“I just think I should tell you that I’ve sort of started seeing someone.”

The air is cold. Her hands are cold. Her ears are cold. The keys she clutches are cold. She makes a gesture, something she intended to be nonchalant but doesn’t quite come out that way. He is looking at the ground, at his shoes in the snow. His hands are in his pockets in that familiar way he has. She can see him leaning against the counter in the kitchen, hands in his pockets while he watches her make her tea. She can see him in Michael’s office, hands in his pockets while he nods and accepts a joke that falls flat on the desk. She can see him now, hands in his pockets while the air between them grows stiff and awkward. When did they stop knowing what to say around each other? When did he become so unsure of her?

“Oh, that’s totally fine,” she hears herself say. What else is there to do? She tries to smile but it doesn’t feel right. “You can do whatever you want.” She doesn’t regret the tinge of animosity that laces her words, doesn’t regret the hot flush of anger that colours her neck beneath her scarf. She only regrets the way his mouth twitches up in that awkward way of his, when he doesn’t know what to say or how to think or what to do. She only regrets that she has made him feel like she is someone he can’t talk to. But if she’s honest with herself, that happened a long time ago.

“Oh,” he says. The sound falls like dead weight. “Okay. Good.” He exhales, and she thinks it is supposed to be a laugh but it doesn’t quite fill the space like she knows his laughter does. This space between them that feels too wide, too deep, too insurmountable. She used to know what to do with all this knowledge about his three types of laughter, his seven types of smirks and the one way he used to look at her. But now she feels with terror the weight of this knowledge sliding into the space between them, useless, unwanted, gone forever.

She looks at him, sees the way his nose has gone pink against the cold. Sees the way his hair still falls into his eyes and sticks out behind his ears. Sees the way his eyes dart around her, over her, through her, resting on anything but her face. She pulls at the memory of the way he used to take her in from the other side of her desk, the image tucked away like a guilty pleasure. He does not do that now. She wishes he would.

“We’re friends,” she says, and it is the only true thing she can bear to admit in this moment. The only true thing she thinks he could hear without being lost to her forever. “We’ll always be friends.” She studies his reaction, making sure he knows she is sincere. She expects relief, or a smile, or a soft nickname uttered into the crisp winter night, but she watches as his face closes and his eyes fall somewhere to her immediate left.

“Right.” The single syllable uttered with a nod of the head and a step backwards. Away from her. She feels the sting of rejection pulse through her. Feels the immovable weight of knowing she has done something wrong.

She feels her legs take her away, move her through the snow and the cold and the dark to her car. She glances behind her, sees him turning away, doesn’t want him to leave.

“It’s good to have you back,” she calls, and this is a small truth, too. She doesn’t quite catch his reply as he turns his back to her. Maybe too small.

Her car is cold and her hands are stiff and she knows she should just drive home but she can’t bring herself to put her key in the ignition, Her stomach rolls with the boiling anxiety she tries to fight off with slow, even breathing. Tries not to analyse what just happened, the instantaneous degradation of a friendship through words saying the exact opposite. She has waited all this time, made all these excuses, wondered what it would be like to set eyes on him again. And she has been sorely disappointed.

The weight of her mobile in the pocket of her coat is suddenly hot against her. She digs it out, finds his name, calls his number. If only she could tell him, if only she could ask him to come back, come back properly, completely, truly. His car is gone and she doesn’t know if she wants to hear his voice or not, but then the recording is telling her that the line is engaged and she feels the prickle of tears in her eyes and nose. He is gone, like he never came back in the first place, like he was never the only person to eat the jellybeans at her desk or the only person to ask her how she was doing or the only person to look at her and truly see her, see her and value her and love her for what she was.

The drive home is short and silent. The darkness seems to encase her on all sides, pushing against her, threatening her with the truth of her loneliness. She sits in her car space beneath her apartment building for a moment and bathes in the blurred orange glow of the dashboard. She catches the image of her forehead in the rearview mirror, sees her pale skin and fuzzy hair, feels the unfamiliar weightlessness of her left hand as she pushes open the car door and tugs her handbag out behind her.

She takes the stairs tonight, all six flights to get to her apartment. Her tiny, one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a living room and a balcony that looks out over a parking lot. She is so tired, nudging the door open with her shoulder, and it is only six o’clock. The darkness of winter hangs over her even as she turns on the lights and draws the blinds. Even as she lights a candle, slips out of her pencil skirt and arranges the blanket comfortably around her on the couch. She is seeing the figures move on screen but cannot distinguish them inside the blurry fog descending over her eyes. She blinks, sniffs, lets a pathetic tear escape and dangle from her chin. She wipes it away in a huff. She will not cry for him, not here alone watching a program she doesn’t even recognise.

Her mobile is buzzing. It is tucked somewhere within her blanket, and she can feel it vibrating through the whole couch. She snatches it up, answers without checking the caller ID. Feels her breath catch in her throat.

“I saw your missed call,” he says. Waits for her to respond. “What’s up?” Fills the silence.

“I, uh...” She doesn’t know what is up or what is down or what is anything. “I just forgot to say, before, that I miss having fun with you.” It is out and said and irrevocable by the time her honesty forces a blush up into her cheeks. She is frozen with the fear that he will exhale, utter some sort of goodbye and hang up, leaving her here alone again. She doesn’t know what to read into his silence, doesn’t know if she should be reading into anything at all.

“Me too,” comes his voice. She doesn’t breathe. “Remember that time we threw assorted items of office stationery into Dwight’s mug when he wasn’t around?”

She smiles. Remembers that he can’t see her. Forces a laugh. “I still do that sometimes,” she admits softly.

“Well, with your aim, Beesly, I’m surprised he doesn’t just write you up for littering.”

There it is, a soft nickname uttered into the crisp winter night.

“Excuse me, Mr Halpert, but I don’t remember you being much better. What was your average, one out of five?”

He laughs. It is a sound that fills her ear and her heart. It warms her blood. Makes her smile wider. “Remember that time we convinced Dwight to buy a handbag from that sales girl?” She remembers Katy more than she remembers the prank, remembers her red hair and her soft eyes and Michael’s assertion that she was ‘Pam 6.0’. Remembers the way she laughed when Jim tried to get her to. Remembers telling Jim he could just give her his extension.

“I have never seen a man more proud to be the owner of a female fashion accessory,” he replies, skipping over her deliberate slight at Katy with a finesse she didn’t know he possessed.

“And do you remember when-”

“Sorry, Pam, I’ve got to go,” he interrupts. Someone is knocking on a door outside in the hallway, and she jumps. There is a voice in the background, a voice she barely recognises. 

“Oh, okay, well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, and the words leave an acrid taste on her tongue, awkward and false.

“Yeah, see you.”

And she realises that the voice is Karen’s, and that she can still hear it from the other side of her door, that she can hear laughing and the jingling of keys. She stands, uncertain, unwilling to believe. And through the hole in her door, she can see him and that coat he has owned forever, and blocking him is Karen. And he opens the door wider and invites her in. And she doesn’t know what is worse, the fact that he brought her home or that he lives across the hall.

She wakes to her alarm and immediately shuts it off. It is dark and cold and for a moment she can pretend she has awoken in the middle of the night to a full bladder. But then she remembers what sent her to bed in the first place, with wet eyes and a racing heart and a pulse she couldn’t quite swallow. And then she remembers why she feels so ill.

Karen follows her as she shoves frozen bread into the toaster and wrestles on her work attire while it cooks. Karen follows her as she paces the kitchen, toast in one hand while her other worries at her chin. Karen follows her while she scoops up her hair in her usual barrette and flees from the bathroom mirror. Karen follows her while she puts on her shoes and slides into her coat and takes a deep breath before opening the door onto the hallway.

But it is Jim who greets her on the other side.

She lets the door close behind her. Listens for the sharp click of it locking. Feels the chill of her keys against her palm, reminiscent only of the night before. She looks at him and knows that he is still there, still on his way back. He is not completely hidden from her.

But the smile he gives her is shallow and forced. “Morning,” he mutters, throwing the greeting across to her like it means nothing at all. Underneath his coat she can see a blue dress shirt, different from the grey he wore yesterday. She notices the distinct absence of Karen.

“You didn’t tell me Karen lived here,” she says, unsure of what else to do, unsure of why she doesn't just say it as it is. She adjusts her handbag on her shoulder, tucks her hair behind her hair. His eyes are trained at the wall next to her head.

“Um, she doesn’t,” he answers. “I do. I swear I didn’t know,” he adds before she can flounder in the silence. “Otherwise I would’ve...”

He doesn’t finish. She doesn’t care to think what he would have done.

“Oh, well, welcome,” she offers. He nods and smiles. “I should probably be getting to the office,” she adds with a slight exhalation that was meant to be a comfortable laugh. She moves away from her door, away from him, without giving him a chance to reply. She can imagine she hears his footsteps against the carpet, following her, keeping up with her. They reach the elevator, reach for the button at the same time. He pulls back immediately, lets out an awkward laugh. Smiles with only half of his mouth without looking at her. She presses the button.

“How long have you been living here?” She prompts as the doors open, before realising the ignorance of her question. “Uh, never mind. That was stupid.”

“About last night,” he suddenly interjects, stepping around her awkwardness. She doesn’t know which of the disasters he is referring to.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine,” she says, shaking her head. She doesn’t want to talk about this now, with him, in this confined space on their way to work where Karen will also be. She feels the toast adjusting itself in her stomach.

“No, I just wanted to say... It’s good to be back.” And she looks up at him and he looks down at her and she knows that is not at all what he wanted to say.

She offers a smile, more genuine than she believed she could muster. The doors open and he gestures for her to leave first. To walk to her car and drive to work alone.

“I promised I’d pick Karen up,” he explains to her silence, “so I’ll see you there.”

She sits in her car and watches him leave. She takes him in, the way he ducks his head to enter the car, the way he pulls his messenger bag over his head and places it on the passenger seat in one smooth motion, the way he runs a hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes as he starts the ignition. She watches him pick a radio station, wishing she could hear his choice. Wondering if that would tell her any more about him than she already knows. Wondering if it would make any difference.

The office is bright and her chair is hard and unyielding. It is 8:45 and she is the only one there, with the phone and the fluorescent lights and low hum of the air conditioner to keep her company. When she is here alone like this, she can close her eyes and hear that hum and feel the satin of the dress she wore to Casino Night against her legs. She can smell his aftershave as he envelops her, taste the alcohol on his mouth. She can feel his sweater beneath her hands, see him smiling at her from beneath that mop of hair, feel the cold against her hands without his to warm them. Cold as they are now, pressed against her desk. She opens her eyes, lets the fluorescent bulbs pick out every detail in her keyboard, jellybeans, notepad, paperclips. She breathes deeply, wondering what thoughts will be crowding her head at the end of the day.

She gives Jim a smile when he opens the door, gives Karen one, too. Watches her kiss him on the cheek before taking a seat at her desk. Watches him sit with his back to her, his computer monitor facing the kitchen. Facing Karen. She looks and sees and notices, notices how many times he taps his pen on the desk without realising, notices how many times he opens Minesweeper to distract him from his spreadsheets, notices how many times he passes Karen on his way to the break room and returns with a bottle of water. Notices how many times Karen looks at him and smiles, guesses from the side of his mouth that he is smiling back.

She follows him to the break room at 2:13, waiting until he opens the door to the kitchen to get up from her desk. He is leaning against the vending machine when she finds him. His hand rests comfortably on top, and it is only now that she notices how tall six feet three inches truly is. She leans against the neighbouring machine so she can smell him. She takes in his deodorant and his aftershave and the smell of Jim that reminds her of coming home. Reminds her of satin and vodka and silence.

“Trying to decide between water flavoured water and water flavoured water?” She teases. It is not her best work. She is trying too hard.

He smiles but doesn’t move to look at her. His arm covers half his face from view. “The differences may be subtle, but still important,” he retorts.

“What happened to grape soda?” She tries not to make it sound as serious a demand as it feels.

“In Stamford, Pam, they drink water.” He looks her full in the face and his tone is so serious she almost believes him. But the realisation he is teasing her tugs a smile from her mouth and she looks at the floor to hide it.

“You’ve changed.” And she is not joking. He knows, hears, sees. Loudly inserts a coin into the vending machine and makes a selection.

“Fancy New Beesly, meet Fancy New Halpert,” he announces, but with his water in hand he makes his exit before she can retort. She moves, his name on her tongue, but her hand reaches out and passes through nothing but air, and she is left alone with the lights and the buzzing of the vending machines. For a moment she wishes he had never come back at all, then remembers that she can’t imagine life without him. Remembers that she needs a carbonated beverage to conceal the fact that she followed someone else's boyfriend into the breakroom. Remembers that she left her change on her desk.

She sits for a moment at a table, resting her head in her hands. She concentrates on the feeling of the cold metal seeping through her cardigan and pooling in her elbows.

“Hey, Pam.”

She looks up, sees Karen, feels sick. “Hey, Karen.”

“Everything alright? You look a bit pale.” Karen moves across the room, juggling the change in her hand as she contemplates the merits of each potential snack food.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just a bit tired,” and it’s not really a lie.

“Actually, I’m glad I caught you,” Karen adds as she fishes her packet of chips out from the machine. “Yesterday was a bit crazy and I wanted to say a proper hello.” She smiles. She means it. Pam can’t bring herself to hate her. She just hates herself.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” she offers with an awkward smile and half a laugh. “I’d say it’s not always like that, but I’d be lying.”

“Don’t worry, Jim warned me about Michael.” Pam feels herself stiffen. “And Creed. And Meredith. And Kevin. And Dwight.” Karen laughs. She has already remembered their names. Pam tries to remind herself that one day, Karen will truly belong here. Recoils at the notion.

“Well, I’d better get back to answering phones,” she says as she moves towards the door. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, see you around,” Karen repeats. Pam takes quick strides toward her desk so she doesn’t have to see Jim look around her to find Karen and give her a lingering smile.

He is alone tonight. Sitting on the couch watching basketball and making his way through a case of beer. He doesn’t mind the quiet, or the endless space he floats in without someone else using it. But there is an aching part of him that isn’t satisfied by sports and beer, isn’t content with sitting and thinking and being a person on his own. If he tries hard enough, he can smell her, feel her hair in his fingers, feel her waist warm against his hand, feel her smile against his mouth. If he closes his eyes he can pick out the hum of the air conditioner beneath everything else, and he can hear her saying no.

He opens another beer, turns his mind for a moment to scanning the meagre contents of his fridge before giving up on all prospects of dinner. He is tired and heartsick for the wrong girl and he knows that Karen is waiting for him to call her, to need her, to want her. He wishes he could do all of that and more. And he can, he does. Just not with her.

If he stares hard enough at the score in the corner of the television it grows to crowd out the players. He makes the little black numbers dance as they blur together and he finds himself forgetting who he is rooting for. He sighs, takes a swig of beer. Feels the weight of hopelessness settle around him at the sight of this lonely Tuesday night.

There is a thudding at the door and he jumps, spilling his beer. In an inebriated panic he tries to determine who it could be, but he doesn’t remember ordering food or calling Karen or anyone else. He prays it isn’t Karen. Doesn’t think she would be impressed with him right now.

He opens the door, beer in hand. And there she is, offering a take-out bag and a smile. She is still in the clothes she wore to the office. He sees the way her hair falls across her shoulders, covered now by the pale pink cardigan he loves. He sees the way the light catches the red in her curls and throws it in all directions. He sees the way her dainty, clean, receptionist fingers are gripping the greasy take-out bag. He sees the way her smile is not the same one he is used to receiving. It is dull and uncertain and more timid than he has ever seen her.

“I ordered too much,” she says simply, and he knows that she is lying. “I thought maybe you might want some, but...” She withers under his stare, shrinks away from him, pulls the take-out bag towards her. He realises he hasn’t said anything. “Never mind.”

She attempts to turn away from him and enter her own apartment, but he reaches out – or maybe the beer does – and grabs her wrist, the one holding the food. She looks at his hand on her arm for a moment. Looks up at him. Questioning.

“I’m starving,” he says, and he doesn’t regret it even though he knows that he should. He thinks of the three empty beer bottles already on his coffee table. Thinks that maybe they are talking, opening the door wider, gesturing for her to cross the threshold into the apartment. He watches her notice the beer and the basketball, take it in and make a judgment. He watches her smile and look at him.

“Looks like I came at just the right time, Halpert. You appear to be suffering the symptoms of a lack of meal preparedness.”

“I’m still... unpacking.” His defence is weak and he laughs before she does. It is easy, and he remembers how not easy it was this morning. Remembers her face when she asked about Karen, remembers the way she avoided his honesty in the elevator. He wonders if she came over because she’s ready for it now.

He moves to the lounge and she does the same, crossing her arms in front of her the way she has done a thousand times before. He can see her leaning on his desk, arms folded, telling him in a low voice the latest prank she has devised for Dwight. He can see through the glass to the kitchen where she stands waiting for the microwave, arms folded and face closed. He can see her walking to her car, arms braced against the cold, bundled firmly against her chest as if keeping her heart in place. It warms him to see her here, now, performing this same gesture he has come to associate only with her.

She is tucked up against the arm of the couch, as far away from him as she can physically place herself. She looks stiff and unnatural, intentionally poised beneath his dim living room lights. She catches him watching her. Smiles. Looks away. Makes a move for the untouched take-out on the table in front of them. She tips half the cashew chicken into the sweet and sour beef and wordlessly hands him the container, taking the other half of the chicken for herself. The three spring rolls she claims as her own, while she leaves the dim sims, knowing they are his favourite. He smiles at the knowledge that she manufactured this entire situation. Becomes uneasy at her reasons why.

He brings the chicken to his mouth and suddenly he is back in the breakroom two years ago, the light from the vending machines casting a sickly glow over the rest of the darkened office. He remembers the way she looked then, her pale face coloured blue and her eyes lost in the artificial glow of electricity. He remembers describing to her the perfect way to approach a take-out Chinese meal after a night of overtime. He remembers dividing up the portions the same way she did just now, emphatically explaining why this was the one and only way to eat Chinese. He remembers making her laugh and wanting to do it again and again and again. He remembers them shouting “That’s what she said!” to each other across the table, followed by her triumphant “Jinx!” and insistence that he buy her a Coke to break his silence. He remembers watching her hands as she opened the can and took a long, slow pull. Remembers the way she held his eyes for too long and said nothing at all.

They say nothing now. She is looking at her chicken like she is avoiding his eyes and he is looking at her like he is avoiding his chicken. They sit as the whistles and squeaking sneakers and shouts from the television wash over them, meaningless, forgotten, there to break the silence. He waits for her to say something, to explain why she is here. Considers that maybe she is waiting for him.

“What are you doing here, Beesly?” He asks, keeping his tone light. She doesn’t answer. Tugs a piece of chicken off her chopsticks to delay her response.

“I told you,” she says around her mouthful, and she is wonderfully adorable, “I ordered too much food. Clearly you needed it.” She makes a gesture that encompasses the whole space. He feigns offence and feels the warmth spreading through his chest. Feels the space between them get a little smaller.

“I find it highly presumptuous that you think you can just invite yourself over, dangle food in my face and expect to be welcomed with open arms,” he teases. “Looks like Fancy New Beesly has a fancy new attitude.”

She is silent for a moment. “I could say the same about you.” He waits for her to tease him but she doesn’t. He is caught by her candor and takes a swig of beer to hide the uncertainty at his mouth.

“Thanks for the food,” he says. It is soaking up the beer and making his actions more his own. Making the absence of guilt more palpable.

“You’re welcome.” She reaches for a beer without being offered one and leans over to tap it against his. She looks at him and leans back and looks at her food. “Sorry, that was presumptuous.” But she takes a long pull anyway.

“Please, help yourself to my cheap and indigestible beer,” he announces too loudly. He finishes his fourth and sets about devouring his chicken and beef. It is growing cold in the wake of his indecisiveness.

She doesn’t offer a witty retort. She commits to finishing her chicken and commits to not uttering a word. It is strange to have her here in this most intimate of places and yet feel her to be so distant. Not as distant as last night, in the crisp winter air and the snow and the friendzone. But distant nonetheless, not nearly as close as he realises he needs her to be.

He tries to summon thoughts of Karen but he can’t. He is struggling to hear her voice, picture her face, feel her hands, smell her hair. He is struggling to keep her in one piece in his memory. She keeps drifting apart like vapor. He doesn’t try to catch her.

“What are you doing here, Beesly?” This time he says it softer, prompted by beer but focused by something else.

She opens her mouth and closes it. Looks at him and finds him already looking at her. Sighs. “I missed my friend,” she says carefully. “I just wanted to hang out with you again.”

He feels the disappointment sting him just as sharply as he tries to push it away. She is here and so is he and that is all that should matter. But the possibility that her motives are merely platonic stirs something in him that he wasn’t sure was still there.

“Can I offer you the tour?” He says, more to cease this uncomfortable stirring than anything else.

“I’m pretty sure your apartment is exactly the same as mine.” She rolls her eyes, but there is a smile there, too.

“I think not, Miss Beesly.” He stands, depositing his food and drink on the coffee table, and catches her wrist. “Join me, won’t you, on a tour through the previously undiscovered realm of Mr Jimothy Halpert.”

She stands with him, laughs, lets him pull her around to the other side of the couch. “Living room,” he announces, and it is superfluous and humorous and he thrills when she giggles at him.

“I definitely have better taste in furniture,” she observes, taking in the small round dinner table with exactly one chair tucked underneath. He hopes she doesn’t notice it is covered with the remnants of his dinner from last night. His dinner with Karen. He thinks it is impossible she won’t notice, pulls her in the opposite direction.

“Kitchen.”

“Same handles and everything. I think I could give the tour from here.” Her hands are on her hips and her eyes are locked with his and an eyebrow is being raised and a smirk is tugging at her mouth.

“Then by all means.” And he gestures her to precede him down the hallway.

“Bathroom.” She points without looking. Correct, of course. “Bedroom. Study. Some kind of man cave?” She giggles through the last one, and is devastated to find her guess incorrect.

“So close, Beesly, yet so far,” he teases, pushing the door at the end of the hallway open. “Just a plain old bedroom. Halpert strikes again.”

It is his bedroom, and he knows that she knows by the way she stiffens in the doorway. She is so small and beautiful and twists her hands together as she takes it all in. She doesn’t move. He lingers behind her, suddenly uncertain himself. He wants her to see, wants her to see him, and is afraid of what will happen when she does.

She turns toward him, unexpectedly, and he doesn’t have time to move. He can smell her, feel her, see a strand of hair dislodged from an otherwise-perfect curl. He wonders what it would be like to hold it against his finger, to see it there on his skin for just a moment. Would it feel like it did all those months ago? Would she let him? Would she say no again? He knows it is the beer when his hand crosses that small space between them and tucks that strand behind her ear. Lets his hand linger for a moment. Feels her warmth.

She is looking at him and he can’t read her face like he used to. She doesn’t move, doesn’t slap him away, doesn’t storm down the hallway and leave. But she doesn’t smile either. Doesn’t shift towards him or take his hand or say a word.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You’re drunk,” she replies.

“I’m not drunk.” Are you drunk? No. Jim. Are you really going to marry him?

“What happened to ‘I sort of started seeing someone’?” She is accusing him. His hand burns where he touched her, where the trace of her lingers for the moment. He can’t answer her. “What are we doing, Jim?”

Still she doesn’t move. Still she doesn’t push him away. Still he can smell her. He never wants her to leave.

“Hanging out.” And he thinks he almost has the courage to contradict himself and get his hand tangled in her hair when she steps around him and starts off down the hallway.

“You’re drunk,” she calls, and this time she is laughing.

“Three-and-a-half beers is not drunk,” he retorts as he follows her. “Three-and-a-half beers is a charmingly uninhibited Jim Halpert.” He wonders if she finds him charming. He wonders if it is her that is making him feel like he just did six shots and not the cheap booze he shouldn’t have bought.

She sits down in the middle of the couch and cradles her take-out to her chest. He has nowhere to sit but beside her, his leg touching hers. He hopes this was deliberate. Hopes the fire and ice and tingling he is feeling are not imagined.

“I like charmingly uninhibited Jim Halpert,” she says between mouthfuls. She takes two deep pulls from her bottle, finishing it off. “So, tell me about Karen.”

“I don’t think you want to know,” he answers immediately, and he can’t stop himself from looking over and catching her eyes with his own.

She is measuring him, calculating what to say, determining his motives. He isn’t even sure what his motives are. “No, I guess I don’t.” And she looks away and puts her empty take-out box on the table and stands.

“I didn’t mean it exactly like... that...” He falters. What did he mean?

“Don’t worry about it, Jim. I don’t know why I even asked.”

She is at the door and she is opening it and she is moving away too fast.

“Pam, wait.”

“I missed hanging out with you, and now I don’t. Now I know. Good night, Jim.”

He doesn’t quite know what went wrong, but still she is gone and still he is here in his doorway, thinking that it never hurts this much when Karen is gone.

He has been brave and she has not and it is something he must become accustomed to. And he cannot help but remember that one time he was brave, so brave, and she was a little brave, too, and for the first time since he met her it felt like they were on the same page.

He placed the sticky note over the centre of her monitor before she got back from the bathroom, inviting her to a roof-top rendezvous. She was required to bring sodas from the break room, he had covered the rest. His hands didn’t shake as he smoothed the note against the screen. His breath didn’t catch in his throat as he took in the intimate, personal details of the photos on her desk and the arrangement of her stationery. He allowed himself a smile. He was certain. So far from how he feels now.

When she told him she had plans he believed her. Just for a moment. But she couldn’t keep her mouth straight and he tried to ignore the feeling of relief that covered him in those few seconds as he leaned against her desk. He remembers the way she held the note between her fingers as he spoke to her, unwilling to throw it away. He remembers the way she looked up at him completely unabashed and completely engrossed in whatever joke he was telling. He remembers the way he lingered for a moment too long before heading back to his desk, the way she pulled her eyes away from him. The way she looked at him and smiled from five feet away.

He climbed the ladder with one hand, balancing two paper plates in the other. He found her already standing in the cold, bathed half in the glow from the adjacent streetlight and half in the dark of 5:30pm in November. She was turned away from him and he could see the two sodas sitting on the cardboard box masquerading as a table behind her. The box he had brought up during his lunchbreak in a dazzling fever of hope.

“May I present,” he began with a flourish, and she jumped at the sound of his voice, “Jim Halpert’s famous grilled cheese sandwich. Concocted by none other than yours truly.”

He tugged off the napkin and presented her with the two paper plates floundering in his hand. She scooped them up with a giggle and placed one on each side of the box standing between two rusty pool chairs. He had found them in an old office space in the building and somewhat unscrupulously claimed them as his own.

“I didn’t know Scranton could look as dull from above as it does from the ground,” she said, stuffing her hands into her pockets.

“I don’t know,” he countered, moving towards her but keeping his eyes away. “If you squint really hard and turn your head 43 degrees to the right, the streetlights kind of block everything else out.”

She laughed, nestled into one of the pool chairs, reached for the closest paper plate. “This is quite the set-up you’ve got here. Not too shabby.” He smiled with the knowledge that this was working, that she was happy, that she was not repulsed.

“Wait until you’re up here during the day. It’s even worse.”

She laughed again. His reward. “I’m serious, Jim. This is really nice.”

“I’m glad you think so, because it’s all for you.”

She turned to him, an uncertain smile lingering at her mouth. In the half-light and at this distance, he couldn’t quite read her eyes, couldn’t quite be sure how he was being received. But he forced a smile and she returned it and leaned back further into her seat. “Sure, sure. I bet you bring girls up here every night.”

“If only you knew, Beesly.” If only she knew.

“So, how have you enjoyed your first six months as a salesman with a mid-tier paper supply firm?” Her words were muffled around her mouthful of sandwich.

“It’s been one hell of a ride,” he began, thinking of her, thinking of Dwight, thinking of Michael. Thinking of her. “What with the boundless opportunities of a non-stop life here in Scranton, PA, I don’t think I could imagine anything better.”

That earned him a real laugh. She turned to him, swinging around in her seat to completely face him. “Okay, if you weren’t a salesman, what you be?”

“Professional diver. You?”

She smirked at him. “Children’s book illustrator.”

“Really, Beesly?” She nodded at him. “I’m... very surprised.”

“What, you don’t think I could keep up with the competitive industry of children’s literature?” She was mocking him, an eyebrow raised over her mouth slightly turned up.

“I don’t know, Beesly, those Spot the Dog storylines can be deceptively difficult.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Celebrity crush?”

“Emily Blunt.”

“John Stamos.” She paused. “Or Johnny Depp.”

“Best birthday you’ve ever had?”

“My parents took me to see some ice-skating version of Swan Lake when I was 9. They bought me a doll and I got to have ice-cream for lunch and it didn’t rain.” She looked over to him. Waiting.

“When I was 7, my dad took me to the Natural History Museum in New York, and we looked at fossils all day. And at the end of the day he got me a little plastic triceratops. It was awesome.”

“I would have loved to see a miniature, super dorky version of you,” she teased around another mouthful. “Not that you aren’t dorky now, just that you were more dorky then.”

“Unfair, Beesly! Miniature Jim didn’t know any better!” He looked at her, winked, smiled more widely. “I still have that plastic triceratops.”

“Pride of place among your other dolls?” He grew warm under her gaze, felt himself inhaling her presence, her laughter, her teasing.

“How many times, Beesly? They’re action figures, not dolls.”

“I think I’d need to see that for myself to determine the truth.” She opened her soda and the sound was too loud. He grew uneasy at the thought of her in his room, in his space, in the centre of his life. Wondered what she would do if she ever got there.

They were silent as they made their way through their hastily prepared meals. The air was silent around them, too, dark and stiff and unsettling. She didn’t look at him as she finished her sandwich but he looked at her, committing her to memory, noticing everything about her. She hadn’t worn earrings to work that day. Her ears were small beneath her hair.

“Best moment in the office so far,” he offered, his nervous energy forcing him to break the silence. She didn’t answer for a moment.

“Do you remember that day when Dwight left his computer open while he was on a sales call and you changed of all his file names to incorrect references from Battlestar Galactica?” He nodded. She smiled at the memory. “And then he threatened to write you up so you put his favourite pen in an unnecessarily large portion of Jell-O. I just... I guess that was the moment I knew I wanted to be friends with you.” She shifted in her seat under the weight of his gaze. He didn’t look away. “Even though you’re basically still 12 years old,” she added. She let the silence hang for a moment before prompting him. “What about you?”

He remembers thinking about the moment he saw her, introduced himself, let her lead him the five feet to his new desk. He thought about the time she introduced him to the rules of jinx over her desk. He thought about the time she winked at him while pretending to be Dwight’s mother on the phone. He thought about the time they had lunch together in the break room alone, and they went twenty minutes over time and she didn’t look sorry at all.

Her paper plate caught a breeze and leapt from her lap, crossing the air between them. She jumped from her seat and reached out an arm and he snatched at it as it flitted past him but it was too far away and he was on his feet and she was right in front of him. He could see the streetlight reflecting off her eyes when she was so close, could catch the soft rising and falling of her chest as she breathed. He could count her eyelashes if he dared to linger, dared to take her in for a moment more than was allowed.

“Do you remember,” he began, hoping to keep her there, “what I said to you when I got here on my first day?”

Confusion crossed her face but she covered it with a smile. “You said ‘Hi, I’m Jim, I’m the new salesman’. What does that have to do with--”

“That was when I knew I wanted to be friends with you.”

Her smile didn’t fade. She didn’t move away. So he took his chance and tucked an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear. He wanted to touch her but he didn’t know how, knew that this was the only way.

“I have new music,” he offered, digging around in his pockets for his iPod. Anything to keep her from stepping away from him. She held out a hand into which he carefully placed an earbud, tucking the other into his own ear. The song he chose wasn’t new. It was old and he knew every word and for the last six months it had reminded him of her. She looked down, swayed a little on her feet as if she was afraid of falling over if she moved too quickly.

“I like it.”

“Thanks. Care to dance?”

“I don’t think so. I’m a really dorky dancer.”

“Well, I have to see it now!”

“No, Jim, really--”

He took both her hands in the folds of his own and forced her into a combination of elaborate steps that he had completely made up then and there. They both looked at their feet, entirely unsure of what they were doing, holding on to each other a little too tightly.

“Jim, I honestly can’t dance!” She giggled, but she didn’t stop. Didn’t let go of his hands.

“Looking pretty good to me, Beesly.” And he had never seen her look more beautiful.

“I don’t think this song was designed for this kind of dancing,” she argued.

“This is... an interpretation,” he countered.

“Of what?” And she laughed so loudly and it was such a wonderful sound and he found himself pulling her just a little bit closer.

“Would you believe me if I said it’s a piece I’ve been working on called ‘Rain Falling on Pavement’?”

“Definitely not.”

“Okay, well I won’t tell you that, then.”

She moved a little too quickly, tugging the earbud out of her ear. She looked up in surprise, found him closer than he could remember them ever being. He didn’t know what to do with their hands hanging somewhat awkwardly between them. His breathing was fast. Her breathing was fast. He felt a little too bold as he cupped one hand around her cheek.

“I’ll tell you something else instead.”

“I’m engaged,” she said, as if he had forgotten. As if she had forgotten.

“I know.” He didn’t move his hand from her face.

“Jim...” And for a moment he thought she would say something else, but she gently pulled his hand from her cheek. “I’ve had a really nice night.” She turned, scooped up her bag from where it sat on her chair. “Thank you so much for dinner.” She took uncertain steps towards the ladder, towards the space where he wasn’t. “See you tomorrow.”

And she left him alone, alone as he is now in his new apartment across the hallway from her. And he thinks of how he cannot decide whether he has not been that brave since, or whether she simply hasn’t let him.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”

“Hi, I’m calling about a shipment that was supposed to arrive yesterday.”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Aaron Schulter from the Lackawanna County office.”

“Give me one moment, Mr Schulter. I’ll transfer you to customer relations.”

She focuses on pressing each of the buttons slowly and precisely. The fluorescent lights make it easy to concentrate, but her hand keeps slipping and it is a moment before Kelly’s voice is in her ear.

“This is Kelly.”

“Hey, Kelly, I’ve got an Aaron Schulter from the Lackawanna County office about a late shipment.” A pen has found its way into her hand and she is doodling on a piece of paper sticking out from under her keyboard.

“Ugh, not again. Tell Phyllis she needs to communicate, Pam.”

“Oh, uh--”

“Not now, Pam. Put him through.”

She patches Aaron Schulter from the Lackawanna County office through, places the phone back onto the receiver, puts her head in her hands. Her body aches and she isn’t sure why. Her eyes are screaming from a lack of sleep. She thinks it wouldn’t be so bad if she just stayed like this for a while, her head in her hands, her eyes closed, the phone silent.

“That bad?”

Her head snaps up. She is caught. She looks to the door, to the person who made the remark. And she finds Roy, Roy with a beard and a coat over his arm and a smile on his lips. Her left hand tingles, feels weightless, feels naked. She hides her hands in her lap.

“What are you doing here?” She doesn’t mean it as an accusation but it comes out like one.

“Just thought I’d grab a soda.” He shrugs. “It’s not too bad up here.” He glances around the bullpen but his eyes are not really seeing anything. He turns back to her and his gaze is firm. “You look like you need a break. C’mon, let’s grab a drink.”

She doesn’t know why she stands to follow him. She doesn’t know why she avoids looking at Jim as they cross the room. She doesn’t know why she is relieved the break room is empty, or that there’s no grape soda available. She pushes her coins into the machine, makes her selection, fishes it out blindly. Opens the can, takes a swig. Risks a glance at Roy.

“So, how have you been, Pam?” He asks, looking at her instead of the beverages he is supposed to be choosing from. His eyes narrow as he takes her in. “You don’t look too good.”

“Thanks.” She rolls her eyes. She is joking. Joking with Roy. “I’ve just had trouble sleeping for a while. New apartment, I guess.”

“Right.” He looks away from her to snatch up his can from the vending machine. Leans against it to look at her. “I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”

“I am.” She nods. Confirms it to herself. “It certainly is nice to not have to think about lunch for the next five weeks.” Her joke falls flat. He shrinks a little. “And it’s not like this job is demanding, so...”

She fiddles with the ring on her can until she accidentally rips it off. She takes another sip to avoid having to say anything. Roy does the same. The break room fills with their silence and their tension, fills to bursting. She thinks she should move but she doesn’t. Can’t.

“And what about you?” She asks, making an awkward gesture in his direction. “How have you been?”

“Good,” he says immediately with an emphatic nod. He doesn’t smile. “I’ve been really good. Thanks. Just been, you know, working out, working here, working on my beard.” He smiles now. She returns it.

“Looks like you’ve got a long way to go,” she teases, and it is out before she realises that it feels weird to be joking like this with him. That she shouldn’t be. He doesn’t notice, just feigns offence with a dramatic hand to his chest.

“This is a month of growth, Pam. I thought you’d be impressed.” And he looks at her and she realises he means it, that she should be impressed by his ability to make hair protrude from the follicles on his face. She is only surprised more by the fact that he even tried to impress her. The last time she remembers him putting in any effort at all was in high school.

“It’s going to take more than some weird half-grown beard to impress me.” She tries to lighten the air, tries to joke with him.

“I know.” And his reply is serious.

“Well, I should probably be getting back.” He has held her eyes for too long. “Thanks for making me take a break.” She gives him a small smile. Nothing more.

“Any time.” He steps around her. She can smell his deodorant. She wants to cry. “Hey, Pam?” He turns in the doorway as she prepares to follow him out. “I’m sorry.”

She waits for more. He waits, too, but for what she isn’t sure. He looks at the ground, looks at the soda in his hands. Flashes a smile before fleeing to the bullpen. She was going to follow him and sit at her desk and answer phones and count down the hours until she can leave, but now she finds herself unable to move. Unable to make a decision.

“Was that Roy I just saw leaving the office? Honestly didn’t think I’d see him again any time soon.”

“Jim...” She can see through the window as Kelly shakes her head, points in her direction. She can see Jim’s face as he rounds the corner and fills the space where Roy was moments before. Fills the room. Fills her. She wonders what is worse, talking to her ex alone in the break room or talking to Jim knowing Kelly is eavesdropping.

“Don’t ask.” She rolls her eyes, joking, just like she did with Roy.

“Why not?” His voice is hard, it is not Jim. She can hear him juggle the change in his pocket.

“I don’t have time for this, Jim.” She tries to move past him but he is all she can see and he is all around her and he is not letting her go. She steps back, dares herself to look him in the eyes.

“You need to make time, Pam.” His other hand finds its way into his other pocket. She wonders how she has never seen his jaw clench like this before.

“I’m fine with my choices.” Is she saying that to him or herself?

“You are? Because I think something’s wrong here, and I think it’s about time you figured out what it was.”

“This is none of your business,” she snaps and knows it’s a lie.

“You said we’d always be friends, Pam. And friends make stuff like this their business.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.” She feels her nose tingle with the threat of tears. “I never asked you to get involved.”

“You made me get involved! I’ve been involved since the moment I met you!” His voice is loud and his face is red. His hands are still in his pockets. She wonders if he is holding them in fists.

“That’s not what this is about.” Another lie. “This is about me and Roy.” She tries to sound firm but her voice is shaking. Her soda is going warm in her hands. “This isn’t about you and your stupid crush.” She almost doesn’t regret the words, but then his jaw slackens and his face closes.

“Really, Beesly?”

They are both silent for a moment.

“I thought you’d sort of started seeing someone.” She throws the sentence at him. “What does she think of you ‘making this your business’?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Is it? Don’t think I’d be in here with Roy if it was.” She flinches. Watches his face. Feels the weight of the words on her tongue and feels them settle on her skin. Watches them get swallowed up in the space between them. She runs her nail against the rim of her soda can while he analyses her face. She is afraid that if she looks away he will see the truth there on her face. She is afraid that by holding his gaze she is giving him something else.

“Why did you come over last night?” His voice is soft now. He is Jim.

“I think we’ve been through this enough.”

“Pam--”

“No.” She stuns both of them. Her chest is warm and she can feel her pulse in every part of her body. “You’ve sort of started seeing someone, and I guess I have, too.” He doesn’t need to know this was her first conversation with Roy in weeks. “Those are the facts. That’s how it is.”

“So that’s it? We just live across the hall from each other watching Karen and Roy float in and out of our apartments until one of us moves?”

“I don’t want to do this anymore, Jim.” The can in her hand turns blurry. She fights back a sniffle. “You changed in Stamford, and I had to change, too. I can’t keep fighting to fit around you. I won’t do that again.” She will not let Jim ever remind her of Roy. She is certain of that.

“I haven’t changed.” He is trying to argue with her but she is barely paying attention anymore. All she can see is a blurry mess of red and white that she is trying to wade through. All she can feel is the can in her hand. “I’m still me.”

“Then why isn’t it easy to be around you anymore?”

He closes his eyes. Breathes deeply. When he reaches for her his hand is shaking. But she moves around him and he lets her go this time. Lets her be somewhere where it is easier, somewhere that he isn’t. And when she gets to her desk and sees his jacket slung over his chair she remembers that nowhere is easy, nowhere is free from him. She carries him with her like an infection, like a disease of the brain and the blood and the heart. She has barely known this office without him. He has contaminated her desk, her keyboard, her jellybeans, her hand, her hair, her fax machine, her shredder, her lips. And as long as there is a someone hanging between them, she knows she will feel his sting all over her life.

There is a note on her keyboard in handwriting she needs a moment to recognise. She can see it on her high school notebooks, passed on folded scraps of paper, scrawled across hastily remembered cards. And here it is now, asking her to meet him in the warehouse after work. Asking her if she needs a drink. Poking and prodding her with that single R in the bottom right-hand corner.

She is angry and blind and tears the paper from her keyboard. But as she holds it in her hand and uses the injured part of her heart to think for her, she decides that she will say yes.

The warehouse is enormous and she is not and she feels like an imposter standing at the top of the stairs in her heels and pencil skirt. It is so cold in this cavernous space and she wonders if that is the fingers of winter she can feel creeping under the door or just the gaping hole where her heart used to be. She was so certain she was doing the right thing two minutes before, and now every part of her body is resisting her commands to move, to take her away from Jim and closer to Roy. Away from what is right and closer to what is easy.

He sees her, waves, beckons her down the stairs. She obeys and her legs are shaking. She wonders why it is so hard to be brave as she steps onto the warehouse floor. She wonders why it is so easy to give Roy a smile and a small wave of her own when all she really wants is in the office space above them.

“So, you saw my note?” He smiles, tugs her into a one-armed hug. She stiffens, tries not inhale him, so familiar and safe and a reminder of all the times she has ever felt worthless.

“It was hard to miss,” she replies, stepping away from him. She folds her arms across her chest, plasters a smile on her face. Tries to tell herself that she wants to be here, that this the choice she has made. And she is fine with her choices. “So, why am I down here in this freezing warehouse in the middle of winter?” She glances around, can’t find anything out of the ordinary to catch her eye. “Don’t tell me you just needed an extra set of muscles to lift some paper.”

“And where would I find those?” He looks around her, shielding his eyes with his hand to exaggerate the gesture. She rolls her eyes, feels her smile becoming more natural.

“I’ll have you know, Mr Warehouse Guy, that the new and improved Pam Beesly is ripped.” She pokes him in the chest, where she has touched him so many times before. She tries to remember the last time but she can’t.

“Oh, really?” He raises an eyebrow and openly appraises her. Undresses her in that way that she always hated. She crosses her arms across her chest again. “Pam, I think you’re lying to me.”

“Would I ever lie to you?” It is just a joke, just a simple retort to his own remarks, but it hangs in the air for a moment after it leaves her mouth. She tells herself that she is not the guilty party in the mess of their failed engagement, but even that tastes bitterly false. “I just meant--”

“Pam.” He talks over her, cuts her off. Waves a hand and looks at the floor. “It’s alright. That’s not what I asked you down here for anyway.”

She breathes, just a little. “And what did you ask me down here for?”

He hears the change in her tone and dares to meet her eyes, dares to smile. “Well, I did promise drinks, and I may have managed to whip together something edible, too...” He trails off. Holds out a hand. “C’mon, let me just show you.”

She knows she shouldn’t but she takes his hand and lets him lead her to Darryl’s empty office. Their hands don’t seem to fit together the way they used to. He is callused and rough and fully encases her fingers in his own, crowding her out so she can hardly find herself in the mess. She searches for that feeling in the base of her stomach that tells her she is happy, but it is gone. She can’t force it to reappear like she became so accustomed to doing. His fingers, his skin, his presence don't make her feel anything that she thinks she should. After fitting herself into his hand for a decade, she thinks there should be something bigger than nothing in the wake of her new independence. But she knows what happiness feels like, and Roy cannot give it to her.

Darryl’s office is small and cluttered, a mess of files and equipment and safety gear that bears the mark of a man clearly disinterested in his field of employment. But in the centre of the small space is a collapsible table and two chairs. And there is wine and glasses and what looks like an assortment of McDonald’s menu items arranged neatly on two paper plates. She stops in the doorway, watches him sit at the table. Her breath is lost as she realises this is the most effort he has put into a date in years. Her nose tingles and her vision blurs. She blinks and takes uncertain steps into the room, lowers herself onto the chair opposite him. Her fries are cold, and she smiles. There is the Roy she has grown used to.

“It’s not much, but it’s better than two-minute noodles alone in your apartment, right?” He is pouring a generous amount of wine in her glass. She doesn’t stop him, but she thinks that maybe alone in her apartment is where she should be instead of here eating McDonald’s with her ex-fiancée.

“At least I didn’t have to cook this myself.” It is a bad attempt at banter, but he doesn’t notice.

“Neither did I.” He winks at her, fills his own glass, places the bottle in the middle of the table. “I couldn’t remember what you liked, so I just got a bit of everything.”

She has never really liked McDonald’s, never really appreciated the way the food settles in her stomach in a lump. She has never developed a taste for plastic cheese or cold fries or mystery clumps of chicken deep-fried and served as nuggets. But she is so hungry and so cold and maybe if she starts putting things in her mouth she won’t have to talk anymore.

She nibbles on a fry, follows it with a long sip of wine. It warms her as soon as it hits her stomach, filling her arms and legs with the heat only red wine can provide. She takes another sip, finishes her single fry. Thinks that maybe getting just a little bit drunk is the solution to all her problems. Knows that she is being stupid.

“I’m really glad you came down here tonight,” Roy says around a mouthful of his burger. He chews, swallows, holds her gaze. “I’ve missed you, Pam.”

She looks down at her cold fries and nuggets. Reaches for her glass, then thinks better of it. She hasn’t missed him, not even a little, and the longer she spends with him the more she remembers all of the reasons why she left him. Why she feels better sleeping alone and driving to work alone and doing things on the weekend that he would have never let her do. She knows what it is to be moulded to another person and she will never let that happen again. She takes another sip of wine.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think since we broke up.” He hurtles right through her silence, doesn’t seem to notice her at all. “I know I took you for granted when we were together, but Pam, I promise I’ll never do that again.” He is reaching across the table for her. She reaches for a nugget.

“I’m not here to get back together,” she says. She can feel the oil from the nugget soaking into her fingertips. “I broke up with you for a lot of reasons, and I don’t really want to revisit them right now.”

“Okay, then we’ll take it slow. Have lunch together sometimes, maybe see a movie on the weekend.” His hand is still resting on the table. She is still holding the chicken nugget.

“Roy, you’re not hearing me.” Her voice is too loud in this tiny room. The wine is flooding her face, making her cheeks hot. She is looking at her food but her words are strong. “I’m not here to get back together. I don’t want to do that again with you.”

“C’mon, Pammy. I think we both know that you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

He thinks that he knows her, thinks that he is right and that he knows her better than she knows herself. And maybe he does, because right now she cannot think of what possessed her to come down here in the first place. To drink wine and eat fast food with her ex-fiancée who she never thought she would sit across from at a table again. She wonders why she is sitting here when the only place she needs to be is five feet away from Jim’s desk.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she announces. She stands, steps around her chair and tucks it neatly under the table. “But we are not inevitable, Roy. I’m not the same woman who wasted nine years of her life on you. I know what I want now. And I know that it isn’t you.”

He is stunned. For a moment, so is she. This is the first time she has said what she truly needed to say since she called off the wedding. She is suddenly afraid, fearful of a world in which she cannot take back her honesty. Fearful of what her honesty might do. But there is a stirring in her stomach that could just be the wine, and she thinks that it might be the stirrings of confidence.

“Why did I even bother, Pam?” Roy is standing too and his voice fills the room. “Why did I let you guilt me into changing for you? You led me on!”

Her honesty has backfired and now she is facing the consequences. Now she is facing a self-righteous Roy clenching his fists while his neck turns red.

“I’m sorry,” and she doesn’t know what she is apologising for, “but I just can’t do this with you.”

“With me? Who else is there, Pam, because no-else wants you!”

And she thinks for a moment that maybe that is true, that maybe the novelty of sleeping alone is going to wear off very soon and she will regret this moment as deeply as she regrets the last nine years. She wonders if she can do this, knowing that there is no-one else for her except the balding, angry and manipulative man standing in front of her. But she thinks that if that is still confidence she feels growing in her stomach, then there is one more thing she can do to find out.

She doesn’t say goodbye to Roy, doesn’t thank him for the cold McDonald’s or the cheap wine or the creaky folding chairs. She crosses her arms and skips up the stairs and when she reaches the elevator she can feel her heartbeat everywhere. And she presses the buttons and feels the floor move beneath her and wonders for a very brief moment if she has done the right thing. But then the doors are opening and the room behind the glass is dark and she pushes the door open and she is alone in the bullpen. Her hands are shaking and her confidence has vanished and she staggers to his desk. Considers moving his monitor so it faces reception, like it used to. Like it should. Considers calling him. Considers sitting in his chair for a moment to feel what is left of him on the fabric. But his desk is empty and he is gone and her confidence was wasted and she knows she will never get it back.

She leans against the desk, looks down like she has done so many times before, remembers the way his eyes used to wash over her and hold her there and see right through to those things she never said to anyone. And she thinks she is delirious but a small blue light is flashing in the darkness and she turns and sees his mobile abandoned on the desk and she grabs it without thinking and pushes herself onto her feet and then he is standing in front of her and she forgets how to breathe.

He looks at her, sees the phone clutched in her fingers, sees her standing at his desk. “I forgot my phone.” His voice is so quiet. He is so far away.

“I was just... I was going to take it back for you.” And maybe that’s exactly what she would have done if he hadn’t appeared and set her heart racing so fast she is having difficulty standing. She steps toward him, holds out the phone. He takes it, buries it in his pocket.

“Thanks.” He is turning away from her now, ready to leave her in the darkness and go back to his someone. To Karen. And she knows that if she says nothing now, she will say nothing for the rest of her life. And she doesn’t want to live with that regret.

“Jim, wait.”

He stops, turns. Under the thrum of her pulse she can hear the hum of the air conditioner. And she thinks that she owes it to him to be brave, just once, here in this dimly lit office space that reminds her of satin and vodka and silence. Of her hands on his chest, his skin on her skin. The space between them smaller than it had ever been before. He is on the other side of the room now, but in the dark he looks the same as he did that night. She wonders if he is thinking of it, too.

“I just... I have something to say to you, and if I don’t say it now I never will, and you deserve to hear it.”

He doesn’t respond. His hands are in his pockets and she can see him standing in the snow in the parking lot telling her about Karen. She can hear herself say they will always be friends. She knows what she is about to say will render that a lie.

“I just had McDonald’s and wine with Roy. It was horrible. It took me so long to realise, but now I can see how selfish and blind and lazy he is, and it hurts me to think that I spent so many years being less happy than I could have been because I thought I deserved it.” She looks at her hands. She is babbling. “I should never have been with him, but I didn’t know how to leave him because I didn’t think I deserved any better. I thought that he was my life and I would just have to fit into it somehow.”

“Why are you telling me this, Pam?” He sounds so tired. She wonders if she has lost him.

“Because I’m in love with you.” She tastes the words in her mouth and they feel light and right and true. “You, who have always listened to me, seen me, cared about me, understood me. You, who have sat five feet from my desk for four years and have supported my dreams and waited while I figured out that I was settling with Roy when I could do so much better.” Her hands are shaking and her voice is shaking and she thinks she might cry. “And now I’m too late, because you have a someone and I took too long and I was too afraid. But I just needed you to know. So I didn’t waste my confidence.” And she thinks she is finished but then the words are in her mouth and in the air before she can stop them. “I’m just in love with you, Jim.”

The air conditioner is the only sound and she wonders why he hasn’t said anything. Wonders if she really is too late, if her chance is gone and he is not in love with her anymore. Wonders if he will ever be able to look at her again.

He moves towards her, and his hands are still in his pockets but he is determined and strong and doesn’t stop until he is so close all she can see are his eyes. The eyes that are holding her gaze and holding her heart and bathing her in a warmth she has only ever felt from him.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.” Her heart answers for her, or maybe it is the wine, or maybe it is the fact that he is standing so close and she is drowning in him.

He wraps an arm around her waist and her skin ignites under his touch. Her hand is on his chest and his hand is in her hair and he is so warm and so close and his lips are on hers and he is pulling her against him. She slings her arm around his neck but he is not close enough. Both of his arms are around her waist and she feels so small, enveloped in his scent and his arms and his warmth. He pulls away from her mouth, leans against her forehead, keeps his arms at her waist. She closes her eyes, focuses on every place where he is touching her, analyses the feeling of his hair under her fingers, inhales the scent that is winter and the office and Jim.

“I’m in love with you,” he says, and it fills her with something she doesn’t know what to name. “Are you sure you’re not drunk? You taste like wine.” He is joking but she cannot bear the thought of him operating under the assumption that she is not under the influence of her own independence.

“I promise, I’m not drunk.” She smiles. Opens her eyes. “I’m just in love with you.”

He kisses her again and she thinks that she has never been this happy or this safe or this valuable. His fingers are on her spine and in her hair and on her arms. He is taking all the liberties he has waited four years for, and she loves the way her skin comes alive for him.

When they break apart she cannot breathe. “I don’t think I ever want you to let go.”

He smiles, laughs, kisses her forehead. “Beesly, I’ve waited four years for you to say that.”

She is no longer huddled in the circle of his arms, but for the first time in her life she knows this is only temporary. She turns away from him, towards his desk, and moves his monitor to the other side, the only side it needs to be on. She is clumsy and cannot juggle all the cables, and Jim laughs at her gesture. Wraps himself around her. Kisses her cheek.

“I don’t know what I was thinking.” His voice is in her ear, his breath is on her neck.

“Neither do I. But at least I now have extensive knowledge of the back of your head.” She can feel him smiling against her cheek. She closes her eyes so she doesn’t forget the sensation. The way he fits his chin perfectly into the crook of her shoulder. The way she can feel his chest move against her back as he breathes. The way the air feels when it is full of him. Of her. Of them.

She jumps when his phone vibrates in his pocket and he releases her to the cold of the office. He pulls it out, reads the caller ID, makes a face. “It’s Karen.”

Her heart stops and her breathing stops and she steadies herself on the desk. Karen. His someone. She had allowed herself to forget in the bliss of the last five minutes but now she can see Karen hovering between them, lingering and watching and calculating and knowing. She turns away, feels her cheeks redden in front of this imaginary apparition. Guilt creeps up her stomach, twists and contorts itself and plays with the few McDonald’s fries she was able to digest in the warehouse. She never intended to be the Other Woman, but this is where her confidence has led her. She tries to feel out the regret beneath the guilt, but it isn’t there.

“Hello.” Jim holds the phone to his ear and takes a step towards reception. “I thought you said you needed space.” His hand is rubbing the back of his neck. “No, I never said that.” He turns his back to her. She swallows her panic. “Look, I meant what I said and I need you to respect that. This really isn’t the best time to do this.” There is silence and even her imaginary apparition doesn’t fill in the blanks. “I’m sorry, but leading you on wouldn’t be fair either. Karen, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He turns back to her, hides his mobile in his coat. He is uncomfortable and silent, but he crosses the carpet and kisses her like he misses her. Slow and sweet and lingering.

“I broke up with Karen,” he says, and he is breathless and so close. “I guess I should have said that earlier.” He dares to smile. She returns it.

“But when? Why?” But she knows why and she feels like she is in high school but she wants to hear him say it again. He, who is so much braver than she could ever be, who has said it too many times before, who has the courage to say it again and again and again in the face of her blind indecision.

“You said it wasn’t easy to be around me anymore.” His smile is gone. She feels the ghost of her anger dot her chest. Pushes it down. “And I guess I decided I never wanted you to say that again, even if all I could ever get was friendship. So I told Karen I was breaking up with her and drove straight home. And then I realised I forgot my phone... so I came back.”

“It’s good to have you back.” She leans into him, buries her face in his shoulder. The words are as real as when she said them in the snow and the cold, but this time he is really back and really here and really in love with her. And she is his someone.

“Can I drive you home?”

“Jim, we live in the same building. I think I can drive myself.” But she is smiling into his coat.

“I just... I just miss you already.”

He is so lame and so romantic and her heart responds with a leap. “And you really want to face everyone when we turn up to work tomorrow in the same car?” She leans back so she can look at him.

“Are you really going to say no? After four years?” He is smiling and she knows he is joking but his words hit her where the guilt rests in her stomach.

“I guess not,” she replies, thinking that of all the things she hoped would happen in the aftermath of her confidence, this was not one of them.

He lays an arm across her shoulders and tugs her into him. She wraps both arms around his torso and even though it is difficult to walk straight she leans her head into his shoulder. He kisses her hair, smiles into it. Presses the elevator button and pulls her inside. Kisses her once as the doors close. Again as they pass level one. And once before the doors open.

“I can’t breathe,” she giggles as they stumble across the parking lot to his car.

“You’re not supposed to.” He opens her door, ushers her into the passenger seat. “Not if I can help it.”

The car rumbles beneath them and the road hisses around them and their silence settles comfortably into the spaces where they are not. He is holding her hand like he doesn’t have a choice and her fingers fit so easily between his and all she can smell is Jim and she wonders if the scent will have melted into her clothes by the time they get to their building. And then she remembers that Jim is her someone and soon his smell will be following her everywhere. She smiles.

“Are you hungry?” He asks in the elevator. His arm is around her waist. “I can order pizza, or Chinese, or burgers.”

Her stomach is floating and somewhere she knows that her whole body is shaking. She remembers the two fries she has consumed this evening and feels her stomach pre-emptively reject any more. “No, I’m not hungry. Do you have any movies?”

“Beesly, you read my mind.” The elevator doors slide open and he leads her into the hallway. She images him doing the same with Karen. Closes her eyes for a moment. “There is nothing I would love more than to watch movies with you.”

He is opening his door but her nose is tingling. She sees the table and the one chair and the couch where she watched a sport she can’t remember and told him she missed having fun with him. But this time his skin is on her skin and her lips are swollen and if she closes her eyes she can still feel his hands on her spine. And there is Karen, lingering and watching and calculating and knowing.

“Beesly?” He is speaking to her but his words don’t quite make it through the haze of guilt and doubt that has settled around her. “Pam? Are you alright?”

“Karen.” She can’t articulate herself, can’t push through the fog and say it as it is. “She was here. You were together.” And she knows she is being stupid because he had to watch her plan a wedding for three years but there is a part of her that is saying this is not real, this is not happening, she does not deserve this kind of intoxicating happiness. “I don’t want to think that she got to do things with you... before I can do them with you.”

“Hey.” His voice is soft and he is pulling her close as he leans against the back of the couch. He takes her hands, places them on his chest. Holds them there and holds her eyes. “There are only two people in this room – you and me. And if I love you, and you love me, then nothing else matters. Nothing else exists.”

“But I was with Roy, and you were with Karen...” She feels so dirty, so unworthy, so damaged. So ashamed that she has let anyone else but Jim touch her, love her, be with her. She can feel the tears on her cheeks and moves to wipe them away, but he is holding her too tightly.

“And despite all of that, here we are.” He passes a thumb over each cheek, collecting her tears on his skin. “I can’t change the past, and I don’t want to because, Pam, you are more than worth the wait.”

His words tug out a smile that she didn’t know she was hiding. “I’m sorry.” She is whimpering now, blubbering like a child.

“What on earth do you have to be sorry for?” And he is genuinely perplexed, genuinely surprised, genuinely confused. Genuinely in love.

“For taking too long. For being with Roy. For lying to you. For being a bad friend.” She sniffs, looks down. “For almost going through with my wedding when you told me you loved me.”

He touches her chin, nudges her gaze up to his. “I knew from the very beginning that I was going to have to wait for you. And it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But through Katy, and Karen, and all those years of panicking about when you’d set a date, I knew I was still waiting for you. And maybe I’d have to wait forever, and watch you move on without me, but there has never been anyone else for me, Pam. Never.” He smiles with half his mouth. “I love you now, and then, and forever. And I’m sorry, but that’s just going to have to be enough for you.”

She is so embarrassed at her blatant insecurity. She leans into his chest to hide her face, to hide from him. But even now his presence is of greater comfort than anything else. “I’m literally fifteen years old,” she complains.

“Not fifteen,” he counters, “just not used to be told how wonderful you are.” He folds her into his arms and holds her for a moment, and her skin still awakens through her cardigan.

“The only that could make me happy right now is you saying you have more yearbooks that I don’t know about.” Her voice is muffled and she wonders why it is so hard for her to just let the moment see itself out when it should be so easy to stand here in the silence of his living room forever.

“I wish I could say no,” he begins, and she raises her head in hopeful disbelief, “but unfortunately there are more historically dorky Jim Halperts available for your entertainment.”

“I love you so much right now.” She grabs his hand and pulls him down the hallway to where she knows his bedroom is. And when she reaches the doorway he stops her, turns her to face him. Her hair is as neat as when she styled it this morning, but still he pushes an imaginary strand behind her ear.

“I wanted to tell you I loved you last night.” He voice is low and soft and wonderful. “I wanted to kiss you and touch you and do anything but stand here away from you.” And he places his hands on her shoulders and touches a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“You’re such a dork,” she teases, stepping into his bedroom.

“I prefer the term ‘hopeless romantic’,” he counters, but she has found his box at the end of his bed marked ‘books’ amongst all the other random boxes containing random items, and she is kneeling beside it and opening it with reckless abandon.

She sees the yearbook, gasps in delight, places it on his bed in order to appreciate it fully. “Let’s see what little Jimmy Halpert looked like in 1992. That would make you... fourteen?” She doesn’t wait for his answer and instead flips hungrily to his class page. “And you haven’t changed in the slightest. Still as dorky as ever.”

“I wish you’d stop using that word.” He leans against the doorframe. She can feel his eyes on her face. “I am much cooler than my early-90s haircut would suggest.”

“I can’t condone such falsehoods,” she retorts. “And I definitely can’t condone the continued existence of this boxes. They’re a hazard.” She reaches into the open box, scoops up as many books as can fit into her arms and dumps them with a flourish on the empty bookcase against the far wall. “Seriously, Jim, were you ever going to unpack these?”

“I was getting around to it.” He is lying and she knows it and she smiles at him.

“Well, lucky for you, I’m here to save the day.”

“Yes, lucky for me indeed.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m leaving if you’re going to be soppy and romantic all night.”

“You love it.” He smirks.

“Yes. I do.”

She turns her attention to another box, opening it without asking permission and immediately diving into its contents. She thinks she should not be rummaging through his personal possessions but then she sees a shoebox and her name is written across it and it is in her hands and she is opening it on her lap. There is a paperclip and a spoon from the office and a faded receipt and a bobby pin. There is a folded Post-It note and a rubber band and a pen and a fragment of a bright green streamer. She looks at him but can’t quite make him out through the blur in her eyes.

“It’s, uh, it’s from the teapot.” He shrugs, suddenly embarrassed. “Stuff that didn’t make the cut.” He crosses the room, crouches beside her. Touches the receipt. “This is from our first and only lunch date together, when you told me you were engaged. Rubber band from when we kept flicking Dwight in the back of the head whenever he wasn’t looking. A pen I stole from your desk when you were having Valentine’s lunch with Roy. And if you unfold this Post-It note,” and he reaches over her and does just that, “you will find the first memo you ever gave me.”

He hands it to her, and she tries to hold it still in her shaking fingers. “Welcome to DM,” it reads, “where receptionists are heroes and Dwight Schrute is king.” And beneath is a very crude drawing of Dwight wearing a beet crown and holding a beet sceptre, sitting on a beet throne. It is terrible and not very witty and she flushes at the memory.

“And I kept it because that was the moment I realised I was in love with you.”

“Jim...”

“I know you’ve spent the last ten years trying to fill someone else’s expectations of you. But every time I look at you... you are more than I could ever imagine. Pam, you are everything.”

 And she doesn’t know what else to do so she holds his face and pulls him towards her and kisses him like he kissed her when she was wearing satin and tasted like vodka. And as he holds her and loves her and gets his hands tangled in her hair, she thinks that there is no other place in the world she would rather be than on the floor surrounded by cardboard boxes.

“Jim.” She pulls away, keeps his face close. “I love you. So much.”

He smiles, kisses her nose. “And that’s all I’ll ever need to know.”