Chapter Two 

            He doesn’t look at her for the rest of the day.  He goes out of his way to avoid reception, as well as the break room.  He talks to Karen, his smiles too wide and his laughs too loud.

            He pretends not to notice Pam’s hurt, uncertain glances.  He pretends to be engaged in conversation and dinner plans with Karen. 

            He pretends it didn’t happen.

            He begs to take the two sales calls.  Michael insists that they can shove them off on Ryan or Dwight, but Jim’s adamant.  He wants to get out of the office.  Needs to.

            Michael seems to think he’s worried about another attack, because he mentions a few times that security’s been told to look out for Roy.  Jim lets him think it; anything to get out of here.

            But, obviously, it’s not Roy that’s making him want to leave.  It’s the look Pam gave him as he trailed behind Karen into the office that morning.  She’d glanced at him only briefly; not even an angry look, really:  just sort of stunned, almost like Jim had been the one to enter the office waving his fists, and definitely hurt.    The anger had been apparent later, however; he’d caught her gaze for a split second about thirty minutes after his arrival, and the hurt had faded into fury.

            All of this is making Jim suffocate in the guilt he’d done a halfway decent job of suppressing since yesterday. 

             So, he takes the calls.  They’ll keep him out all day, and Michael needed him to do some paperwork at some point.  He assures Michael he’ll stop by after the sales calls “even if it’s after hours”.

            Finally, Michael gives him the okay.

            Jim barely mutters something to Karen about seeing her later that night, and he runs past reception, sarcastically congratulating himself on his subtlety.

            Maybe the sales calls weren’t such a good idea; the first one is a good thirty minute drive from Dunder Mifflin, and it’s way too much time for reflection.

            Jim, I’m in love with you.

            He’d imagined it, before, even since he’d come back.  Always after a happy moment: noticing the barely suppressed glee in her eyes when he’d sent Andy to her with the horrible information, standing next to her, wearing a sombrero, and giggling at a hole in the wall…he’d allowed himself a brief, too-good-to-be-true fantasy in which she told she felt the same.

            There had always been more than just the simple declaration, and even in his fantasies it had always taken coaxing to make her say it. 

            The problem with the simplicity, with the way it seemed to come out of nowhere (ever since the wedding, when he’d seen her leave with Roy, there had been no happy moments, and therefore no fantasizing), was that is was easier for him to push aside.

            Jim isn’t even sure himself why he’s so hell bent on forgetting it: the very thing he’s waited so long to hear.  He just knows that in the moment, the moment that was supposed to be perfect, he hadn’t been able to feel anything but shocked and, eventually, panicked. 

And he hadn’t been able to think of a damn thing to say.

*  *  *  *

“Michael?”  Pam forces casualty into her voice.  “Where did Jim go?”  Her voice is low, so as to keep Karen from spinning around to stare at her, something she had a habit of doing if Pam or Jim ever talked, or if Pam ever said anything related to Jim, even if it was just something about a phone call or a message.

Michael, unfortunately, does not mirror her efforts.  “Jimbo?”  Ah, yes, there’s Karen.  “He went on a couple of sales calls for me.  Was practically begging for ‘em.  Think he’s still a little nervous about being in here, after yesterday.  Better to be a moving target.”

“He’s not scared.”  Karen says suddenly, with a touch more venom than seems necessary.  She’s glaring, for some reason, at Pam instead of Michael.

“Of course not.”  Michael says dismissively, before turning back to Pam, his eyes shining.  “And he shouldn’t be, right?  He’s got plenty of people to defend him, right?”  He winks at her before walking off, but Pam had barely gotten past Michael initial reply.

            A new wave of fury chokes her; so he’d been practically begging to get out of the office?  Michael had been right about calling Jim’s courage into question, but like Karen, Pam knew it wasn’t Roy Jim was afraid of facing.

            Pam had spent yesterday afternoon in stunned disbelief.  She knows by now that things never turn out as great as you expect; still, she could never have imagined that scenario playing out.

            By nightfall, the numbness and shock had faded a little, and raw, intense pain had settled over her.  She’d been up half the night crying (something she’d gotten more and more accustomed to in the recent past), and by this morning, all that pain had been able to manifest itself into a rage that was unequaled by anything Pam had ever felt before.

            Needless to say, she doesn’t get much done today.  And toward the end of the day, when Michael, as he’s leaving, mentions that Jim will be stopping by pretty soon to take care of some work, Pam knows that this kind of anger is not going to be wasted.   She’s in rare form, and that should result in some honesty…she’s not going to let him pretend yesterday didn’t happen, not when it had been so hard for her.

            That’s why, at six fifteen, when Jim opens to door to the office, he freezes; Pam’s sitting at her desk, not even pretending to work.

            Taken aback by her presence, Jim stands frozen for a moment, then moves past reception toward his desk, as though he’s pretending the office is either empty or full; either way, it’s not just the two of them.

            The work Michael had been so insistent that he do takes all of fifteen minutes, and when he’s finished, she’s still there, sitting at her desk, glaring at him. 

            Jim sits awkwardly for a few minutes, ruffling papers, hoping she’ll leave before him, though it’s clear that’s not going to happen; Pam’s stayed for a reason, and she’s not backing down.

            Finally, Jim stands, forces a smile and, carrying to façade as long as he can, waves goodbye.

            “Wait.”  Her voice is quiet, but it’s sharp and commanding, highly reminiscent of her voice yesterday, when she’d told Roy not to touch him.  Jim briefly considers bolting anyway, but is instantly disgusted at himself for the thought.  Self respect finally kicks in.

            He turns to look at her, not speaking.  Pam’s leaning back in her desk chair, arms folded across her chest, the livid expression seeming out of place on her normally calm features.

            She wants him to speak, wants him to ask her what she wants, anything to break his silence.  When he doesn’t, Pam finds she isn’t sure where to start.  She finally stands, leaning forward on her desk, and splutters angrily, “How dare you?”

            He’s taken aback; Jim’s never heard her speak like this.  “Wha…”

            Anxious to remove any sort of boundary between them, both physically and metaphorically, Pam walks around the desk and approaches him.  “How dare you treat me like this?”  Jim stands still, watching her with an irritatingly calm expression.  “I told you I love you, to your face, and you just sit there?  You stare at me for awhile and then walk off with your perfect little girlfriend like nothing happened?” 

Her voice drips venom and Pam savors it; it feels good getting the words that have been in her head all day out in the open.  “How fucking dare you, Jim?!  I’ve wasted so much damn time feeling guilty about how I handled it last May, and I know that I handled it all wrong but at least I said something! At least I wasn’t such a fucking coward that I just ignored it-“

            “Hey!”  Jim finds his voice unexpectedly, and it’s defensive.  “Don’t you dare call me a coward, Pam, because it took a hell of a lot of courage to even tell you that night-“

            “Oh, right, you were so brave, Jim.”  Sarcasm and bitterness are an effective combination, Pam realizes.  “You told me after feeling it for God knows how long, and when you told me you made sure you had an escape plan!  You had an out that assured you that if I didn’t give you the exact answer you wanted at the exact time you chose, you never had to see me again if you didn’t want to!  Bravo.”  She practically growls the last word; she’s held these sentiments for much longer than the past day, and it feels good to release them. 

            Jim gapes at her, dumbfounded and speechless, so Pam presses on.  “Well, guess what?  I told you yesterday, no escape plan, no anything.  I was here today, not in an entirely different state!”

            “Don’t…don’t…”  He splutters incoherently at her, trying to make his words match the anger that’s swelling in him.

            “Don’t what?”  Pam snaps impatiently.

            “Don’t act like you’re so brave.”

            Throat raw from shouting, Pam lowers her voice’s volume but not the intensity.  “I’m not.  But the fact is, I’m not the one always running.  You ran last May, and you even ran out today.”

            “I…I had a sales call.”  His protest is somewhat feeble.  The fact is, part of him knows that everything’s she’s saying is dead on, but his pride isn’t letting him admit that, not now, not after so long of ignoring his pride for his heart when it came to her.

            “Please, Michael told me you were begging to get out of here.  It’s pathetic.  So while you were out on your sales call I was right here, with your girlfriend shooting me death glares and everyone else whispering about what happened yesterday.  And last May, while you were in Connecticut, I was still right here, calling off a wedding with my fiancée of nine years and dealing with more change than I’d ever dealt with in my life, and doing all of that without my best friend-“

            Running out of arguments, Jim repeats bitterly, “Best friend…”

            “Yeah!  My best friend, that was you.  Until that day, we’d been great, and you were the only thing that made getting up for work every morning worth it.  And then all of sudden, you change everything in one night, and you expect me to make the biggest decision of my life within a ten minute window of opportunity that you then shut, apparently forever, and then you’re just gone.” 

She pauses, letting the weight of that word sink in, and though the anger has not left her voice, there’s a catch in it to match the stubborn tears clinging onto her eyelashes. “Gone, without a word or…or anything.  As if you didn’t care about any of the rest of it.  As if the past three years meant nothing to you anymore.”  She stops again, her chest rising and falling rapidly, and for the first time her voice is devoid of all anger.  “If you think that didn’t hurt like hell, then you don’t know me at all.”

            They’re quiet for awhile after that, just looking at each other.  Jim has honestly never thought of it like that before; he’d been too wrapped up in his own broken heart to give much consideration to what he was doing to Pam.  She was right, though; no matter how she’d felt or what she’d said, she’d been his best friend for three years.  He’d owed her more than that.

            Finally Pam speaks again, her voice still quiet.  “Look, I…I made a mistake.  But I wasn’t the bad guy there, Jim.  I was confused, and yeah, I wasn’t brave enough to realize what I wanted, and I probably should have figured it out so much earlier but…but, damn it, Jim, I’m trying here.  I’ve been trying since you came back, and it’s like I don’t even know you anymore.  Sometimes we’re fine, like we used to be, but the rest of it, it’s like we were never friends, or like I’m some kind of villain to you and I…I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, and then for you to just ignore it…”  She trails off, her eyes begging him to say the perfect thing, like he had always been able to. 

            Jim jerks his eyes from her and stares at the wall instead.  “Maybe it’s too late.”

            There’s a pause, and then Pam replies, the anger creeping back into her voice, “Then you should have just said that.”

            “Fine.”  He looks at her, trying to make his voice sound sure of himself, confident.  Because he’s (almost) sure now, why he hadn’t been happy when she’d told him yesterday.  He can’t let the past months have been a waste.  Not when he’s been trying so hard to move on, even succeeding at times.  Not when he’d spent so much time changing, trying to better himself.  He didn’t want to admit that it was all a lie.   “I’ve changed.”

            Pam stares at him, waiting in vain for him to take it back.  When he doesn’t say anything else, she sets her jaw and quickly brushes her hand at the first tear to actually fall.  Then she spats, “You told me.  You’re evolving.”  Mocking him, she repeats the word.  “Evolving.  Right.  With your bottled water and tuna sandwiches and your suits.  Big fucking deal, Jim.  Does that make you feel different?  Is that really the secret to moving on so damn fast?”

            “What?”

            Her voice shaking, Pam continues, “You leave the state for a few months and come back eating a new kind of sandwich, drinking a different drink, and suddenly you’re over it?”  There’s no need to clarify what she means.  “Because, you know, I’ve tried a few dietary changes and it hasn’t really done anything for me.  If there are any other tricks you’ve used, I’d sure appreciate them-“

            “Shut up!”   He won’t take this from her.  He won’t let her sit here implying that it wasn’t a big deal to him, that he got over her too fast.

            “I just feel bad for Karen.”  Pam wants him angry.  Those two words, too late, had hurt her far more deeply than she’ll let on to him, and now she wants to make him angry.  “She’s just another prop in your stupid evolution.  Goes right along with bottled water, huh, Jim?”

            “Don’t bring her into this!”  He snaps, the fury contorting his face more from her earlier insinuations than her mention of Karen.  Still, he knows which topic will hurt her more.  “Just because you can’t handle the fact that I’m with someone else-“

            “OH, right, because you were so fine with it-“

            “There’s a difference.”  He shoots back, grinning nastily at her.    “At least when I had feelings for you-“  She winces at the tense on had, but he doesn’t notice.  “-and you were with Roy, I knew he wasn’t right for you.  I knew I was better.”  Pam makes a face like she’s about to protest, but Jim doesn’t give her a chance.  “He treated you like shit, ignoring your feelings and only caring about you when it was convenient for him.  I knew I would have treated you better than that.”  He pauses.  “But you can’t face the face that Karen and I aren’t like that.  You can’t deal with the fact that she’s perfect for me, that you don’t have anything over her, that we might be-“  The words meant to be together die in his throat, never even making it to his lips, when he sees the look on Pam’s face.

            The tears she’d been putting in so much effort to keep back are pouring down her cheeks while Pam seems oblivious to them; the look she’s giving him could not be worse if Jim had pulled out a gun and held it to her temple.  Apologies and assurances that it was all a lie, that he’d give anything to turn Karen into her, anything to wipe that look off her face.

            Her voice is choked with suppressed sobs as she whispers at him, “Get out.”

            Jim doesn’t move, wanting to point out that it’s their office, not her apartment, and so her throwing him out doesn’t mean much.  Instead, he stands stupidly in front of her, lips parted slightly as if prepared for any of the apologies; it’s useless, though…something inside of him won’t let the apologies out.

            “I mean it, Jim, leave.  Now.”  She’s sobbing now, really sobbing.  Jim has a feeling that him being there is making it worse, and for the moment, the last thing he wants is to hurt her anymore.

            “Okay…”  He moves numbly away from her, out the door, but doesn’t make it to the elevator; he falls against the wall opposite the elevator doors and holds his head in his hands.

*  *  *  *

That night, while Karen sleeps next to him, Jim goes over the entire fight in his mind, trying desperately to ease his guilt.  He’d said that deliberately to hurt her, and he hates himself for it; but she’d said things like that, too.  She’d been angry, too, and unfair to him.

By focusing on the moments Pam had made him angry, rather than the ones that made him wallow in self disgust, Jim’s able to regain some of his anger at her, as a way of easing the overwhelming guilt.

He’s getting shockingly good at denial.  Because the logical part of him knows that everything she’d said had been brutally honest; whereas he’d told straight out lies with the intention of hurting her.  However, this isn’t the part he listens to.

Jim turns over on his stomach and groans into his pillow.  He feels as if he’s slowly losing grip on sanity, because none of his actions since yesterday have a logical explanation.  He can’t believe himself that a moment that he’d once envisioned as fairy tale kind of beginning, Pam’s declaration of love, had left him so under whelmed, or turned him into such an asshole.  

He groans again.  The truth is, the romantic in him has been dying a slow and painful death since last May. 

In the fairy tales and chick flicks, a declaration of love weeks before a wedding yields immediate results.  The girl never breaks up her wedding after the hero moves away unless she gets on a plane and immediately tells him about it.  The words “I’m in love with you” are never met with silence and numbness.

*  *  *  *

            Pam sits in the office, her back against her desk, crying for a goof half hour before she finally goes home. 

            It’s not different there; she just cries more.

            Pam hates the very conflicting feelings she’s going through: she both hates Jim, for deliberately hurting her and telling her he’d changed with such apathy, and loves him, because nothing’s changed there.  She thought the two didn’t mix, had always regarded them as opposites, but apparently it is possible to feel them both very strongly for the same person at the same time.

            She’s laying on her couch an hour after getting home when the doorbell rings and her heart lifts slightly. 

            She’s never been much for chick flicks, but right now all she wants is a chick flick moment.  In a good chick flick, Jim would be there, his eyes broken and sorry, and he’d tell her he was wrong, tell her he still loved her.  She’d cry some more, but the good kind of tears, and they’d kiss, and everything would be perfect…

            Pam opens the door and her heart drops into her stomach.  Roy’s there, leaning against the door frame, and instantly he’s slurring drunkenly at her, his eyes holding the same anger she’d seen yesterday in the office, when this whole mess started.