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Disclaimer: None of it belongs to me.  Except maybe the flip-flops.
She wakes up late, her body tense beneath three layers of blankets. It’s warmer out, now, but she hasn’t stripped down the bed for spring yet. It’s the first time she’s slept here in a week and a half.

Her head hurts from one drink too many and she gulps down a Motrin before brushing her teeth. In the mirror she looks a little too old and a little too young. Last night’s eyeliner is smeared at the corners of her eyes and creases run the length of her left cheek. She can taste bile and the weight of her own tongue through her minty fresh toothpaste.

She takes a long shower. Her loofah feels rough against her skin, but she scrubs anyway, stripping away ten long years and shards of invisible glass. When she steps out of the tub she’s pink and raw.

There’s nothing to eat in her refrigerator, nothing in her pantry, so she gathers her purse and an old pair of flip-flops, the Old Navy logo worn off the heal in patches, so the white paint spells out “C Na y.”

The grocery store is almost empty, and she pushes her empty cart through each aisle in turn. A familiar song is playing over the crackling speakers, something she liked back in high school, and she tries to remember the words. They don’t come, so she hums along instead.

A bored teenager with pimples across his chin scans her lean pockets and asks, “Credit or Debit.” She punches in her pin number (Roy’s old football number, 07, and the year she graduated from high school, 96) and grabs the plastic bag. Her flip-flops slap loudly against the pavement as she walks to the car.

She’s driven halfway home when she veers off onto a side-road. This is Jim’s neighborhood, she knows, and she slows, wondering which house is his, which is Karen’s. When she spots his new silver car in one of the driveways, though, she halts the car. This is his house, the lawn a little ragged, the paint a little worn. She’s out of the car before she lets herself think about it.

At the door she takes a breath and pushes the bell. She knows she shouldn’t be here, she has no right, but he deserves to know, she has to warn him.

He doesn’t look surprised when he answers the door. “Pam,” he says, like he’s been expecting her, and she wonders if someone called him. Kelly, maybe, saying “Oh my GOD! Jim! You won’t believe what happened tonight!” Or maybe it was Angela, who told Dwight, who felt it was his duty to warn Jim of impending danger that could threaten the office environment. “You want to come in?”

His walls are a shade off white and the hard wood floors are covered in mismatched carpets and rugs. They turn left and she follows him into the living room. The TV is on, tuned to a basketball game with the volume down low.

“How was the CFO’s party?” she asks, because she doesn’t know what else to say, and he smiles and tells her about Dwight and Michael’s potato salad and playing basketball with David Wallace. She laughs in all the right places and it hurts, like something’s pushing against the bottom of her heart, pressing it up to her throat and she’s choking.

An hour later and they’re watching “Rushmore” on his big screen TV. She sits next to him on the couch, leaving enough space for two large people to fit comfortably between them. She kicks off her shoes and curls her feet up underneath her. The window behind them is open and the cool spring breeze feels good against the back of her neck.

When the movie ends she stands up to go. She watches the credits roll across the TV as she blindly searches for her shoe with her foot. It’s halfway on when he stops her.

“Pam,” he says, his voice low and quiet. It’s a tone she hasn’t heard before, not from him, and she freezes. “Why’d you come here today?”

“I told Roy,” she says, her eyes tracing the outline of her right big-toe. There’s some nail polish there from last summer (preparation for a wedding that never happened), a pedicure that never wore off completely.

“Yeah.”

When she looks up he’s watching her and she hasn’t felt like this in almost a year. She remembers taunting him in the break room. “You can tell me anything.” She tries to smile, but she thinks it comes out like a grimace.

“I told him, last night, and I think he might try to hurt you.” She doesn’t look away this time, and he nods.

“Kelly called,” he says finally. “And Toby and Dwight.” It’s her turn to nod. “I can take care of myself,” he assures her. “It’s not like I don’t deserve it.”

She thinks about protesting, telling him it’s not his fault, but she just keeps quiet. “I should go,” she finally says.

At home she throws away the box of lean-pockets, unopened. She calls out for Chinese and curls up on her couch with the remote. The red light is blinking on her answering machine, but she ignores it. Whatever it is, she’ll deal with it tomorrow.
Chapter End Notes:

I'm considering the idea of doing a story for each day of the week, so there may be more.

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lit_glitter is the author of 4 other stories.
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