Jim pushed his way through the front door of his apartment with his shoulder, grocery bags in one hand, dry cleaning in the other, and mail in his teeth.  As soon as the door shut behind him, he dropped all of the packages around him on the floor as if his arms had given out.  The mail swirled around him like a snowstorm on its way to the floor.  He shrugged out of his coat and thought for a moment about piling it on top of the mountain of personal items now strewn in the front hall; but, hearing his mother’s voice in his ears, he hung it up in the closet.  He also picked up the dry cleaning; he did just pay about a million dollars to get his suits out of hock, it would be nice to at least make it a week before doing it all over again.  He reached for the grocery bags and went into the kitchen. 

The day had not gone at all like he had planned.  Everyone was still talking about Roy, asking about the fight.  Things were weird with Dwight, not to mention the blinding image of Dwight and Angela making out.  He wanted to tell Karen, giggle about it all over dinner, but he knew even if he did she wouldn’t really get it.  She’d give him that ‘and your point is?’ look that he hates so much.  So when he left work, he told her that he had to take care of some errors and slinked home.

Of course, the thing that had really ruined his day was his discussion with Pam, which had not gone at all the way he intended.   He had honestly planned to ask her if she was alright, to try to talk to her like they used to.  In fact on the drive in he had planned out the whole thing.

 "Hey Beesly, did you have a good weekend?”

“Well, actually it kind of sucked, you know with Roy.”

“Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that, are you doing ok?  What was that all about?”

“I’m alright, we’re through and I think that’s best.”

“Why was he so mad at me?”

“Because I told him that I love you.

He shrugged his head angrily realizing that every time he imagined talking to her, he imagined that she would end the conversation declaring her love for him.  Of course, when he actually got to work and saw how withdrawn she was, how sad she was over this last round with Roy, he just got very angry with her.  He was mad she was so weak, frustrated by her inability to get out of her perpetual rut. When he finally did talk to her, he didn’t hide his disdain very well.  He realized on the way home, that whatever was left of their friendship was gone now. 

He put a frozen pizza in the oven and cracked open a beer.  Flipping on Sportscenter, he kicked off his shoes and sprawled across the couch.  He was startled by the sound of his cell phone ringing.  He knew it would be Jane calling for an update about how things went with Pam.  He didn’t want to answer, but if he ignored her, she would just call again, and again.  Mark had once said that she could out-stubborn a mule, and Jim knew her well enough to know that was true.

“Hi Jane.  Are you stalking me now or something?”

“You wish Jim!”

“Seriously, I don’t talk to your boyfriend this much and I knew him first.”

“Uh-huh.  Quit stalling, how’d it go?  Did you talk to her?”

“Um, yeah I did.”  It wasn’t a complete lie, he did talk to her.

“And…….what did she say?”

“She said she was sorry.”  Still the truth.

There was a pause as she waited for him to continue.  Finally she prompted, “And what else?  Did she tell you what happened with Roy?”

“She said they broke up.”

Jane paused, “Okay this all sounds promising.”

“Yeah right.”  He couldn’t suppress a bitter chuckle at how un-promising this whole situation had become.

 “Why do you sound like someone just ran over your cat?”

“I don’t have a cat.”

“Jim!  You know what I mean!  What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.  Look it was fine I talked to her, it’s over.  Enough said.”  He sounded angry, hardly hiding that there was so much more to this story.

“Don’t make me come over there and ply you with alcohol to get the truth.”

“I’m about a foot taller than you. I don’t see you plying me with anything.”

“Whatever I’m scrappy.  Spill it.”

Jim let out a long sigh and started almost mumbling, “I sort of….wasn’t very nice to her. To Pam.”

“Okay,” she drew out the word as if she didn’t understand what he was saying, “I need details.”

“I had planned to talk to her like we discussed, but she started talking to me about Roy.  I just didn’t want to hear it anymore.  Why even try to put myself out there if she’s just gonna keep going back to him?  And what’s worse, it was like she wanted me to make her feel better about the whole thing.  Seriously, I’m the one he tried to kill.  I pretty much let her know that I just didn’t care about her and Roy, well about her really.”

Jane was silent on the other end and it made Jim nervous.  He felt like he was five waiting for his mother to dole out a punishment for throwing the football in the house.  What was it going to be, no TV?  No dessert?

“Why on earth would you act like that?”

Jim felt himself getting defensive.  “I don’t know.  I mean she almost got me beaten up, and she keeps going back to that asshole, and……

“She keeps not choosing you?”

“Jane, that’s not it.”

“Yeah it really is Jim.”  Her voice was serious and certain.

“Well I have a right to be pissed off I think.  I mean all those years….she broke my heart Jane!”

“Forgive me if I don’t feel really sorry for you here, I mean you have me to talk to, and Mark, and your parents. You have Karen to do….whatever it is you do with Karen.  Who does Pam have?”

There was her punishment, the emotional sucker-punch.  Jim sank back in his couch not really wanting to continue this line of thought.

“What do you mean?”  Jim said very quietly, as if he were afraid to ask.

“I mean that you were her best friend.  Now you’re avoiding her because she didn’t give you what you wanted when you wanted it.  She doesn’t have Roy, probably also because of you.  I bet she lost of a lot of friends because of leaving Roy.  I just suspect she hasn’t had anyone to talk to.  Sounds to me like she’s feeling pretty down and wanted to talk to you.”

She paused letting her words sink in, then she added rather curtly, “You’re being a real jerk, you know that?”

“I’m beginning to see that.”

“You have to decide if you love her enough to try to be her friend.  I know that’s not what you want, but I think you have to decide how much you want to be a part of her life.  And then, see what happens.”

“I can’t be her shoulder to cry on about Roy Jane.  I can’t do it, I’m not strong enough any more.”

“Here’s the thing Jim, sometimes being in love means doing things you don’t want to do for the other person.  For me, it means dealing with Southpark and carting my drunk-ass boyfriend around when he and his paper salesman friend get hammered on car bombs.  For you, right now, it means just being her friend.  And I think you’re selling yourself short, you are strong enough to do this.”

“Maybe.  Maybe I don’t even want to try anymore.” 

“Well you can give up if you want, no one would blame you.  But you should know, if you do, you really will lose her forever.”

“I don’t want that to happen.”  He felt drained by the very idea of not having Pam in his life.

“I know.”

“I’ll think about being her friend again.”  He said the word friend as if he hated it, spitting it out harshly.

“Ok, and Jim?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re here if you need us.”

“Thanks.”  He paused, the warmth in his voice returning telling her that he really was grateful for her concern.   “Tell Mark maybe we could watch the game on Thursday, it’s the Mets.”

“I’ll pass it along.  Take it easy ok?”

“Yeah.  Goodnight.”

Jim put his cell phone down next to him and stretched his arms over head.   He was tired of this whole Pam drama; and part of him really did want to hurt her as badly as she had hurt him, over and over.  When she went back to Roy, Jim thought that the pain might kill him.  But, his heart started to thaw immediately as he pictured his darling friend again and again crying alone with no one to comfort her.  What kind of an ass leaves his best friend in the world, the woman he loves, alone when she’s going through the worst time of her life.

The kitchen timer brought him out of the sea of thoughts he was lost in.  As he got up he started thinking about whether he really could just be Pam’s friend. And if he could, how would he get her to forgive him.