Jim couldn’t possibly get any work done, but it would look bad to leave this early; it wasn’t even four.  The words kept haunting him.

“I’m fine with my choices”

Well, then.  A nice little pointed jab to put him in his place.  A sharp reminder that there was nothing he could do to make her love him like he loved her.  Worse, even.  That there was nothing he could do to make her see in herself what he saw in her, something that deserved better than what Roy had for her, something better than the life she into which she was drifting.

It couldn’t go on much longer.  Something was going to have to give.  It was starting to just hurt too much, make him feel too frustrated.  She really was going to be married soon.  To the guy who didn’t love her like he did.  To the guy who had no idea just how incredible she was.  To the guy who didn’t even like talking to her.

He felt like he had to get it out.  He felt silly, but he started writing.  Not typing, actually writing.  It just poured out of him.  Finally, after a few minutes, he decided he had all of Dunder Mifflin he could stand for the day.  He gathered up his stuff to go.  He shook his head to himself, wadded up the piece of paper on which he had written into a ball, and with a slight flourish slammed it into his wastebasket.  A new low, he thought to himself, scribbling bad poetry at work.   He left the office without a word or glance to anyone.  

2.

She stole glances at him, looked at him, watched him.  Her mind was troubled.  She had hardly ever seen him like this before.  His ever present vaguely cheerful good natured expression was gone.  He looked…sad.  Hurt.  A little angry.  She tried to imagine it wasn’t about her but she was sure that it was.   He would not make eye contact with her, which was almost unprecedented; she could always catch his eye and exchange a knowing, understanding glance with him.  It was one of those little things that made work bearable. 

She could still feel the sting of his disapproval, his disappointment, when she told him she wasn’t doing it.  She had practically had to admit that Roy vetoed it, and she was embarrassed, and got defensive. Her tone came out different than she wanted and after she said it she could see the frustration in his eyes, but something else too, something else that was haunting her.  She wanted to reconnect with him before the weekend, to know that everything was okay, but she was afraid to try to talk with him, afraid of feeling that sting again.

Why did his disappointment bother her so much?    

She noticed that he started writing something.  What was up with that?  She concentrated on him as he wrote, studied his expression.  She saw an intensity in him she almost never saw.

And then, suddenly, he was getting ready to go.  She saw him wad up whatever he had written and throw it away.  And then he was leaving.  He still had that same expression, and still would not look at her.  She wanted to say something, wanted somehow to exchange a friendly goodbye as they always did.  She even took a breath to say “Have a nice weekend,” but she stopped herself before the words came out.

She looked at the wastebasket, and looked around the office.  Everyone was wrapped up in their own various worlds.  No one would notice her retrieving something from Jim’s wastebasket. 

She told herself it was wrong, an invasion of his privacy, but her curiosity was much stronger than her scruples.  She casually got up, looked around again to make sure no one’s attention was on her, walked around her desk to his, and grabbed the singled wadded up sheet of paper that was the only thing in his wastebasket.  She returned to her desk and looked around again to see that no one had particularly noticed.  She heard her heart pounding hard, as if she was about to take some terrible risk, as she started to uncrumple it.  She saw his handwriting before she started to take in the words, and looked away for a moment and took a final scan around the room to see if anyone was watching her.  Finally, she read.

Fine with her choices? 

Fine with the guy who thanks me for talking to her so he doesn’t have to?

I would rather talk to her than anyone in the world

Fine with the guy who tells her that her fondest hopes probably wouldn’t lead to anything anyway

If given the chance I would lay myself down to make her dreams come true

Fine with someone who loves her out of habit if at all

While every cell in my body aches with love for her(So corny, but absolutely true)

Fine with someone who sees her as his, and little else

When I see her as the most spectacular, breathtaking thing I can imagine

"I’m fine with my choices”  The saddest Goddamn words I’ve ever heard 

She felt a swirl of emotions so strong and tangled she couldn’t possibly sort them out.  Her heart felt like it might pound right through her chest, and she felt so dizzy that even keeping her balance in the chair seemed a question.  She needed to be alone; she felt raw and vulnerable and like she would be unable to deal with anyone coming by and asking her if she was okay.  She then realized, with despair, that she was going home with Roy, that he would be coming by any minute.  She crammed the paper into her purse and tried to compose herself.

They rode home together.  She was aloof and distant, but held together.

“Something wrong?”  He asked almost as a challenge.

“I’m going to do the design program.”  She spoke softly, but with some firmness in her voice.

“He was annoyed.  C’mon, Pammy, we talked about this.  Going to New York every weekend to learn to draw.  Gimme a break.”

“It’s important to me, Roy.  I’d appreciate your support.”

He laughed.  “You’d appreciate my support?”  His tone was mocking, then became harsher.  “Damn it, we’ve been through this.  No.”

At that moment, the spell was somehow broken.  Like a movie when the twist ending is revealed and everything suddenly becomes obvious in hindsight, the sad truth became clear to her.  All the little disappointments and slights over the years filled her head.  This was not the love she wanted and it never would be.  She would not marry this man.  In fact, she suddenly found herself totally unable to even conceive of spending her whole life with him.  Despite the years they had been together and all they had shared, he seemed somehow foreign.  Jim was right.  He saw her as little more than his possession.  A possession he was fond of, perhaps.  But he didn’t truly know her or care to know here like…like Jim did.

They spent the rest of the car trip in stony silence.  She was already thinking about the daunting task of breaking away from him.  She gathered everything she had into trying to sound normal.  “Okay, okay.  I’m sorry.  Listen, I’m not feeling good, I think I’d like to be alone tonight.  Maybe you and Kenny could go out or something.”

He looked at her a little suspiciously, but carte blanche to go out drinking with his brother was irresistible.

“Okay, babe, that’s fine.  Hey, listen, I didn’t mean to make fun of you.  I just think, we should be, you know, practical.”

“I know.”

Finally he left, and she was alone.  She took the poem out of her purse and read it again.

She had to talk to someone.  She dialed her mom.  To her relief, she answered on the second ring, and of course she immediately could her Pam’s troubled voice and was ready to listen.  The floodgates opened; Pam poured out all the day’s events, from the design program to Roy’s reaction to the words with Jim to the poem to the argument in the car to the overwhelming feeling she had that she had to get out, that she didn’t want to be with Roy.

She expected that her mom would advise her to not be rash, to take some time to think about things.  But that wasn’t what she said at all.

“Listen, Pamela.  Pack up all the things that are important to you and get out of there before he gets home.  I mean it, honey.”  Mom’s tone was gentle and kind, but the words seemed more like instructions than advice.

“Really?  You don’t think I’m being silly?”

“Pamela, I’ve never wanted to interfere, but we’ve had our doubts about Roy for a long time.  And the way he acted today?  You can do better, honey.  How do you feel about Jim, anyway?

“I don’t know.  He’s great.  He’s my best friend, but…  I don’t know.  I mean I’ve always just assumed I’d always be with Roy, so…”

“Well, maybe you need to start thinking about other possibilities.”

She paused.  “Yeah.  Maybe I do.”

“You can come over here for the weekend and we can start working on getting you your own place.  But whatever you do, get out of there.  It’s not healthy for you to be in the same house with him the way things are.”  She paused, and her tone got much more serious.  “Pamela, he has a temper.”

In her minds eye she tried to imagine what would happen if she told Roy how she was feeling.  It wasn’t pretty.  “Okay mom, I’ll start packing.  I’ll call you from the road.”

“Okay, hon, be careful.”

3.

She packed everything she could into her little hatchback and went back to take a last look around.  She took her engagement ring off and put it on the nightstand, and wrote a note.

 Roy, I’ve realized it’s just not meant to be.  I’m sorry if this hurts you. -Pam   

She placed the note next to the ring and hit the road.   She felt a lot of things, so much that it felt like all the feelings could overwhelm her if she let them.  But, strangely, she felt no doubts about leaving Roy.  She felt plenty of sadness and lots of anxiety over how it might play out, but no doubts that she had to go.

She didn’t want to think about the future.  It was a mess.  She had no place to live.  Roy would be…God knows.  

She focused mind on Jim.  The poem…it was hard for her to wrap her mind around it.  She knew there were feelings there.  They had both danced around them for a while, almost made a game of how close they could come to admitting it without actually doing it.  She read it again, his feelings so starkly and strongly in his own handwriting, private thoughts he hadn’t even intended for her to read.  They were real.  Not some lofty overstated mush that a desperate guy might say to persuade a girl of his love, but real feelings.  Jim’s feelings.  For her.  Every cell…the most spectacular, breathtaking thing…lay myself down to make her dreams come true. 

It was thrilling, if a little scary, to read such words.  But she also felt pain.  She thought of how he must have been hurting recently, especially today.  She could still see the look in his face when she told him she was fine with her choices.   

She was almost out of Scranton when she stopped.  As much as it scared the hell out of her, as much as she had no idea what to say to him or even exactly what her feelings were, she wanted to talk to him.  To see him.  Some part of her worried that at any moment he might just give up on her, decide she just wasn’t worth it anymore.  She had to tell him that no, she wasn’t actually fine with her choices.

She sat in her car on the side of the road staring at her cell phone.  Her stomach clenched into a painful, empty knot.  She went through her numbers and finally found his cell number, and hit the send button.  She held her breath.  One ring, two, three.  She hung up before it went to voice mail.

She started driving back towards his place.  She called her mom.

“Mom…I feel like I need to see Jim.  I thought I might…stop by and see him before I come.”  She waited for her mom to advise her.

“I think that would be fine, dear.  I imagine he might be glad to see you.  That was some little poem.”

Her mom’s approval reassured her.  She just hoped he was home.  It was nearly ten o’clock.  If he was out she didn’t imagine that she could stand waiting outside his apartment building, wondering if Roy had come home to see the ring, the note, her stuff gone.  She needed to be in a safe harbor.  And it struck her that no matter these strange circumstances, she couldn’t imagine any place safer than with Jim.  He would…well, he didn’t know exactly what he would do, but he would not let her down.  He never had.

She arrived at his building, and was relieved to see his car.  She tried his cell again, still with that same knot in her stomach, but again got no answer.  Was he asleep already?  What if no one answered his door?  She turned off the car and got out into the chilly night.

4.

Jim was sitting up in bed listening to his Ipod, TV on but ignored.  Bad times.  The reality of his situation was catching up with him.  He had pined for her for years and to a certain degree had learned to live with it, but it was getting to be too much.  The thought of leaving, of perhaps never seeing her again, was awful, almost unthinkable.  Sadly, it was starting to seem sadly evident that it was the least painful option he had. 

His roommate was out and he had the place to himself.  He had abandoned all his newer music for the comfort of Springsteen, trying to lose himself in the world of young lovers taking off in their cars looking for some better life.  As Bruce implored Rosalita, jump a little lighter he was startled by a loud knock on his door.  He tossed off his headphones with some annoyance and went to see who the hell was interrupting his pained moping.  The knocking came again; not a polite knock but loud, like someone was banging hard on the door.  “Coming!”  He opened the door expecting a misdirected pizza guy, but instead found himself face to face with a sad and scared looking but still infinitely lovely Pam Beesly.