“You’ve got to stop doing this to me, man.” A nervous ache attacked his stomach with an all too familiar feeling of wanting to vomit. But it slowly faded as a minute or so dragged on, and the door was never answered.

   “Oh that’s right; she’s at her parent’s house tonight, how silly of me to forget. You know my minds not as sharp as it once was, oh to be 200 again…” Clarence lightly joked.

   “Are you serious? So you are telling me I am standing on Pam’s front porch at eleven o’clock at night for no reason.” Jim was a little more perturbed with Clarence.

   “Oh, get over it. We’ll get you here tomorrow. No harm no foul.”

   “Yea, that’s what you think…”

_______________________________________

   The next day Jim tried to shake the feeling that he might just be plain old crazy. If it weren’t for the fact that Karen’s desk was completely bare, or that it literally only took five minutes to break up with her, he was certain Clarence was merely a figment of his imagination.

  He set everything down near his desk as normal, but fidgeted about, as he typically did, until Pam walked through the door. Today was different. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t been letting himself really look at her, but Pam seemed different. She looked sad, as if she was constantly trying with all her might not to cry. It took everything inside of him not to run over to her at that very moment to save her. To tell her he was done being a jackass. To make her stop hurting. Clarence, where are you?

   But as it usually did, something broke the spell. This time it was Pam’s phone. From listening, Jim gathered it was her mom, because of the brief smile she let escape. It was weird, but that smile actually made Jim smile. That is until he heard the next thing to slip from her lips.

   “Yea I know, Mom. But Michael is still making stay ‘til five. I mean it’s my last day, you’d think he’d just finally leave me alone... I’ll try to be there early tomorrow. I’m glad I was able to move most of my stuff out last night… I can’t wait to get out of here and move back home with you guys for a while…. Love you.”

    Looking back, Jim could remember the feeling of his heart plummeting to his feet and a just-been-punched feeling in his gut. At that moment, he felt like he’d been betrayed by Clarence. He even called out to him, but got no response. All Jim could do was stare at Pam. How the hell am I supposed to deal with this? But shecaught his eye.

  “Jim, is there something wrong?” she said as if nothing were off.

  “Oh, no, it’s just I couldn’t help but over hear. You’re, uh, you’re moving.” He replied in disbelief that he actually had to say those words.

  “Yea, I thought you knew. I would have said something to you earlier, but I didn’t want to bother you. I just figured with Michael’s big mouth you’d of heard…”

  “Pam, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know Jim; I just didn’t really think you’d care.”

  Pam was more poised than Jim had ever seen. On some level he was proud she was holding her ground, but he was still crushed. “Of course, I’d care, Pam. How could I not?”

  “I don’t know.”