She was as pretty as ever. That was for sure. Not that he was capable of making an unbiased judgement, though. Three years is a long time to build someone up, and he could still close his eyes and picture her face in perfect, intimate detail. To the average outsider, Karen was probably the prettier woman, at least to anyone open-minded enough not to be turned off by her smallish chest or atypical, non-all-American look. To nearly everyone, Katy would have appeared physically to be a more refined version of Pam, slightly but noticeably prettier in every way. But not to Jim. Pam was still his standard. Even when they had grown ugly to each other, she was still beautiful to him. Too beautiful. Since the merger, he had grown used to avoiding looking at her too much for fear of losing control of the distance he was forcing himself to keep.

Jim had no idea what to say, so he said nothing. Instead, he plopped himself down next to her, causing the bus to shake a bit as he added his weight to the rear bumper. He still wasn't sure what she knew at this point, but as she turned to look at him, he could see clearly. Someone had obviously filled her in about the details of his reaction, described to her in detail how he had kissed Karen so strongly before leading her off into the darkness. He could tell that she'd been crying. After spending so long convincing himself that all the tears he had ever shed for her had gone unreciprocated it actually hurt to be proven wrong. Maybe an explanation was a good place to start.

"Pam." He pivoted toward her, reaching out and laying his hand on her knee. "You scared me Pam. You know she's scared to death of you... of the hold you had on me... I was... well I thought I was going to lose her and I didn't want it to happen like this but it had to. I was scared."

She started shaking her head slightly. Her mouth opened but a few seconds passed before any words came out.

"Look. I'm sorry about Roy and everything. I know I hurt you and maybe you deserve to hurt me back..."

She turned to face him and continued. Her voice grew a bit louder.

"but that doesn't mean you have to do it, Jim. Because believe it or not, you already have."

Jim froze as she continued. There was nothing much he could say at this point. The die was cast. The sorrow the two of them had generated was overwhelming. As Pam continued, her words chipped away at his veil of self-pity.

"Jim, you know I'm broke. My paycheck barely covers my rent... but when I heard you were coming back, I went and paid to get my hair cut nicely, and I woke up early that morning to make myself look nice for you. For you, Jim. And you spent the day treating me like I wasn't even there... and I even tried to be a friend to you. I even helped you be good to her, Jim. Do you know how much that hurt me, Jim? To help you get through your stupid Karen problems?"

She was getting to him... stirring up uncomfortable emotions he was afraid to confront... He wanted to run, or else reach out and embrace her. He was trapped. He had to hear her out. But what she said next wasn't conflicting at all, just downright painful.

"You know, if I liked getting treated this way I would have just stayed with Roy."

"Pam." He had to stop her. "Pam I'm so sorry. I've been... well I've been an ass."

She stopped her rant cold, shaking her head with a resigned laugh. She actually smiled. What a mess. How could two people as close as them be so capable of hurting each other. Jim wanted to make things right but he knew he couldn't. Karen was waiting for him around the corner. She was a clean slate. They carried no baggage, and he still intended to do right by her. But the Pam situation, as un-fixable as it was, had to be addressed. She was just too much a part of his life, too much a part of him, to let her wither away like this. She was strong now. He knew she would be all right without him, but that wasn't what he wanted. So he offered her everything he could.

"We're friends Pam... we'll always be friends." The words didn't hurt as much going out as they did coming in that night in the parking lot, but they still hurt. He watched Pam absorb them and he could tell they hurt her too.

"I hope so, Jim."

The embrace wasn't as nice as the one they shared a year earlier. They weren't kissing this time, merely hugging. This one was the culmination of one year of passive animosity, not three years of burning, caged passion. But there was also no nervous anxiety about what she would say when the embrace ended.

********************

It was a fitting end to an undeniably strange day. Jim was seated toward the back of the bus, in an aisle seat. Karen, in the window seat to his immediate right, was leaning into him, sleeping gently. Across the aisle sat Pam, her head literally wired to Jim's across the aisle by the headphones they were sharing. Jim set his iPod to random, turned to Pam, and smiled.

She smiled back.