As Jim drove up Interstate 95 he thought a lot about what he would say to her. He tried to formulate a reasoning as to why he never went after her. Truth is he tried so hard to get her to talk to him again and then she just left. His feeling of defeat was the main reason why he never went to find her after he found out where she was.
Finding out where she was had been the easy part. Thanks to Kelly and her inability to keep a secret, he had finagled out of her Pam’s location.
“But you can’t tell her I told you or she will totally kill me and never tell me to keep a secret again, but at least I…” Jim remember how her voice had trailed off as if she was about to divulge another secret, yet she turned and walked away before she slip up again.
It didn’t bother Jim all that much that Kelly knew things about Pam that he didn’t. He knew the important things such as where she lived, that her mother had moved out to Boston with her, and that she was safe and seemingly happy. Only when she talked about Pam did Kelly seem nervous and fidgety and almost always walk away from Jim in a hurry.
Brushing those memories away, Jim smiled as he drove past the Welcome to Massachusetts sign. He glanced at the address Kelly eagerly gave him squealing “Jim you’re going to get her back! That’s so great! Here… go get your girl!” Then he checked his MapQuest directions before putting his foot on the accelerator. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her. He was armed with only his feelings for her and a picture of the both of them that he brought with him. He didn’t know why he brought a picture, but he kept it up on his dashboard for the entire car ride. Every time he looked at it and saw Pam’s smiling face that was looking directly in his own smiling face, it reminded him what he was driving towards and what he was prepared to fight for.
An hour later he stood in front of the house with a house number and street matching his directions. He pulled over to the side of the road, grabbed the picture on his dashboard, got out and took a moment to admire the house which he thought looked exactly like a house she would live in. She had finally gotten her white terrace. There was a big porch in the front that had a swing seat and potted flowers that were beginning to bud. His skin tingled with excitement when he realized how close he was to her. He could feel his heart beating due to his own nervousness.
As he was about to take a step to cross the street and ring the doorbell, he saw the kitchen light turn on. A woman with medium length brown hair carried a child in her arms and sat her down on the countertop to tend to the wound that the child had gotten on her knee. Jim smiled as he saw how Pam hadn’t changed that much at all. She still looked as beautiful as she did in his memory.
A man soon followed into the kitchen as he placed a soft kiss atop the child’s head and then bent down to kiss her knee. The child giggled after Pam bandaged the wounded area, and then jumped off the counter, playfully running out of the room. Jim, as if in a solemn trance, watched as the man slid his arm around Pam’s small waist and proceeded to kiss her softly on the lips.
It was then, when Pam had her arms wrapped around the gentleman’s neck that Jim saw the sparkles of a diamond ring reflecting off of her finger. All of his hopes came crashing down around him as his heart broke into a million pieces. Although he had prepared himself these past few years that she might have moved on and gotten married, he still clung to the hope that she hadn’t and they would have a chance to rekindle a relationship.
During his drive up he envisioned that he would ring the doorbell and Pam would throw her arms around him and tell him that she had been waiting for him. That she was always waiting for him and she could never love anyone else like she loved him.
He found himself smiling though. The selfless part of him was happy. She had found someone to love and live her life with. After everything she had gone through with her parents, Roy, Karen, and the bold new personality she began to he couldn’t help but feel proud of her. Proud that she made it through the darkness and had found the happiness that life can offer. He knew that she was happy, and he felt a sort of content in that knowledge. But the selfish part of him felt like crawling into the sewer and dying.
The photograph of the two of them that Jim was still holding had slipped through his fingers and fell to the ground. He suddenly realized that he didn’t belong here anymore. He no longer had a place in Pam’s life.
Pam stopped kissing the man when she felt a strange feeling wash over her. She looked out the window only to see the shadow of a man get into his car, start the engine, and drive away.
She walked outside, her daughter skipping behind her, following. She looked down the street, but only saw the darkness of the shadows that the trees had cast on the pavement and walkways.
In the distance she heard a car engine accelerating and the sound of the tires as the vehicle sped away.
“Mommy, it’s you!!”
She walked over to where her daughter was standing, on the sidewalk across the street from their house. She took the picture from her daughter’s hand. Tears started brimming around her eyes as she quickly wiped them away, so her daughter wouldn’t see.
“Mommy, who’s that man in the picture with you?”
Pam hesitated as she saw the curiosity that lay in her daughter’s eyes. She had the same blue eyes as her father, and the same dimple in her chin. “Emmy, sweetie, that’s your father.”
