(I want you)
You can look in my eyes and you can count the ways
Jim isn't sure when he first knew he was in love with Pam.
There was a moment, somewhere along the way, when he stopped thinking she's so...cute...and..., and started thinking I never want to be away from her. He just can't remember it.
He does remember the moment he knew it wasn't going to happen, ever. The little lines around her mouth, and her hair, and the way his throat sort of plunged into his stomach and back up again. And Roy waiting for her down in the lobby, where neither of them could see him but could feel his heavy weight on their backs.
---
He tells Pam he's going to Australia and she has to know why - has to. Part of him wants to ask her "Do you understand?" but the rest of him knows it would be the worst possible thing. So instead he looks at her and swallows and offers to mail her Save-the-Dates and gives her a half-smile when she has the sense to say no.
And the next day they are back to normal. Jim and Pam, office buddies, with no weddings or jetset vacations standing between them. They exchange greetings when he comes in. They eat lunch together, he with his ham sandwich and she with her berry yogurt. A mysterious woman calls Dwight seven times that day and they speculate over her identity until he mentions that his cousin Wendy is in town.
Jim buys his plane ticket that afternoon, right before he leaves. He was just bluffing the day before - he'd only had it bookmarked. As he walks past reception and out the door she stops him. "Jim?"
He stops and looks at her. She looks at him. Haven't we done this a million times? he wonders.
"Have a good night, Pam." Her mouth opens slightly as he leaves.
---
At 4:48 on June 2nd he receives an e-mail from Pam.
Jim -
Meet me in the kitchen when you clock out?
- Pam
He does.
She's there waiting for him. She swallows hard and looks nervous and Jim thinks, this is it. This. Is it. He presses his lips together hard to keep from smiling.
"So what's up?" he asks, trying to pretend that this is normal, that this isn't what he's been waiting for the past three years.
"I want you to come to the wedding, Jim," she says. His lips must be white but his reflection is colorless in the microwave door and he can't tell.
He looks down and coughs. This is not it. "Why?" He looks at her again, and thanks God that the cameras aren't here to immortilize this.
Pam is going to cry any moment. He's never seen her cry. He's been her "close friend" for how many years, and he's never seen her cry. She shakes her head.
"Thanks, Pam." And now Jim's just pissed. "Thanks for fucking with my head one last time. I was worried you were going to forget before I left for Sydney. This was fun." He moves for the door.
"I want you there because I think I need someone to stop me."
He stops.
This is a moment he should remember. This is a moment he will always, always remember.
"Pam..." He leans in the doorway and just looks at her. Her hair is pulled away from her face like it is every day. Her shoulders are slightly hunched beneath her striped button-down shirt, and there's a little hole in her stockings above her right ankle. And on her feet are the little white Keds that Michael so memorably paid tribute to back in September.
He misses September.
Jim sighs. "I can't do that for you."
He leaves.
---
It doesn't matter, Jim decides, when he fell for Pam. There's no such thing as an anniversary for one.
fin
