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She takes the steps.

She’s stashed away the leftover hotdogs in the kitchen refrigerator, sorted through the important phone messages that Toby left and now there is nothing left to do but head home. She avoids the elevator, not because she thinks she’ll run into someone in there (she’s the last to leave tonight) but because she’s found that with each step she takes on her red, raw and now blistering feet, she can create enough pain to keep her brain occupied.

She doesn’t want to think. She’s proud of what she did tonight…damn proud. She said what she wanted to say, uncovered things that had been hidden way too long. She did it all on a wave of adrenaline and accomplishment and didn’t stop to think about reactions, ramifications or results. She just did it. She knows that eventually she’ll have to deal with the fallout of what happened tonight. But for now, she doesn’t want to think about anything but the aloe plant that sits on her bedroom window. She avoided having to sit and contemplate her actions in the silence of the bus ride home by sitting next to Michael and asking, “So….how are you doing since the breakup?” His morbid chatter kept her from thinking of other things the whole way back.

So now she presses down on each step, relishing the sting of each blister, thankful that she can still feel. She opens the door and feels the cool night air wash over her. As she’s putting the key in the lock, she can’t help be reminded of other times in this darkened parking lot. She can never be here at night without echoes of  “more than that”, “misinterpreted” and “I can’t” resounding  in her ears. More recently, she’s been able to add “you can do what you want” and “always be friends” to the chorus she feels pounding in her head. Yeah….that always being friends thing really worked out, didn’t it?

She stopped having fantasies about the parking lot a while ago. Back when everything was raw and fresh, she’d imagine that he’d be waiting for her there, leaning up against her car. Or she’d imagine another conversation when she’d confront him and whisper only two words…”I can” before he’d take her in his arms. She hadn’t allowed herself to imagine that tonight that he’d be waiting for her…wanting to talk. But maybe deep down inside, she was hoping he would be. Even if he wanted to yell at her and accuse her of being selfish, that would be okay…it would at least be something.

So now as she walks to her car, she isn’t exactly surprised to see someone pacing next to her car, hands shoved their pockets. What is surprising to her, though, is that it isn’t Jim. It’s the last person she expected to have to deal with tonight.

“Hey, Karen….”

“Uh…..hey, uh, can I talk to you about something?”   Those words….the same ones he had….before he turned her world upside down. Pam’s heart starts beating faster and her eyes dart around looking for an escape route. She wishes Dwight were here with his pepper spray….just to buy her some time.   

 “Uh, sure.  Karen, listen,  I want to let you know that I never intended to—“

“Just wait, okay. I think you’ve said enough for a while and there are some things I need to say. Things I need to say to you.”

Pam can’t feel her burned feet anymore and she wishes she could. She doesn’t want to hear what Karen has to say…doesn’t want to have more ammunition to beat herself up with when she imagines them together…imagines them happy….imagines them in love. She figures, though, that maybe she owes this to Karen. She can listen and take it and then walk away and then get on with her life.  What Karen has to tell her will probably hurt, but hey…..tonight she’s already walked through fire.

“Go ahead, Karen…..I’m listening.”

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