Red and white, blue and green, row after row they stretch out. How many books can be written about one city? Too many choices used to scare her, before she was always afraid of making the wrong one. Now her fingertips dance across the bindings, the excitement of finally, finally going to Europe suffusing through her fingertips down to her toes.

Paris for three months- maybe forever.

What did she really have tying her here anyways? Her MFA was almost done, what was left could be finished up with electives overseas. There were her parents and her sisters but they all had their own lives now, and they could just as easily visit her in Paris. The one thing that she wished was holding her back had long since become a non-issue, a married non-issue at that. She had heard from the grapevine that they had moved to New York and the thought of running into them looking adorable and in love made her feel a little ill. Even though it was a city of millions you were never entirely sure who you might run into, Pam was glad she was leaving on Monday.

The sunshine felt amazing on his face, escaping from the monotony of his corporate job had become his ultimate prank on his employers. Whether it was moments of stolen mental productivity or the out right defiance of taking the afternoon off, Jim was all about escaping. Paper was now solidly his career and like everything in his life it was both safe and maddening. Like the famous song, he did have to admit that things were getting better. After he had married Karen, she had finally loosened her stranglehold on his life just a little; she had softened back into the woman he had first found so endearing. And with her supple skin and pliant arms it was hard not to love her. He had stopped trying a long time ago. Not that it was the same. Not that it would ever be the same. The idea, the thought of ever really truly moving on was just too ridiculous to even contemplate. He could move to the ends of the earth but he couldn’t run from the imprint Pam had left on his heart. At least it was easier to pretend to forget here in a new city. New York was for starting over right? And if he couldn’t be really truly happy then at least he could do that much for the woman who had bent over backwards to offer him her love and affection. He was trying to be a better husband, a better man- he was trying to piece by piece become someone different and new. Someone who had never loved a curly haired receptionist.

The ironic thing about their entire situation was that their love wasn’t unrequited, and you would think that in this day and age when two people loved one another they would just find a way to be together. But they had long since been playing on a minefield of human emotions. And at some point along the way they had agreed to only hurt themselves. Logically it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to stay with a woman he didn’t love and in the process break both his and his true love’s hearts. But logic had never played a big role in their lives; instead they lived their day-to-day based on obligation and guilt.

When Pam had finally, finally told him that she loved him (the very day he had proposed to Karen no less) he had held her and told he would make it right, and he had rushed home to Karen but something in that little expectant face wouldn’t let him do it. She had gushed over her ring some more and pulled him into her embrace. And he had let inertia do the rest. He didn’t speak to Pam again until the day she left Scranton. And when she did leave he didn’t give her a heartfelt goodbye or wish her well, he just pressed the emergency stop button on the elevator and kissed her till she was breathless and both their faces were wet with each other’s tears. He hadn’t seen her since.

The little bookstore on the corner had been tempting him now for weeks. As a child he had always had a bizarre fascination with maps- his mother had boxes full of Xeroxed atlases that he had colored and labeled in his careless eight year old way. Maybe he would take Karen somewhere for her birthday, she had mentioned that she liked to ski Maybe skiing? It was hardly his thing with his too long arms and gangly legs but it would be something to maybe blind her a little longer to the fact that her husband wasn’t really in love with her.

And then it happened.

As he walked by the Europe aisle he saw a flash of honey colored tendrils snaking their way down a familiar back. He froze and as much as he hated himself, he turned back towards the aisle, his voice higher than natural, squeaking out “Pam?” She didn’t turn around immediately; he could see her hands shake as she put back the book where she had found it. Her hands immediately smoothed out her denim skirt before she lifted up her eyes to his.

“Hey,”

“What are you doing here?” he asked as he shook his head incredulously.

“I live a few blocks down,” she said as she shrugged her shoulders pointing her thumb downtown. “I just came by to look for a book on Paris, I’m actually moving there for a little while.” She said with the tiniest hint of a smile.

“Paris huh? That’s amazing,” he said as he shook his head.

“What about you? What brings you to these neck of the woods?”

“Corporate is just a few blocks down the street,” He replied, “I escaped on my lunch break.”

“I had heard that you moved down here, Congratulations by the way on getting married.”

He had the good grace to look abashed, “Thanks, I wanted to invite you but I had no idea where you were, not that you would have probably wanted to come.”

“I would have come,” she said surprised by her own boldness.

“You would have?” he asked cocking his head in that endearing way that she had fought so hard to forget.

“Yeah,” she says as she wrings her hands, “You were my friend first. I mean I fell in love with you like a month later, but you were always my friend first.”

“I’ve been such a jackass.” He said as he recognized the hidden undertone of her message.

“It’s Ok,” she said shrugging her shoulders, “You just moved on, unfortunately there isn’t a guidebook for how to do that.”

“It would be nice if there was,”

“You should write one, maybe a learn-from-my-experiences kind of tell all book,” she was smiling now, her tone almost playful.

“I don’t know. I mean I end up with the wrong girl and hurt all sorts of people including us, I mean who would want to read that?”

“Masochists?” she asks with a smile.

He can’t help but laugh and it’s the first honest to goodness one he’s had since he walked out of her life. And now he wants more. There’s a reason they tell junkies to go cold turkey- because one taste is never ever enough.

“Can we finally get that cup of coffee?” he asks, somehow unable to meet her eyes instead focusing on the map of Zimbabwe right behind her head.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” she replies as she reaches to pull her cardigan around her, except she isn’t wearing one and her hands grasp at nothingness.

“It probably isn’t,” he says with a smile, “But you’re leaving anyway,” he shakes the smile off his face and reaches for her hand. “Look Beesly I fucked it all up. And it’s too late to make it right. But I want to hear what you’ve been up to, I want to catch up on your life just a little.”

“I’m almost done with my MFA,” she says as her first genuine smile of the exchange breaks through, “I wouldn’t have ever done it if you hadn’t pushed me.”

“Then I demand repayment in the form of letting me buy you a latte,” for a second he tightens his grip on her hand as if squeezing her hand will get across to her how badly he needs to spend even a little time with her.

“Ok,” she says shrugging her shoulders in defeat. She reaches down to grab a portfolio case and slings it effortlessly across her shoulder. He watches how natural that movement is to her and he realizes that there is so much about her now that he doesn’t know.

They linger over coffee and she tells him about finding herself in her work and her little studio where some of her work is still in the process of being put into storage or being sent to buyers. She tells him of her adventures of living in a big city all alone for the first time and how she had to steel herself to roaches and rude supers and how men leering at her finally became less intimidating. He is content to listen to her talk and only occasionally interjects some tidbit about his own life. He doesn’t want to talk about Karen or the wedding right now; he doesn’t want to ruin this fragile peace between them.

“I want a piece of your artwork,” he says, the words surprising even him.

Her hands delicately cradle the oversized mug long since emptied of chai. “Really?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m sure it will be worth a lot some day,” he smirks

“Are you sure Karen would be Ok with that,” there she said it, the name that had been so prodigiously avoided through out the last few hours.

“She’ll deal,” he says brushing away the reference with as much grace as possible, “I just really want something, anything.” He says, “Especially since I might never see you again.”

“Oh you probably will,” she says with a smile so sad that it’s a travesty even to call it that, “Fate has somehow decided that it would be funny to push us together at awkward moments in our lives.” She laughs, “maybe our kids will fall in love someday and we’ll be forced to sit across the aisle from one another and share grandchildren.”

Suddenly this star crossed lovers bullshit isn’t so funny anymore.

He grabs her hands, and asks desperately, “Why can’t we be happy?”

“I don’t know?” her eyes are glassy but she doesn’t pull her hands away.

“I mean why have we spent the last 7 years trying to make everyone else ok at the sake of our own happiness. When are Our lives finally going to start?” his voice cracks and he knows he’s not making much sense.

“Maybe this is it,” she says as she squeezes one of his hands between hers.  “Maybe this story doesn’t have a normal happy ending.”

“I still want a painting,” he says forcefully.

“Ok,” she nods and brushes the tears from her eyes, “but you’re buying me dinner first because I’m starved.”

They go to Trevisios a little Italian resteraunt that he’s taken Karen to before, he doesn’t even taste his food, he just watches her as she sketches out his desk from Scranton in perfect detail as they giggle over past pranks. And too quickly the night comes to an end. She laughs when sees him tuck the sketch into his pocket, but she turns serious when he admits he has hundreds of her impromptu drawings tucked away at home.

They walk towards her studio in silence, neither of them wants to admit that their serendipitous reunion is coming to a close and that barring another quirk of fate this will probably be their last.

When they cross the street he takes her hand and interlaces their fingers, her shoulders slump a little in defeat and this whatever it is they share is killing both of them.

When they enter her studio he is amazed to see how much her work has evolved over just the past few years. He wanders around for the better part of an hour in silence, carefully examining each piece. She doubts that even her harshest critic has looked at her work so closely. While he looks around she looks at him. He’s still thin but now his hair is shorter and brushed off his forehead in a way that makes him look a little more preppy and little more grown up. He still sticks his hands deep into his pockets when he concentrates but she notes that he’s stopped chewing on his lip. Her hand itches to run her fingers through his hair and muss it up, to bite his lip and roll up his sleeves and make him back into the man she knew, but she can’t and she won’t and she doesn’t even know if that man still exists anymore.

When he finally turns to her he grasps her by the shoulders and tells her in a shaky voice that her work is so much more incredible than he could have ever imagined. She’s sure he’s a bit biased in his praise but she’s gained enough confidence in her craft to recognize that there is some truth in his exclamations.

“I can’t take one of these,” he says with a shake of his head, “they’re probably worth too much money.”

“I want you to have one,” and suddenly she really, really does. Maybe if her artwork hangs in his house, some part of her will always be with him. Maybe it will take him a little longer to fully push her out of his life. “If you don’t have a favorite, I’d like to make a suggestion.” She goes into a backroom and comes back with a painting that’s done slightly out of focus and so close up that he’s not sure what he’s seeing at first. Then he notices the fireworks in the corner and the mass of jumbled up body parts that take up the rest of the picture. It’s them. They’re locked in some form of embrace on the roof the night of their first ‘date.’

“It’s what I wished had happened,” she says her voice catching a little. “I went home that night and sketched it, although I didn’t turn it into a painting until after I left Roy and started taking art classes, it was the first real piece I ever finished.”

He’s still staring silently at the picture.

“If you don’t want it or if you think it will make Karen uncomfortable I understand, I mean you don’t have to take this one.”

“No this is it,” he says as he shakes his head and looks down towards her, and suddenly they’re not talking about the painting anymore as he whispers, “this is what I want.”

Then he kisses her.

She whimpers and wraps her arms around his neck to pull him closer. His hands find their way up her thin t-shirt and he splays his hands on both sides of her ribs, gently massaging the soft skin beneath.

She wants nothing more than to devour him, to crawl up with him and just disappear. But she can’t, she can’t do this and have it be a good-bye fuck for him. She can’t get over him again. She pushes him away, “You should go,” she says, she’s crying now.

He opens his mouth to speak but she covers it with her hand, “I want to…God I want to so badly,” she says, “But I can’t have this mean nothing, I won’t be able to bounce back again.”

He kisses her palm and lowers her hand, he gently takes her face in his hands and kisses away the tears When he whispers that he loves her he says it so softly and gently she’s not sure that she doesn’t imagine it.

Then he’s gone and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be Ok again.

She struggles for five minutes before throwing open the door and running after him, she finally flags him down a block from her apartment and she can see the tears in his eyes too.

“Come back,” she says as she takes his hand tugging on it gently, “Even if it’s just for a night, I’m tired of waiting for my real life to begin too.”

He nods and he doesn’t even begin to care how this will change everything because he’s just too tired to imagine tomorrow.

Half their clothes are already off by the time they reach the threshold of her studio, he scoops her up and wordlessly carries her to her bed. He tries so desperately to burn every image of her in his arms into his brain. The arch of her cheekbone in the moonlight, the freckle beneath her collarbone. He worships her body long into the night and when he comes he swears he’s never been so happy or so broken in his whole life. To know what it’s like to love someone like this and to know that it’s the last time is suddenly too much to bear.

They lie there, her head on his still pounding heart, her hair splayed in a halo around his chest. Neither of them wants to destroy this memory in the making with words so they just breathe deeply, content in their peaceful silence. She’s the one to break it first- she has to. “You should probably get going, Karen must be worried.”

“Yeah,” he says as he sits up. He leans his forehead on his hands and rubs his eyes. He finally gets up and begins to shuffle around the apartment getting dressed once more. She shrugs on her robe and tries to deaden the part of her that wants to sob. It all seems too surreal to be sad, to intense for it to be really truly over. She ties her sash with a forceful tug and he buttons up his sleeve cuffs.

When he gets to the door he tangles his hands in his hair and kisses her like you’re supposed to kiss someone for the last time. But when he pulls away he mumbles that he can’t.

She nods, “I know. You’re married.”

“No, I mean I can’t let you go; not again.”

She stops breathing and waits, it’s been too long for her to be able to interpret anything.

“I need you Pam, and I’m tired of this bullshit, it’s our turn now.” And he pulls her into another kiss and this one is desperate and he’s walking her back towards the bed and pulling on the sash to her robe. When he slips his hand inside he grabs her breast its as if he’s a drowning man and she’s a lone piece of driftwood in the open sea.

She moans and soon they’re back to where they just were a few moments ago, a jumble of arms and legs, skin on skin. He still hasn’t stopped kissing her and now he’s not sure if he ever will. It feels to right, too perfect for this not to be real.

She’s done waiting too, and for the first time in her life she grabs onto what she wants with both hands. She pulls away from his mouth long enough to look into his eyes. “Come with me to Paris, I love you and I can’t lose you again either.”

He nods and moves to kiss her but she stops him.

“No, I mean; I don’t want you to answer now. You made some promises last time that you couldn’t keep and I don’t know if I can get my hopes up again like that. So let’s just say that you’ll think about it. If you still want to, come with me that is, meet me back here at six.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says as he buries his head in her neck.

“For what?” she asks.

“For ever losing your trust, for hurting you for so long, for not being brave enough to fight for your happiness. I had convinced myself that it was just me I was hurting by us not being together.” He looks up at her, his face full of sorrow, “How can you ever forgive me?”

“I did a long time ago, you’re a hard man to hate Jim Halpert,” she says as she runs her fingers through his hair, kissing his forehead over and over. “You really should go now.”

“I know. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I hope you will too.”

“Beesly, I love you. And I’m tired of waiting. I’ll see you at six.”

He kisses her again and he’s gone. Her heart is so full of happiness and hope and sorrow and fear that it takes her two glasses of wine to even begin to doze off. She’s never been so happy for the distraction of work before. By the time 5:15 rolls around she’s pacing in her apartment and she knows he’s not coming. And then it’s 6:15 and then 7:00 and by the time it’s 9:00 she’s done crying and she’s finished the bottle of wine and she just wishes that she had never, ever wished to see him again because suddenly it’s just as hard to let go as it was the first two times. She falls asleep, still in her work clothes, her hair tangled from hours of nervous twirling, her eyes so red and puffy that she’s sure that she doesn’t have any tears left to cry. In the middle of the night she hears a pounding on the door and she’s out of bed before she has a chance to think or hope and there he is, his eyes as red as hers and before she can say anything his hands are in her hair and he’s kissing her, he’s kissing her.

She holds his hands and doesn’t feel the coolness of metal on his left ring finger and for the first time that day, she smiles.

They are in Paris now and it’s better than every dream she’s ever had because he’s here too. When she sketches by the Seine he reads and reads, drinks coffee and plays with her hair. It’s as if they can’t go for more than a few minutes without touching one another. She knows that someday he won’t reach for her ever few moments, and that there will be fights and kids and jobs (and she’s a little scared to admit how much she’s looking forward to all of that too) but for now she’s content to lean back into his chest and kiss him as the Parisian sun sets over the start of their real lives.