Jim stood on the roof, listening as the door clanged shut and Pam’s footsteps tapped slowly down the cement stairs. He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned heavily against the wall next to the door. This sucked.

            He knew he had been acting like a pouty teenager for the past few days—and not just with Pam, here at work. He’d tried to keep a smile on his face for Karen at the wedding, but by the time they got into his car to drive home, he couldn’t do it anymore. He’d faked a headache and dropped her off at her apartment, almost forgetting to kiss her as she got out of the car.

            Sunday had been one of the worst days he’d had since he came back to Scranton. He’d spent hours just lying on his couch, flipping the channels on the TV until all the pictures and sounds turned into one long blur. Three times, he’d picked up his cell phone to call Pam, desperate to know if she was still with Roy. Once, he’d gotten up and thrown on his coat, determined to drive to Pam’s old apartment and look for her car in the parking lot. But he had become a master of talking himself out of things, and eventually Sunday night turned into Monday morning, and he had forced himself to shower, shave, and come to work.

            He had these moments, lately, where he thought he had things figured out. They never lasted long, and he couldn’t really enjoy them as they happened. Any time he started to feel like maybe he and Karen weren’t such a bad idea, he’d glance at Pam and catch her looking at him. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make Jim wonder how many things he’d gotten wrong.

            And at the wedding, he’d actually started to think that there were things he’d had right all along. He’d been dancing with Karen but thinking of Pam, and when he looked up and found Pam watching him, he’d felt the strongest urge to pull his hands from Karen’s waist and walk off of the dance floor. So when he’d seen her leave with Roy—

Just thinking about it now, again, like he’d been thinking about it all day on Sunday, made him want to punch a wall. And Jim had never punched a wall.

            He watched his breath turn into mist in front of his face as his heart gradually started to beat normally again. The worst part, he realized, the part that had gotten him so angry in the first place, was that Pam was right. He hadn’t ever really thought about the possibility of hurting her; he’d actually worked pretty hard at not thinking about it, because part of him had always known that he was guilty.

            Standing here on the roof, he thought, was probably the worst possible place to have any kind of revelation about Pam. He couldn’t be up here without thinking of folding chairs and grilled cheese and the night that had finally convinced him that he had to do something. It had taken him awhile to actually get the nerve together, but he wouldn’t have been able to say anything, ever, if he hadn’t spent one perfect evening up here with Pam, looking for fireworks.

            He opened the door slowly and took the steps one by one, hearing Pam’s voice in his head so loudly that it seemed to be echoing through the stairwell. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. He had probably always known that. But all this time, while he had been congratulating himself on moving on and getting over her, he’d been forgetting about the fact that, even if he hadn’t meant to, he’d hurt her too.

            He made his way back to his desk without looking at anyone. He settled into his chair and stared at his computer screen. This was going to be a very long day.