hand and looks at me.

"How the hell did you get in here?"

I can't meet his eyes. I mean, I broke into his apartment. "That... rock." I smile sheepishly. "I'm so sorry, I know that's so --"

He laughs, and the way he smiles and the light in his eyes is out of context, but he looks so happy that I go back to not caring. Who cares about context? This is the best thing that's ever happened to me, if this sticks.

When his laugh goes away, he smiles at some place on my forehead and licks his lips. "Don't worry about it. I don't care." The words echo in my mind and he starts touching my cheeks and ears and neck so softly that I want to start crying again, but things feel too good to stop them. Especially with crying.

I lean down and kiss him chastely, and when I see him, he's licking his lips again. "Do you want to go to sleep?" he asks quietly.

I nod, thinking I know for sure where this is going. While we're walking to bed, he a step ahead of me while I curl my hair behind my ears, I try and think of the best way but I'm out of ideas when we reach his bedroom.

"Jim?" I ask, tugging on his hand once. He turns around while he says, "What?" but I muffle his words with my mouth over his. His hands press into my back and pull me upwards before we're stumbling back onto the bed. Our clothes are gone so fast and then he's reaching for a condom while I hold onto one of his hands behind him. I'm thankful for the dark because I'm not brave enough to be naked in front of him yet, but then he's turning around and his hands are on me and my entire existence contracts only to this one moment with him. He's sitting up and pulls me to him and I'm not sure I know how to do things this way, but he looks up at me like I'm some piece of ancient art and lays his forehead between my breasts when he lowers my body onto him. We slide together and my hair falls down my back when I arch into him.

His mouth is everywhere. I can't take it. We move and it's uncoordinated but wonderful. It's sloppy because it feels too good for me to keep up my half of the rhythm. My forehead creases and he kisses me wherever he can reach as he holds me tighter. He's moving harder and faster and I'm saying things out loud that probably don't make any sense, but it's all so good. He buries his face in my chest and says my name loudly when he thrusts, and I start to feel something between my legs I haven't felt in so long.

He leans and lays me down flat on the bed, kisses me long and hard. He presses his sweaty forehead into my cheek while he pushes into me and the noises I'm making are too high-pitched to be sighs anymore. I clutch his hair with one hand and hold him against me, pressing my lips into the top of his head and somehow murmur, "I love you" there with so much intent and vigor that it doesn't even feel like my own voice. He holds against me for a moment and presses hard, and it feels so good there that I moan again. He twists out of my grasp and kisses me hard on the lips, his tongue touching mine and his forehead finally resting on my chin.

"I love you," he says, his breaths quick and labored. He swallows and nods, looks as if he needs a place to hide. He chooses my neck and presses his face there while he kisses me. "I do."

He starts moving again slowly, and then back to the strong rhythm from before. My mind buzzes with my words and his, the feeling of his body meeting mine over and over again. His fingers find me and too quickly, I'm curling up and into him, writhing on his comforter and wrapping my legs around his body. I don't think about anything but the parts of his skin I hold onto while I come back to myself and the sounds of our breathing that fill the room together. He scoops me up, which takes two tries because I'm no help, and holds my wilted body against his chest while he thrusts again. My arms are loosely around him and my head poured into his shoulder when he finally groans and squeezes me, then stills.

We're shuddering and breathing with our entire bodies for a moment before he tips us both over and we sprawl out across the bed together. I feel my whole chest moving up and down with my breaths when he runs his hand over one of my breasts, looking on like he's in wonder. The last shred of my self-consciousness covers his hand, even though my brain is still trying to catch up.

I think we're going to fall asleep like that, naked and unsorted on top of his bed, but he surprises me.

"Pam, I drove all the way to Scranton tonight," he says quickly. "I was looking for you."

I turn toward him and squint. "No, you didn't." I shake my head.

He lets me go and covers his eyes. "Yeah."

There's a funny picture in my head of us both getting worked up about tonight, to simply fail and meet by coincidence. Well. Kind of. I doubt he was as nervous as I was. "Wow. Then you came all the way back?"

He pushes his face into my arm and smiles. It feels like it's burned there for good. I don't forget about it for a long time. "I don't even know where you live," he laughs, but I know it stings. "I got there and had no idea."

I touch his face so he'll look at me, and when he does, I kiss him. His eyes are closed when I can see them again. The sweat on my skin starts to cool. "I miss you."

His eyes open and he looks pained. "I miss you," he says, looking down.

Doubt creeps all over like an insect. "How are we going to...?"

He's silent and it hurts. I start to wonder what this is. Something finally feels permanent and real and right; I can't imagine him saying that this will be too tough to figure out. It's only what I'm used to. I stayed with a man for nine years to avoid the hard part, but none of being with Jim seems hard at all. No matter what I have to do.

He rolls to undo the blankets and motions for me to do the same. When we're under them, I wait for his answer, because I can't have this any other way that isn't the two of us together. I don't let myself think about anything else.

"One of us will move to Scranton. Or one of us will move here. Or we'll both... relocate. Alaska. Russia. Chicago, I don't care."

He sighs when I hug him. I press my face into him and tell him I love him, that this will work. He agrees, easily, though I know our fears from the past are in both of our minds.

"The funny thing is that everything I did wrong before," I say quietly, "Isn't a problem anymore. There isn't... anyone else. There isn't all of that. It's just... two hours and forty-nine minutes."

"Felt a lot further about six hours ago," he agrees.

I think back to slumping against the wall, looking over at my phone on the desk, listening to the camera crew discuss my dwindling relationship with my best friend. Their words run through my head when I touch Jim's face again. He tips his head back and looks up at me through the hair in his eyes.

I look at him and close my eyes. I think he probably smiles when I do. I think he usually does.