The water was beyond cold. For a second he forgot that this had been his idea. From the moment last week that Michael had announced his beach plans, he had bugged Karen relentlessly, slowly wearing her down until she promised to let him take her in the water at least once. She was obviously uncomfortable, but like so many other things, she had let him talk her into it. Jim wondered if she had any idea why he'd been so insistent. He forced himself to dive in. He wasn't going to let a little case of the chills ruin his fun.

Karen entered the water slowly, taking small calculated steps and flinching whenever a dying wave would roll by and splash her higher than she was ready for. In a couple of minutes she was waist deep, standing shivering with her arms crossed tightly. That's when Jim grabbed her and pulled her out into the deep. She let out a panicky little gasp and held onto him tightly, her legs kicking ineffectively to try to maintain some control. He stepped backwards to where he could touch the bottom without submerging his head, but was sure the shorter Karen could not. He stopped and drew her closer. She put her chin on his shoulder so they were ear to ear, wrapped her arms firmly around his shoulders and neck, and held on. She couldn't get her legs to stop kicking, though. Jim held her body up, and with one hand gently rubbed her back to calm her down. She was sharp and pretty, a strong-minded, independent woman. And now she was cold and a little scared... thrashing, clinging to him . In this moment, he was everything to her. Everything. He enjoyed the feeling. He needed the feeling. He needed moments like this. Because a year ago he had been reduced to nothing.

Until that terrible night last May, he had never known how much despair; seething, toxic, venomous despair, he was capable of inflicting on himself. After that brief moment of beautiful, passionate hope when she had kissed him back, the burning in his chest and stomach had hurt so badly that he could barely walk upright. He had stumbled to the roof ladder, forced himself to climb up, and spent the next hours under the Pennsylvania night sky, sitting against an air conditioning duct, crying softly while he tried to make sense of the overpowering emptiness that had descended upon his world. You have no idea how much your friendship means to me. Friendship. He was a friend. That's all he was. A stupid accessory, something to keep her busy between bouts of lovemaking with that overgrown idiot. He was nothing. When he finally left, it would be like he was never there.

Karen would never make him feel that way. She simply didn't have that kind of power over him. Jim wasn't sure if she ever would, or anyone else ever would for that matter. He simply wasn't capable of letting himself fall so hard. Not again. Not ever again. As he held her now he smiled to himself as her shivering lessened slightly. He was reaching up to pull her head tighter against his own when he caught himself.

It was so familiar in so many unpleasant ways. He looked past Karen's head and locked eyes with Pam. She was sitting alone back on the beach, staring at him. Their eyes met and locked into place for a few seconds, until she turned away studied some imaginary distraction in the sand beside her. The last time this happened he had been dancing with Karen at Phyllis' wedding, and he saw her sitting nearby staring at him. He had almost surrendered completely that very moment, coming within an inch of breaking up with Karen on the spot and running over to Pam to once again offer her everything. Good God had he been wrong. So wrong. He had actually seen longing in her gaze. He had actually seen love. And not ten minutes later, watching her leave with the only man he ever really hated, he was reminded so brutally that her idea of love was a the furthest thing from him. Thank God he hadn't had the guts to act on his impulse. He couldn't handle that despair again, and losing Karen would have been bad too.

He was jolted out of his daydream by Karen. She was speaking softly, almost whispering into his ear.

"Hey... what're you thinking about?"

Jim squeezed her tight and lied again.

"The future."