This is hers, but it’s painful.

Her feet ache. Her lungs burn. There’s a kink in her side. But she keeps running.

She bought a copy of Allure magazine when she did her Single Person grocery shopping one week. She read it cover to cover and learned how to buy a sexy bra for your body type, styling your hair for sexy summer waves, and how exercise helps after a breakup.

The next day she went to the mall and bought new running sneakers, a curling iron, and a black lacy bra.

She spent the last three weeks waiting every day until the office is mostly cleared and then she does the same thing. She dips into the restroom, changes clothes, and feels a determined satisfaction as she snaps her laces into a tight knot.

Then, she runs. She clips on her iPod shuffle, tucks the office key into the hidden pocket of her shorts, and she runs. Her earbuds snuggled in, she blares her playlist as loud as she likes with music that Roy always hated. Beyonce and Gwen Stefani and Missy Elliott. Music that makes her feel free and tough and wild and sexy. She breathes heavy and her legs shake and she runs.

Every day she goes a little faster and a little further than the day before; she isn’t in shape enough to run miles and miles, but she runs. She goes one more block than yesterday or until the end of the next song, whatever little bit of progress she can make before making a turn and running back the way she came.

She wants to stop and take in enough air and rest, but she tells herself she doesn’t deserve a break until she gets back. She runs.

She rounds the corner into the Scranton Business Park lot and drops her body with a sigh of exhaustion and gratitude to sit on the curb. She leans against the hedge and steeples her knees so her arms have a place to relax. She tells herself she is just catching her breath, her heaving chest as evidence.

Sometimes she glances at the warehouse door and wonders what Roy is doing. She wonders if he’s drinking as much as Darryl alluded to the other day. She thinks she will always worry about Roy a little bit. She wishes Time would take her back a few years when she started having doubts that they should get married or be together at all so that she could follow her gut and end it.

Sometimes she looks at the front doors where she pushes in and out of work every day. She thinks about grilled cheese sandwiches and shared earbuds and late nights. She remembers that night often. She wishes Time would take her back to that next morning so that she can smile and agree that swaying is, in fact, dancing and it was a nice date.  

Sometimes she stares at a part of the parking lot a few feet from her and she thinks about Jim. She wonders what he is doing and why he hasn’t called and why she hasn’t called. She thinks about her favorite dress. She thinks about that tear he wiped away. She thinks about ‘more than that’ and ‘I’m in love with you’ until the words don’t make sense. She wishes Time would take her back to that night so that she could replace ‘what’ with ‘I love you, too’ and make the rest of those words disappear.

But Time cackles and ironically says, “I can’t.”

She usually gives herself a minute or two on the curb to be overly reflective and full of self-loathing. A glance at her watch says that today she’s taken five minutes. She pushes herself up on wobbly legs, notes the only car in the lot is hers, and slowly walks up the stairs to the office.

In the bathroom, she finally cries. It’s quiet and pitiful. Wailing, sorrowful, cathartic tears are for the shower. Bitter, angry tears are for the car. Sniffling, breathy tears happen in moments like this when her fucking emotions take over at work or in the grocery store or when she’s buying coffee. She sits on the hideous couch in the women’s bathroom and holds her face in her hands, telling herself this must stop. She takes deep breaths until it finally does.

She’s almost reached Jim’s desk—Ryan’s desk, it is Ryan’s desk—when she hears him. She inhales, cursing him for returning to the office after a client meeting.

“Pam? Are you still here?”

Quickly gathering her duffel bag and purse, she feels confident she can slip out with a polite but short, “Goodnight, Michael.”

“Pam? Are you,” he pauses, hesitantly continues, “were you crying?”

She glances at her reflection in the side window of Michael’s office. She doesn’t look tough or determined like she felt while running. Hair frizzing from her ponytail, runny nose, wet lashes, her mouth is twitching, tears forming to betray her again, she feels pathetic.

Michael’s voice is just a bit closer. “Is it about Roy? Or, um, Jim?”

The sound from the back of her throat is her tell. It’s soft, but she doesn’t know if it’s a laugh or a cry or a choke. She turns cautiously and takes a steadying breath.

Michael, his face gentle and kind, tips his head sympathetically as though he can feel her desperation. He reminds her of a sweet meerkat, softly blinking, harmless. Releasing a long exhale, he makes his way to the couch and slowly sits at one end.

Reluctantly, she joins him, perching at the opposite side with her duffel bag and purse as a barrier between them. She is afraid Michael might try to hug her in a moment of genuine consolation. She is afraid she might let him.

They stare blankly into the bullpen. She directs her eyes on the wheel of Jim’s chair—Ryan’s chair, it is Ryan’s chair—because she doesn’t trust herself to look anywhere else.

Michael interrupts the silence. “I didn’t know you are a runner? I’ve seen you out there a couple of times.” His tone is on par with the enthusiasm he would have if he realized they shared a birthday.

I’m not a runner. I was running, she thinks. She feels those creases form between her eyebrows, the ones her mother says she will regret, but she doesn’t know how to answer him. She nods a couple of times.

The thought crosses her mind that she can just stand and go. Instead, she tucks her right foot under her left thigh and rests her head on her right fist, her arm anchored to the back of the couch. Michael mirrors her posture and she can’t help but smile a little because it’s clearly one of those moments where he looks equally ridiculous and endearing.

“Do you enjoy it?” When she doesn’t answer, unsure of what he’s asking, he glances down at her duffel bag. “Running?”

A dry laugh followed by an emphatic shake of her head changes his expression. She tugs at her earlobe, glances to the wheel of Ryan’s chair and back to Michael. Why does his nose look bigger when he’s confused, is weird to think about, but it’s where her mind goes.

“Why do you do it then?”

Penance, is the first thing that pops into her mind. For fuck’s sake, get over yourself, Beesly.  She feels her lips purse to the left in a way that lifts her cheek, hoping that tells him enough.

“Pam, you should be doing something you love. Something that makes you happy.”

She shrugs lightly and offers him a small smile. She’s off the clock and too tired to give him any more than that. Plus she’s starting to get a little hungry.

“Pam, I mean it.” Michael leans a fraction closer, dips his head a little further into his fist, still comically matching her body language. “Pam,” he emphasizes, likely to underscore the importance of what he is about to say, “you should be doing something that makes you happy. Especially when you’re trying to figure out…” His words fall while his hand gestures in the air toward the bullpen. In a rare moment of self-awareness, he speaks slowly, clearly searching for the right words. “You’ve been through a lot lately. Roy. Jim. Moving. Researching the top twenty magic shops in the country. That would take an emotional toll on anyone.”

Michael puts both legs in front of him and crosses his arms. He shakes the foot he was sitting on, briefly lamenting how it’s fallen asleep. Staring at a spot on the floor, he begins again, his tone heartfelt but serious, “What I’m saying is, you should be doing something that brings you joy. It’s like me and comedy. You know I’m not the best comedian out there.” He says this as he shoots a conspiratorial glance at her accompanied by an apologetic shrug. “There’s Robin Williams.” His eyebrows knit in concentration. “Chris Rock.” His lips move silently the same way they do when he tries to add numbers in his head. “I can’t think of anyone else off the top of my head, but the point is, I’m not the best, but I’m certainly not the worst. Whew! You should see this guy in my improv class, Bill. Ugh. Pam, he’s awful. The worst. He always—”

He stops himself by briefly pinching the bridge of his nose then smiles at her gently, and continues in his former, calmer, manner. “I’m not the best comedian, and I’m certainly not the worst—” she smiles reassuringly as he glances at her for approval, “—but I just love it so much. It brings me joy. Ya’ know when the boss is on my ass or I have women problems or no one can find a David Blaine collector’s poster for me on eBay…” Michael somberly shakes his head, but doesn’t seem to notice her glaring at him, recalling the afternoon he had the entire office searching online for a commemorative David Blaine poster, bids in the thousands, but he only wanted to pay $50. “When those things happen, I have the joy of comedy. I work on my routine, my characters. And, I just know, in that moment, everything will be okay.”

Michael leans forward on his knees, clasps his hands and glances at her over his shoulder. It sounds like a plea when he says, “Pam, do you have something like that? Something that brings you joy?”

Fingers still that have been running mindlessly over the zipper of her duffel bag. The wheels on Ryan’s chair don’t move. Buttermints have replaced Jelly Bellys in her candy dish.

“Painting.” She has to clear her throat; she hasn’t spoken in a bit and her tears have left her sniffling. “Art. Painting, mostly, I guess.”

“That’s right!” She smiles at his enthusiasm. “You want to be an artist designer? Graphic painter?”

“Graphic designer,” she supplies, dipping her head, her smile wider than she expected it to be.

“Yes! Yes. That’s what you should be doing. Graphic designing. Painting. Art. Pam, you should be doing those things that bring you joy.” Michael leans back triumphantly, folds his arms across his chest, and returns to staring at the spot on the floor. He shrugs, casually mentions, “Ya know, I take improv classes at the community college. There are always fliers for all kinds of art classes. You should look at that or something.”

The silence lets them both get lost in their thoughts.

She contemplates the cost of art classes, considers what she would paint. A quick glance at Ryan’s desk—when did she start remembering it is Ryan’s desk?—and she thinks of how many shades of green paint she has at home. She imagines painting green eyes. Shiny emerald when lost in the hysterics of a prank. Dull sage when bored. Deep pine when in pain.

The silence lets them stay lost in their thoughts.

Michael is still in his trance as he gravely advises, “But maybe you should keep running, too. You’re gonna want a smoking hot body when you start dating again."

This is hers, but it doesn’t feel like hers.

She parks the little blue Yaris (that her parents helped her buy when providing a hefty down payment) in front of her building. She takes the stairs to her third-floor, one bedroom, exterior entrance apartment (that her parents helped her with by paying the deposit and first and last month’s rent). She goes immediately to her bedroom and drops her bags onto the bed (the one her parents bought her, insisting with silent, furtive glances, that she could not take her old bed into her new life) and tugs off her running clothes.

Her shower is hot and she wonders when she needed so much help. Needing help and accepting help are different, she’d been told once. She drops her head and lets the scalding water travel down her back, her legs, mercifully easing the sore muscles.

Wrapped in her faded, purple terrycloth robe, wet hair held up in a heavy towel, she returns to her bedroom. She opens the top drawer of her dresser (her mother insisted they just buy her all new bedroom furniture) and takes a deep breath as this absurd ritual beckons her to participate.

From the drawer she mindlessly pulls out a pair of pale pink underwear that she slips on while keeping her eyes fixed on two gallon-sized ziploc bags nestled among her bras and underwear. One her past, the other her...past. Sometimes she closes her eyes and pulls out whatever fate gives her. Sometimes it is intentional, depending on her mood. Once she did eenie-meenie-minie-mo, but it didn’t feel right so she never did it again.

She only does this on weeknights, after she’s been running. She reserves weekends for watching romantic comedies, listening to sad music, and reading erotic fiction while drinking wine until she passes out on the floor or the couch. She ignored the portion of the Allure article that talked about moderation with alcohol.    

Tonight she pulls out both bags. That’s a first, she thinks and defiantly shoves the dresser drawer closed with her hip. She pads down the short hallway, heading to the living area.

When she moved in, she took the small, windowless area right off the kitchen deemed the dining nook and made that the area for her couch and a chair (both secondhand from her mother who took the opportunity to remodel her own den), a coffee table (that she proudly bought from Salvation Army and refurbished), and the TV and DVD player from her place with Roy. She is pretty sure that he was actually excited that she took it so that he would have an excuse to buy a newer, bigger TV. The room still needs a rug over the hardwood floor, but it feels cozy and comfortable.

Her mother said it was an “interesting design choice.” Her dad said it was “different, but whatever she liked” before he went off, looking for something to repair. Penny and Isabel said it “worked.”

In the space where most people would set up their living space, she spread dropcloth, set up her easel, plugged in her CD player, built a bookcase (her dad helped her, but she insisted that he let her do most of it), and piled up the boxes of mementos and art supplies that had been sitting unused for years. The sliding glass door lets in great light and leads out to a small balcony with enough space for three flower pots and two chairs.

She has the terrace and art space she always wanted. Neither one has been used in the 28 days she lived here.

This is hers and she won’t apologize for it.

She drops the Ziploc bags on the coffee table and goes to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While the kettle warms to a boil on the stove, she cuts an apple, sprinkles some almonds onto a small plate, and opens a package of string cheese. The rhythmic pacing within the kitchen as she prepares her tea and food continues as she carries her plate to the coffee table, returning to the kitchen for a napkin and the mug of steeping tea.

She sinks into the comfort of the oversized couch before pulling the towel off her head and combing her fingers through her damp tangles. Her mind flickers to the recently purchased curling iron still in its box, unfamiliar and unused. The sexy bra is still wrapped in pink tissue paper in its pink bag, hidden in the back of her closet, likely to be returned. A bite of apple, a sip of tea, all while she eyes the Ziploc bags sitting lifeless side by side.

Just get it over with, her mind pushes. It’s the same every evening; in silence, the contents of the selected bag are spread out on her coffee table and she surveys, analyzes, laments, and even pleasantly recalls the memories that each item evokes.

With a heavy sigh, she picks up one of the bags. Ten years of memories, mostly in pictures; it’s to be expected that you don’t keep the little things once complacency sets in, right? One by one she displays on the flat surface pictures from prom, a football game, Christmas morning, both of them smiling, hugging. The most recent picture was taken two years ago. When did we stop taking pictures of those happy moments?

A few more pictures, a movie ticket stub from the night Roy proposed, the program from the only art show he ever took her to. She remembers saving it because it felt so special, like Roy made a huge sacrifice by taking her on his own accord to do something she enjoyed even though he didn’t. Now it feels pathetic and like one more clue she should have picked up on earlier. There are a couple of juvenile, albeit sweet, notes that Roy wrote her in their early years together. She reads the card Roy wrote when her Nana Cecelia died. Simple, but so kind, so desperate to take away the pain with words, a way that just wasn’t natural for him.

Her eyes scan two pieces of paper that have been folded and unfolded countless times over the years. Years before she worked at Dunder Mifflin, she created the first list, all the reasons she loved Roy. The plan was to do some Valentine’s project with it, but she changed her mind and did something different. She did keep the list and added to it periodically. The second was created a few years later and it was...quite the opposite. Long before she finally followed through with it, she had fleeting fantasies about leaving Roy and starting over. This list, in her mind, justified all those thoughts. She would also add to this list periodically. It felt juvenile to have these lists, but she was never able to bring herself to part with either one. Both were read and reread too many times to count since May.

Finally, she adds to the coffee table the final item: her engagement ring. Knowing it held no sentimental value, she had given it back to Roy, despite his protests, when she called off the wedding. When she unpacked her kitchen, it was in a teacup inside a stapled piece of paper with Roy’s boxy handwriting ‘this is yours’ on the outside. He gave it back, knowing it held no financial value.

As she does every time she selects this particular bag, she thinks of what she did, in some ways still does, love about Roy, recognizes it was okay to need that sense of familiarity that was disguised as security. She remembers his desperation when she told him it was over and his tear-streaked face, asking why, begging her to stay.

She lets herself think briefly of the things she misses about him; how she always put her cold feet on his warm calves and he never pulled away, his strong arms holding her close when they made love, his willingness to always play with kids and be genuinely nice to them, the pleasure he derived from her sitting in the garage while he fixed stuff...unless a game was on the radio at the same time.

She also remembers the many reasons it was never meant to be. She can’t help it, but she still feels the flush of embarrassment that it took her so long to acknowledge it. In the days following their break-up, the confessions of doubt from those around her were vocalized. Penny saw it. Isabel saw it. Her mother, Phyllis, Meredith.

Jim. Jesus, Jim. Obviously, she learned his opinion long before the split with Roy. She still hasn’t let herself work through how he fits into her decision exactly. She knows he does. When she’s really honest with herself, she knows he was the catalyst for where she is now. She’s so incredibly skilled at compartmentalizing her life, including her own desires and dreams, and it’s counterintuitive to how she has survived the last three years to consciously consider the influence he has on her decisions. And it doesn’t matter because he’s not here, bitterly intrudes her thoughts.

Usually, she is so emotionally exhausted from digging through these trinkets of her past, that she just puts everything away and watches reality television. It’s daunting to consider that she has only emotionally unpacked Roy, not having yet dealt with the painful reminders of Jim.

Tonight there’s a charge in the air that has her energized, and she momentarily acknowledges that she has Michael to thank for this feeling. Unbelievable.

She pulls items from the second bag and organizes them at the other end of the coffee table. She’s never rifled through the contents of both bags at one time so there is some rearranging on her part, but she eventually finds a place for everything to fit. Soon items from both bags are so close she wouldn’t know if Jim or Roy owned the memory except that they were burned into her subconscious.

The Monday after Casino Night, Jim came in late and then spent the remainder of the morning behind closed doors in Michael’s office and on the phone until they finally emerged following lunchtime. Michael tearfully made the announcement that Jim would be moving to Stamford on Friday. She was stunned into a frozen silence, staring at Jim, though he wouldn’t even steal a look her direction. He kept his gaze on the carpet, hands stuffed into his pockets, leaning so casual — how could he be so goddamn casual right now — against Michael’s office door frame. She didn’t hear Michael include her in the going-away party planning, instructing them to spare no expense, until Angela was shooing her toward the conference room and into a chair beside Phyllis.

She vaguely heard Phyllis mention they should get Jim a going away gift to which Angela blandly suggested a gift certificate to SuperCuts.  She took heavy steadying breaths, but her eyes couldn’t focus. She rubbed her forehead so that her hands would have something to do that wasn’t shaking. Her mind was on that kiss and ‘more than that’ and needing time...

“Pam! Pam!” Angela spoke louder to get her attention. “Pam, what kind of cake would Jim want?”

He’d rather have pie with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, she thought. “I don’t know,” she said, whispered with a small shake of her head.

Irritated, Angela crossed her arms and continued, “Well what colors would he want for decorations?” Angela’s lips were pursed and her stare measured, content in her certainty that she was going to disappointed with the answer.

Blue, all shades of blue, with some soft gray mixed in, she thought. “I don’t know.”

Angela’s nostrils flared and she huffed out an exasperated breath. “Then what are you even doing here?”

She wasn’t trying to be funny when she looked at Angela and the faint sound of a quiver started in her voice as she said, “I don’t know.”

Angela’s jaw softened, her eyes downcast gently for just the slightest moment. Even her tone eased as she said the kindest thing the other two women had ever heard her say. “Pam, you shouldn’t have to help with this party.”

As soon as she said it, Angela’s spine straightened and she lifted her eyebrow, disdaining the possible gratitude she might receive for showing an ounce of sympathy.

“You okay, Pam?” Phyllis reached out to console her, but she was already making her exit from the conference room before the tears could fall in front of them.

She went home early that day and claimed a migraine kept her home on Tuesday. By Wednesday she was angry and intentionally avoided Jim or any conversation about his departure. It wasn’t difficult; he was out of the office most of the day. By Thursday she begrudgingly accepted the fact that he was leaving. She was polite, even politely joked a little with Jim, but the laughter never made it to either of their eyes. It was his last day and she was committed to putting on a good face.

Run from the problem, rage against it, resign yourself to it. That was becoming the way she dealt with life’s problems.

She stayed in the office late on Jim’s last day. Ridiculously late.

After everyone left, including Jim, with a final round of goodbyes and a box of personal effects, she stayed behind. The excuse she gave Roy was that she needed to clean up from the party, send end-of-day faxes, but, really, it was to sit at Jim’s desk in solitude and darkness.

She sat in his chair and looked at her desk, trying to see what he saw every day. She let her hands rub against the part of the desk where she would perch from time to time, her mind briefly lost in the memory of that kiss, that confession he made to her, the confession she made to herself over the weekend. Her own confession had been derailed with his announcement on Monday. He was leaving. No explanation.

Jim’s move to Stamford should have been a simple answer for her. He would no longer be a welcome distraction; that’s all he had been, a distraction. Or it couldn’t be real love if he could so easily leave without telling her. Or he wasn’t who she really thought he was if he couldn’t give her time to process his revelation. All of those seemingly clear explanations should have been enough to quell her own internal struggle, but, quite the opposite was occurring. Slowly, from the outside working its way in, but she was starting to think about what she really wanted from life.  Ideas and plans were beginning to solidify and take shape. Slowly, slowly, slowly.

She was still rubbing her fingertips on that spot at his desk when she suddenly shifted from forlorn to angry.  A red-hot “Fuck!” cut into the air as she smacked her hand on the desk, letting her focus turn to the painful prickling in her palm disintegrate to tingling numbness. Why couldn’t he just talk to me? A streak of hope ran deeply through her with the sudden thought that maybe he left her some sort of message or note behind, and she began wildly opening desk drawers.

He’d taken or thrown away most things. She pulled out some legal pads and out rolled a half-used tube of chapstick he’d been complaining about losing over the winter. She giggled silently, remembering how Jim was convinced Dwight had confiscated the chapstick, done something to it, and planned to return it where he left it on his keyboard.

She returned the legal pads but placed the tube of chapstick on his desk. She added the remaining items she found in his drawers. A “frequent sipper” punch card for Java Joe’s. An abandoned pen cap covered with indentions from nervous teeth. A plastic cap from a Coke bottle, letting him know he’d won a free 20 ounce; it had expired.

His top right-hand drawer held a message, but not what she expected or hoped for or if it was even intended as a message. The only contents were Jim’s badge (which he was likely required to give to Toby), a paper origami dove, and a medal made out of a yogurt lid.

The ugly, heaving sobs weren’t expected, but she gave herself to them. Those small tokens, trash really, left behind in his desk drawer were the tripwire for the emotions she’d been trying to tiptoe around since he kissed her at this exact spot less than a week before. At one point, she feared they wouldn’t abate even as she lay her head on the desk and tried to take slow, steadying breaths. Time, eventually, stopped the tears so that she took a final deep shaky breath and stood up.

She looked at the small pile of souvenirs she’d collected. Her eyes scanned the surface of his desk one last time (she heard Ryan would move there soon) and landed on the phone. It was foolish at this point to look around the empty office for interlopers, but she did. That cursory glance gave her a boost of confidence.

She quickly unplugged the handset on his phone and walked swiftly to her desk. The same action was taken to unplug her own handset, replacing it with the one she had just taken from his phone. Focused on her task, she returned to Jim’s desk—was it too soon to start calling it Ryan’s desk?—and replaced the phone handset with the one from the reception phone. She would never ever admit to doing this; the humiliating need to have that piece of plastic close to her was...well, pathetic only began to describe it.

One swift sweep of her arm collected the pile she had created from the desk drawers. She dumped them into an extra gift bag she had stashed.

She feels the pinprick of tears as she thinks of that night.  The items from Jim’s desk are all there on her coffee table, conjuring the love, pain, regret, comfort, and receding hope she holds like a reliable weight. The creeping embarrassment as she thinks of the handset attached to her work phone leaves a warm blush on her chest, even though she is alone in the seclusion of her own apartment.

A few pictures are there, too, having been swiped from the collection she keeps in her desk for different needs in the office.

The first one is her favorite, only because it is the only picture of just the two of them. She remembers that it was taken — but by whom? — around the time the cameras started filming them. Her white shirt hidden under that pale pink cardigan Jim once casually mentioned was a nice color on her. Jim in a blue shirt, having just rolled his sleeves slightly before leaning his forearms against the reception desk partition. They had been planning a prank against Dwight when someone — who though? — took their picture. Given a brief direction to smile, she looks at the camera with an even mix of annoyed at being interrupted and restraint, hesitating at looking too happy, too eager to have been in their own little world; Jim just looks smug.  

She studies the picture in the same way she does each time she looks at it, begging silently for clues that she should have known at the time. Returning it to the coffee table, she picks up the next picture.

It’s not even a picture of people, but rather a stapler encased in a perfect dome of yellow jello, presentation style on a white plate. The memory comes back to her: the first time Jim took Dwight’s stapler, asking her to accompany him to the grocery store on lunch so that he could buy jello and a mold. The end result had been too perfect; she took a picture and kept it in her desk with the hundreds of other generic office photos.

The wave of nostalgia takes over as it always does at this point. A small smile appears behind her knuckles, and she lets herself indulge in just missing him. She lets herself think of the fun, the joy in just being with him and knowing him. Their inside jokes, their ability to tell a whole story with a single look, their comfort in being best friends.  Pain and desire and loss will come; she can afford a little bit of...joy, as Michael put it earlier that evening.

The thought of calling him, just to check in, see how he’s doing, creeps into her mind. That happens sometimes, not every time, when she looks at these memories of Jim; she’s never compelled to call Roy when she wanders through their past.

She dismisses the compulsion to press that infrequently used speed dial number in her cell phone. When she called off the wedding, she initially likened the silence between her and Jim to a long-distance version of Jinx.  She knows he knows; Phyllis and Kelly told her they reached out, she overheard Dwight allude to it, she imagines others have said something about it. She gave him the weekend through June 10th. Then another week. It’s over a month since she told Roy ‘I can’t’ and Jim knows and he hasn’t called. If he wanted to talk, he’d reach out, right?

I can’t, she thinks bitterly. They’ll put that on my damn tombstone.

Finally, she swaps the photograph of the stapler balancing in jello for the third and final picture that sustains the memory of him. She notices the imperfections first, as she always does. The lighting is terrible, there’s a blur where Meredith is falling, the “photographer” clearly never heard of the rule of thirds. But somewhere mixed in the image of their coworkers on an ice rink for Michael’s birthday, having just received the all-clear for Kevin’s health scare, they all look so happy.

Their exuberance is from Kevin’s good news (and Michael would claim his birthday), but she allows herself a selfish moment to pretend it’s something different entirely. Jim’s arms are around her shoulders and Kevin’s, her arm is around his waist and it all looks so casual, so normal.

If she lets her mind bend the right way, she can let everyone else fade into the background and imagine it was the two of them as something completely different than co-workers or, if she was being generous, best friends. She can believe that they were a happy couple, spending a day ice skating at a friend’s birthday party. She can believe that they will leave hand in hand and then bicker about what to have for dinner before tumbling into bed together to have amazing sex and a good night’s sleep.

She momentarily feels guilty, knowing that her own smile looking back at her can, even then, be attributed to a loose framework of this fantasy (not yet as fleshed out as she lets herself indulge presently) more than Kevin’s health.

She returns the photograph to the coffee table, near the paper dove and Jim’s lost chapstick, and picks up the stack of six slim disc cases, all identical and clear. The CDs inside, mixes that Jim made for her over the years, are all labeled the same way, Beesly Mix One, Month Year, in his small, tight print on a white label affixed to the outside.

She remembers the first time Jim gave her a CD; he’d worked at Dunder Mifflin for about four months and they talked about music a lot at lunch. In the truck, she’d suggested to Roy that they listen to it on the way home. He asked if it was “whiny emo shit because that seemed like the type of music Halpert’s into.” The silence that followed felt uncomfortable to her, like it was more about defending Jim than conceding to Roy’s musical preferences. Roy, oblivious, took her lack of response, as usual, as agreement and turned on the same hip-hop he listened to every day while working or at the gym or driving. The entire ride home she watched the town pass by as she became increasingly unsettled at the thought of listening to the same type of music every day of your life.

This memory propels her off the couch in a fitful bundle of frustrated memories and ruminations. She dresses in pajamas, washes her face, moisturizes, adds some mousse to her hair. Her thoughts drift as the whir of the hair dryer fills the silence with white noise.

As she returns to the living room and lifts her cup of tea, gone cold, to her lips, she has a literal change of perspective. The teal teapot is the only item on the huge white bookshelf bracketed to the wall of her studio — wow, it feels good to have a studio — and it stands in stark contrast to the brown cardboard boxes and empty blank walls. It looks sad and lonely as she remembers unpacking it, placing it there so that it didn’t get broken or cracked as she moved everything else. And as she thinks, A teapot will not be a damn metaphor for my life, she starts to make small significant movements.

She pours a generous glass of wine, plucks the most recent mixed CD from Jim, April 2006, and listens to the New Pornographers and then Interpol and then Arcade Fire. She really listens to see what she likes, not to see if there is any underlying message in why he picked this song or if it means something if she doesn’t like it or if it’s one of Jim’s favorites. She just listens for herself.

While she listens, she moves.

She unpacks a few of the boxes, adding art books, yearbooks, and a couple of photo albums to the bookshelf.  A framed picture of her with Penny and Isabel from high school. Another of her parents with her and Penny when they took a vacation to the beach a couple of years ago. She adds a few of the mementos, ceramic figures, trinkets that tell her own story to the shelves there until it no longer looks barren and empty.

There are still four or five boxes left. The contents are questionable, likely full of new paint brushes and blank canvases as much as junk that can be thrown out. At that moment, she decides to call in for work the next day. It’s almost 1 AM, but she’s gathered momentum to the point that she can’t stop, even if she wanted to.  

She returns to the coffee table and salvages a few of those early-years photos of her and Roy before returning the rest of the items to the Ziploc bag. She seals the plastic together with an air of finality and unceremoniously dumps it into one of the inconsequential boxes to be sorted through later or thrown in the trash. The few saved pictures are tucked into one of the photo albums that contain her high school and college memories.

Among the cardboard boxes, she has discovered a long-forgotten collection of old wooden cigar boxes.  She can’t remember why or when she started collecting them, but she retrieves her favorite, a reddish brown one that is long and flat with a brass clasp on the side and a fox engraved as part of the faded logo.

Jim’s items are added to the box, including those in the teapot. She adds the CDs to her existing music collection. From her purse, she pulls out the Mapquest directions that show how to get from her apartment to the Stamford, Connecticut branch of Dunder-Mifflin. Turns and highways are the only logistics standing in her way back to him. In theory. With a sigh, she knows she still needs to carry this security blanket with her, folding the paper back into quarters and slipping it back into the side pocket of her purse.

She adds the cigar box to the shelf, places the teapot on top to give the appearance of a display. A thought strikes her and she removes a picture from the cigar box, returning the teapot to its former height.

The day has been emotionally exhausting, but she feels oddly invigorated. She tells herself the flattened boxes and the full shelves are what are propelling her forward, not acknowledging the abandonment of her twisted little evening ritual.

A new CD, another Jim mix, quietly fills the room. She takes a breath and lets herself focus on bringing joy as she attaches the photo to an easel clamp and begins to rifle through her paint stash for the right shade of yellow.

This is hers. All HERS.

She thought she would feel more proud about participating in her first art show.

She knows she’s not, by any means, the best artist in her class. Her class, full of younger, trendier students who are so genuinely kind to her (Pam, it’s so brave that you’re going back to school; Pam, so cool that you are taking classes even if you’re not sure you want to be an artist; Pam so sweet how you pull ideas from everyday life for us to appreciate) but she feels their unspoken current of thankfulness that they are pursuing art because that is their life, their calling and a destination for them. She gets it. Hell, she said those types of things when she was younger, too. Before she understood how you close your eyes and wake up the next day so that a year has passed, three maybe.

When she set up her display tonight, Travis was stationed near her. She likes Travis. He’s different in a confident way and he’s one of those genuinely nice and optimistic artists who is likely really going to make a career in the art world.  

He hung his final painting, a bright, steampunk-inspired piece he threw together in an embarrassingly short amount of time compared to how long creating something takes for her. Travis approached her wall slowly, studying the paintings he’d already seen from her portfolio.

His dark eyebrows were pulled together and he was chewing on the side of his bottom lip that doesn’t have a metal hoop stuck in it. Thankfully, she knew he wouldn’t criticize, his empathic spirit picking up on her own uncertainty.

“Say it,” she said as way of permission and then dangled a baggie of carrot sticks toward him. He took one and munched contemplatively.

Finally, he spoke as he reached for a second carrot. “What happened to the eyes?”

Her teacher had asked the same thing.  While neither of them knew about Jim, she was pretty sure they knew her foray into oils and her obsessive painting of a certain set of hazel eyes didn’t spark in November without any possible outside influence.

“I just, you know oils are new for me...” She’d stumbled over her words, guarding herself for what the night ahead might hold. “I just feel like the oils are too new and too...unforgiving.”

He just looked at her like he was trying to put meaning to her words, but then their teacher was calling all of them together for a pre-show pep talk and a celebratory glass of cheap champagne.

Travis has had friends stopping by all night and two others have just arrived, despite the show ending. She’s proud of him, truly.

Fatigue takes over and the pin on the corner of one painting is persistently stuck in the wall. While her fingers work to remove the stubborn pin, she glances at the painting of a lone stapler.

It didn’t turn out how she wanted, but it was impossible for her to abandon that one. She couldn’t get the jello mold to look right, despite trying for weeks in class. In a moment of frustration, she’d heaved down her paints in a huff and groaned so loud that her classmates turned from their works in progress to glance at her. (Travis had a similar meltdown the week before. Heidi had hers the week after. And another the week after that and another the week after that. Apparently, creative temper tantrums directed at oneself are common and acceptable in these types of art classes.)

The instructor was nonplussed but quietly approached her easel while she was on her hands and knees, wiping up the spilled paint. He’d tapped on the yellow jello, called it a tricky thing, and then turned to her before saying, “Our art is just like us. A work in progress. Just focus on what you’re able to manage today and work up to the rest later.”

She finally manages to get the pin out of the wall when she hears him.

They’ve trickled in tonight, her friends and family. Her parents are on vacation, so she didn’t expect them. But Penny and Isabel came by as soon as the show started. They chatted, told her their favorite painting, asked about the cute professor over in the ceramics section (she hadn’t taken ceramics so she strolled over to take a look and agreed with them that, yes, he was very handsome in an Aidan Shaw kind of way that isn’t really her type). Julie and her boyfriend stopped by for a minute, but they were there to support her, not the experience, so after ten minutes of small talk they left for dinner.

Oscar and Gil were there, but she was so humiliated to overhear Gil’s assessment, that she doubled back through the video installation projects just to avoid seeing them. It wasn’t just humiliation, but seething anger rooted there while she silently lectured herself over her stupid safe choices. Once that nagging shifted from art choices to life choices, she made her way back to her display before she had an absolute emotional breakdown in front of the black and white “think piece” projecting on the screen behind her.

She’d been embarrassed when Roy showed up. Plain and simple, he didn’t fit into her world, this world anymore. She recognized that, and even felt bad that he was trying so hard to win her over, show her how much he was making this about her.  As he pitifully tried to cajole her into coming to his place tonight, she told herself that the loneliness hadn’t dissipated in their time back together. Not for the first time, she told herself she had to break it off with him before anyone got hurt any further.

So she was expecting to hear him run in at the last minute announcing his arrival. She’s even thought that she will teasingly, flirtatiously say to him, “I wondered if you were going to come.”

But it’s the wrong him. It’s Michael and he’s calling her Pamcasso and he looks so eager.

She almost, almost, lets her line intended for Jim slip out, but she catches herself, curling her lips around her teeth to keep her mouth closed. If Michael says “That’s what she said,” here of all places, the ground will most certainly open up and swallow her whole. Her chin turns of its own accord toward her shoulder so that she can school her features to deal with the wild card that is Michael Scott. And to keep her face hidden for fear of the tears threatening to spill because it’s the wrong him.

It’s difficult to tell if Michael is doing that thing where he attempts to sound more knowledgeable than he is or if he is genuinely impressed with her art. But she’s tired and mildly amused, so she just nods as watches him.

When he asks to buy it, says they have to have it for the office, the memory comes to her. The memory of punishing herself by running and with rituals she can’t even remember the rules of now and archaic Mapquest directions that she realizes are probably still in the inner pocket of her purse. And that memory of Michael telling her to find her joy which, unbelievably, launched her forward in so many ways.

As she hugs him and thanks him, gratitude for his belief in her touches her more than she expected. He’s proud of her and she knows that it’s about more than just a painting.

She’s not thinking about Roy or Jim or loneliness or that she floated a check for her electricity and cable this month or that she found her first gray hair two weeks ago.

She’s not thinking about how Travis is glancing over, likely thinking this is the guy with the eyes, and she knows she’ll have to fill him in during their next class.

She’s not thinking about being a receptionist or an artist…

She’s just thinking about being a work in progress and how she is becoming herself a little more each day.

This is his, but it’s all about her.

Jim never understood why people keep empty shoeboxes until now when he needs one.

When he was younger, it was inevitable that one of the Halpert kids would have some sort of project (or, more likely, prank) that required a box. Betsy Halpert would dutifully dig through the shelves in her closet, moving piles of jeans that no longer fit her body ever-changed after four kids, shoving aside dresses that she rarely had the chance to wear to dinner parties anymore. Somehow she always managed to find just the right box.

Jim stands in his half-cleaned room and considers that he can’t very well expect his mom to still have boxes tucked away for those rare occasions that one of her grown children might need one. Besides, what is he going to say?

Hey mom, can I get a box to hide all of the embarrassing shit I’ve kept over the years that reminds me of Pam? People from work are coming over for a party tomorrow, and it’d be great if my stalker status wasn’t so obvious to them...or Pam...or her fiance. I’m gonna grab a beer with Dad while you look for that box.

He’s really not sure how it got this bad. It all started when Jim had been at Dunder-Mifflin for about three months, on the day Dwight openly mocked every other salespersons’ numbers against his own. Stanley’s ambivalence, Phyllis’ annoyance, and Jim’s amusement were unnoticed by Dwight as he strutted through the bullpen, loudly proclaiming, “No one can beat me!” Michael finally told him to knock it off.  

Once things had calmed down, Pam brought Jim his messages, a post-it note hidden in the middle with one of her illustrations, the first one she’d ever given him. She had doodled Dwight’s face onto a beet, shaded it with a few highlighters, and added stubby arms and legs. Dwight’s pinched face on the bulbous body made him look comically like a whining baby, but the speech bubble with “No one can beet me!” written in purple made him laugh out loud. Dwight’s suspicious, “What’s so funny?” sent Pam and Jim into a fit of giggles.

It was the forty-seventh time since meeting her that Jim admitted to himself that he was in love with her.

That little post-it note started it, this accumulation of reminders of Pam. He brings them home in his messenger bag, tucked discreetly beneath the thin day planner he rarely uses and the basic price lists he totes back and forth daily from the office to home and back again.  Sometimes he thinks he only carries the messenger bag so that she won’t see how he has pathetically kept these mementos of her.

Jim has managed to clean up most of his room, and, in doing so, he’s amassed a small pile of items that he wants to keep but desperately needs to get out of sight. One item here and there might not draw attention, but all of it together became...questionable. He’s collected an inch-thick stack of doodles and notes she’s given him, every birthday and holiday card from her.

His copy of Threat Level: Midnight, complete with her sketches of their coworkers modified to look like the character they were reading and director’s notes she would provide to Jim while others were reading. “Tell Phyllis to sound more breathy.” “Ryan should try this with an accent.” They easily dismissed her hand brushing against his as she added a note. It meant nothing when she leaned closer to feed him her suggestions, and they would both lose a few seconds of the script being read aloud.

Jim groans audibly toward the ceiling and grabs his keys from his now-organized desk. In his car, Jim turns up the volume so that his Interpol CD is so loud that the sound bounces off the windows and he feels it. Good. His goal is to not think about Pam. He thought about her while he changed his sheets today, thought about her while he bought chips for the party (of course, adding French onion Sunchips to the cart), god, he thought about her while he was scrubbing the bathroom. He doesn’t know how not to think about her.

He makes it to Wade’s to pick up the three cases of imported beer he ordered and then calls in a pizza for pick-up. As he waits for the pizza, he wanders into the shoe store next door. He’s paying for the pair of Nikes he wants to need, telling himself it’s not because of her. He’s not buying another pair of sneakers so that he has a box to hide away the things he keeps to remind him of Pam. He’s really not.

And yet, when he gets home, he leaves the beer in his car and the pizza cools to room temperature on the kitchen counter while he goes immediately up to his room. The sneakers are added to the row of others in his closet, and he feels a bit of satisfaction as he sits on at his desk, the orange box in hand.

It takes him longer than he anticipated. Something prompts him to read every card he has hoarded from her. Most of them are funny; stories written on birthdays or creative adaptations and edits to holiday cards. A few are more sentimental.

When Jim’s Uncle Duncan, his mother’s brother, died unexpectedly a year ago, the office sent flowers to the funeral. So did Pam. Not Pam and Roy. Just Pam. When Jim returned from an emotionally exhausting week in Philadelphia with his grieving family, her card was waiting on his desk. An appropriate condolences Hallmark card with her elegant script, “Jim, If you need anything, I’m here. Always. Love, Pam” managed to get him through lunch. When he went to the roof later in the afternoon, she followed him, and they sat in silence. With her eyes closed and her head dropped back against the metal frame of the chair, she let her hand rest on his forearm, gently, reassuringly.

It was the ninety-third time he thought about marrying her.      

He stacks the cards into the shoe box. Then he adds the post-it notes and small drawings. A rubber band is snapped around the Threat Level: Midnight script that he’s folded in half lengthwise before it joins the others.

Next, he drops in the remaining items, one by one, into the box. He can’t help savoring the memory that each item conjures. Among other things, there’s the scorecard and small pencil from that miniature golf “team building” event Michael forced on them a few years ago. Actually, that day was pretty amazing. A half-eaten roll of Mentos. The plastic hourglass that Dwight brought from his game of Boggle at home, using it for two weeks to monitor how long people spent in the bathroom. That is, until Pam and Jim surreptitiously stole it from his desk; they got a good three weeks of laughing about all the rabbit trails they sent Dwight down to find it.  Eventually all three of them moved on to other distractions.

Jim flips the lid closed and turns in his chair, wondering where he can tuck this away while still having easy access to continue adding to it.

“Yo,” Mark’s voice breaks his train of thought, and Jim swivels his chair toward the door. “Who’s coming tomorrow night?”

Jim shrugs noncommitally. “Wade’s gonna stop by. Everybody from work, I —”

“Dwight?” Mark grins conspiratorially.

Sometimes Jim realizes that he still lives with Mark to remind himself how much of an adult he actually is, by comparison. Nevertheless, he feels the smile breaking across his face and nods, “Yeah, man, he’s —”

“And Pam?” Mark knowingly pops his eyebrows when he says her name, and now Jim is wondering why he still lives with Mark.

Jim lets out a sigh in response. He regrets those times he got so wasted and told Mark and Jen all about his undying love for Pam. And about her fiance. And her decided lack of interest in him. He nods, his smile now an embarrassed one, “Yeah…”

This satisfies Mark, who excitedly says, “Good. Jen can’t wait to meet her.” He’s heading down the hall, shouting over his shoulder that there’s pizza if Jim wants any.

Still clutching the orange shoe box, Jim slowly swivels his chair back to face his bed.

It’s the, well, he’s lost count of how many times he’s thought about her being in his room.  

This goddamn box. Here it is again. How did his life keep pulling him back to Pam-fucking-Beesly. He takes an angry sip of his PBR. It’s left from a pack he bought because Josh suggested it. Josh-fucking-Porter. It’s his fault Jim is sitting in his apartment, feeling sorry for himself while he cradles an old orange shoebox and a beer. The beer is disgusting, but it’s all he has in his apartment. 

His sleek, Connecticut apartment. The nice but expensive two bedroom, two bath symbol of his independence and new life. There are big windows and it smells like saltwater and maybe mildew, but he’s been told that comes with being near such beauty. He’s missed Scranton since he signed the lease, and now he’s seething with anger steadily brewing because he can’t believe he’s being forced to go back. 

The kitchen is half-packed, most of his living room. It wasn’t really difficult since he unpacked the last box less than a month ago. Jim had finally decided this was it. He’d be here for a while, settle in and make Stamford his new home. 

All because of that phone call. He hadn’t wanted to talk to her, just hear her voice even if it was recorded extension prompts. To reach a member of Accounting press five. For Angela Martin, press 501. For Oscar Martinez, press 502. For Kevin Malone, press 503. He hadn’t expected her to answer that late, and he almost hung up like some thirteen year old who got too scared to talk to his crush who he dialed on a dare. 

Once the shock wore off that she wasn’t going to hang up on him either, their conversation was natural and easy and… pretty damn great. The kind of great that encourages irrational and unfathomable decisions. Like driving toward Pennsylvania instead of heading home from the office. He almost made it to I-84 before he turned around, unpacked the last few boxes, and drank half of a semi-expensive bottle of bourbon that Tom gave him at Christmas.

He flips open the lid with a little more force than necessary, his eyes blurring over the contents before slowly coming into focus on each item. His first instinct should have been to throw the box and all that it contained in the dumpster at the far end of his apartment complex. But as he touches each piece of their history - a binder clip, a soda can tab - the stories tell themselves and he can’t bear the thought of parting with any of them. 

Jim lifts last year’s Christmas card from its refuge under a putting golf scorecard and Dunder Mifflin newsletter, twirling the sealed envelope until the three letters on the front P-A-M run together in a way that means nothing tangible. What if I’d given her this when… 

Jim shakes his head to snap his weak brain from that continued train of thought. How long would he keep having to consciously not run through every possibility, every ‘but what if’ scenario involving Pam? 

He shuffles blindly through the box until he is extracting a page ripped from a magazine, a faded lottery ticket paperclipped to the edge. He slides the two apart, a faint rust mark imprinted against the pages. With a soft thud, Jim’s back lands against the sofa cushion, the lottery ticket in his hand just like it had been that day a few years ago.

He’d been at Dunder Mifflin exactly 92 days. He remembered because Michael had given his 90-day performance appraisal that morning and, several times during the meeting, mentioned Jim’s bright future with the company. Stopping for gas after a sales call, Jim had purchased the Powerball ticket on a whim but with high hopes. 

Back then, the staff had an alternating schedule for cleaning out the community refrigerator. Rather than focus on cleaning out the fridge - no one else was cleaning it out; the empty mayonnaise jar and Phyllis’ month-old carrot cake and ancient sticky soy sauce packets were unmoved from the last time he was assigned this tedious task. Instead he sat at the little table in the office kitchen, pondering how he would escape this dreadful existence once he won his millions.  

“Hey.”

Dreadful? Well, mostly. With one exception.

“Hey,” Jim had replied, shifting in his seat and smiling easily at Pam. 

She opened the refrigerator, studying her options, before pulling out a cup of yogurt from the back of the fridge. “Whatcha got there?” She asked airily, reaching for the box of spoons in the cabinet overhead. 

“Winning Powerball ticket.” He had to smile at the way his voice sounded so confident and enthused, as though he almost believed it.

“How much is it up to?”

“Sixty,” he stumbled, glancing away from the tiny sliver of skin that revealed itself beneath her shirt as she reached overhead again. “Sixty million.”

“Sixty million? Wow! I guess you would have to quit, huh?” Pam rested her hip against the cabinet drawer with her arms folded over her chest.

“Obviously,” he exaggerated, a smile spreading widely on his face. 

“But you have such a bright future at Dunder Mifflin, Jim.” Pam’s smile matched his, a teasing emphasis as she repeated Michael’s words of intended encouragement. Oh, right. Because it wasn’t enough that Jim was stuck with ‘paper salesman’ as his best future prospect; Pam had to be present for the whole conversation between Michael and him as well. A front-row seat to the conversation that highlighted he had reached his highest level of competence.

“Yeah,” he scoffed, his gaze drifting away from her as he said, “there’s nothing here for me.”  Her frozen - stunned, if he wasn’t misreading it - expression straightened his spine as he pulled his brows together, desperate to understand what he’d said that prompted such a reaction from her.

“Maybe you’ll change your mind.” Her voice sounded so small, so tiny in its effort to be casual. His only friend at work - that’s right; she was a friend and a friend only - looked and sounded as though she’d been crushed by his apathy. If he could have told her the truth he would have. That moment, not quite the first in a long line of half-truths and dodging reality, coupled with her pained expression as she turned to leave would forever be seared in his brain. 

She was already settling in behind her desk, her fingers gripping the foil top of the plastic cup. “Hey.” Pam turned her chair away from the computer against the wall so that she could face him. He leaned against the partition surrounding her desk where he’d begun frequenting almost as much as working. Her eyes met his and the tiniest bit of tinder sparked in some part of his being that only she seemed to be able to reach. “This might sound weird,” he paused, a wave of guilt for shirking his office cleaning responsibilities prompting his next words, “and there’s no reason for me to know this, but that mixed berry yogurt you’re about to eat has expired.”

This is it, he’d thought. This is how our friendship ends. Because Jim had let her see the reach of his apathy, if not full-blown disdain, for working here. For not withholding his opinions on Dwight’s shirts and Michael’s jokes and Stanley’s snores. He’d known in that moment that he’d overplayed his hand about everything that was wrong with Dunder Mifflin. A conscious effort so that he wouldn’t falter and tell her the one thing that he found incredibly perfect about this stupid, boring job. In his attempt to hide his true feelings, he’d insulted the one person he wanted to impress.

Pam’s eyes narrowed slightly and her nose crinkled, and, for a minute, Jim thought maybe the yogurt had turned and some pungent odor was causing that blanched look on her face. 

“Pam?” At the sound of her name, Pam’s eyes widened and her lips parted, a sharp intake of breath that he couldn’t interpret as he noticed her chest slowly starting to rise and fall with each breath. For a minute, he wondered if she was having a panic attack or, oh, god, what if she was one of those people allergic to the smell of mold or something. That’s a thing, right? “Pam?”

“Thanks.” Her tone was decisive and neutral, if delayed more than a natural pause. She wordlessly dropped the container of yogurt into the wastebasket and turned back to her computer. 

Jim stayed planted for several seconds - ten? fifteen? - trying to read the back of her neck and coming up blank. He mumbled a pathetic “You’re welcome” before edging back to his desk. 

The rest of the day had been difficult to pin her down. Michael was particularly needy just before lunch, which she then took down in the warehouse with Roy. In the early afternoon Jim had two sales calls with new clients that he really wanted to impress. Because he couldn’t shake the way she beamed earlier that day when Michael said those terrible words. Bright future. 

Around 3, when he heard the door to Michael’s office open, Jim used every ounce of willpower to not turn around and watch Pam’s exit. Fortunate for him, it was unnecessary as Pam crossed the space between them and leaned casually against the edge of his desk. 

I could get used to this. 

Her smile from that morning had returned and was spreading further as she clutched her notepad closer to her chest.

“Good meeting?” It was all he could manage, still apprehensive based on how they left things earlier in the day. 

“Yeah,” she nodded, her eyes dropping to the floor before looking around the room. “I, uh, I told Michael I think I need to make some changes with my work space.”

“Oh yeah?” They were starting to get into comfortable, noncommittal work-related territory. Jim leaned further into his desk chair, crossing his arms casually. “Are you thinking wallpaper? Mahogany? One of those little waterfalls?”

“No, um,” she giggled through what appeared to be a current of nerves. For a moment, Jim froze. What if she wanted to move to the annex? Could she even do that? Mindlessly pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ears, Pam continued. “I think I’m going to move my computer. Face out this direction. I can still see people coming in the door, but then I’ll also be…” Pam shrugged as her eyes finally met his, clearly waiting for some response to him.  

“Able to see Dwight more clearly?” Jim caught Dwight’s glance, who was clearly miffed that he was being discussed while in the middle of a phone call. 

“Exactly.” Her laugh soothed any concerns he’d been harboring since the awkward encounter they’d shared earlier that day. “I also thought of something else?”

“Look, if you need me to help you move, I’m going to have to insist on pizza and beer.” Jim held up his hands before resting them on his knees. 

“No, it’s about… Well, I’ve been thinking about if you win the lottery —”

“When I win the lottery. Carry on.”

“When you win the lottery and you decide to leave me alone here,” Pam’s voice lowered with those last few words, holding a quiet hush as she continued through a self-satisfied grin. “You can buy me this to make up for it.” 

With a slight flourish she presented him with a piece of paper, whose torn edge and glossy surface indicated it was ripped from the kind of magazine his sister read, full of more advertisements and unrealistically edited images of trends than anything he comprehended as fashion. 

“A shoe?” He questioned, slightly amused and perplexed at the picture before him. 

“No, Jim,” Pam rolled her eyes in response. “Not a shoe. Those shoes.”

Jim studied the lettering below the single very high heeled stiletto featured before him. Do not think about Pam wearing these shoes. Do not think about Pam wearing these shoes. Do not think about Pam wearing these shoes. 

Not even attempting to speak the brand in French? Italian? Jim looked at her and asked, “How much do these cost?”

With an indifferent shrug, Pam simply replied, “$800.”

His widened eyes and stunned silence caused her to laugh loud enough that Stanley looked up from his crossword puzzle and scowled at them across the room.

“$800? For a shoe?”

“For a pair of shoes. Besides, what will you care? You’ll be a multimillionaire.” She stood then and stretched her hand toward the page from the magazine. 

Jim pulled it from her reach, relishing the way she looked a little shocked. “No way. I’ve got to hang on to this so I know what to buy.”

When he’d arrived at work the next day, Pam was already facing the bullpen, her computer moved to its new home tucked under the partition that he so often visited. She smiled at him, proudly, if he had to put a word to it. Later, when he’d asked her why she wanted to rearrange her workspace (seriously; seeing more of Dwight was completely inexplicable) Pam had just shrugged and said that she needed to see what the change felt like. He didn’t really understand what that meant, but he knew he was really glad he hadn’t won the lottery. 

But of course he’d kept the worthless ticket and the infuriating advertisement for an overpriced pair of shoes, tucked away in this Box of Pam like the pathetic bastard he is when it comes to her. His hand crumples around the glossy page as his head lands with a thud on the back of the couch. 

His middle finger and thumb press firmly against his closed lids, pushing pushing pushing away the memories, the reality that he’s moving back into the pull of her orbit once again. Blindly, he reaches for the revolting beer, letting his vision clear and for the stars to fade as he drains the bottle. 

The easiest thing to do is just call her. 

Call her. Call Pam. 

Those two words sound so simple in his mind that he actually picks up his phone, flipping it open and scrolling through the contacts with such ease he’s almost fooling himself that he does this every day. This is absolutely the right and clear answer. 

Call Pam, tell her the news, get their issues out in the open. Maybe even laugh at the ridiculousness of their situation. Ask her about getting a drink when he gets back to town. Or a cup of coffee. Whatever. Play it by ear. Keep it casual. He tells himself all of this as he presses the call button from his contacts. 

“Hey.” When the voice on the other end answers his chest tightens and the lead drops deeper into his stomach, settling into all the cracks and wounds he’d opened for himself back in Scranton. 

When Karen shows up on his doorstep, breezy and chatty with a six-pack of decent beer and a fresh roll of packing tape, he hangs his cowardly head that this was the call he’d made. Maybe he’d tell Karen, get her advice. From a woman’s perspective. And then he’ll do it. He will call Pam. 

Two hours and four beers later, he’s still thinking about calling Pam. But with Karen straddling him, her knees digging into the couch cushions, it’s easier to be distracted with how amazing she smells and that she’s a really good kisser and that her singular focus is getting his pants off. 

He doesn’t know exactly what she says, but he’s able to detect a question and the word bedroom. Instead, Jim twists Karen, lowering her back against the couch cushions. His hands skate down the smooth skin of her abdomen before proficiently unfastening the button, lowering the zipper. Immediately, her hips lift in response, allowing his fingers to easily pull her jeans down her long legs. 

He barely thinks about the offensive orange box across the room as he plants a kiss just below Karen’s rib. When she lets out a breathy sigh, he hardly thinks about the cards and drawings and fragments of memories and inside jokes he’s spent years carrying around with him. And just as his fingers tug on the elastic of Karen’s panties, both of them grabbing for each other greedily, it’s only the tiniest, most rational part of his conscience that acknowledges tomorrow he will, unequivocally, without question or hesitation, throw every single memory of Pam Beesly in the trash and never look back.