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Story Notes:
Spoilers: Casino Night
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue. You wouldn't believe the nothing I own. No infringement is intended.
A/N: This was quickly inspired by the following prompt at Tracy's prompt post: Jim/Pam, invitations. And wham, a ficlet was born. I love it when a plot comes together. ;) And I know, I've been watching too much season 2 lately. Deal. And remember, feedback is love! ♥
She can’t look at his invitation without feeling nauseated. She never sent it to him because he told her about his trip first, and she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She knows now that she could have sent him a million invitations to her wedding, and he never would have come. Now she knows exactly why.

Australia was the extreme case, but it could have been anything as long as it kept him away from Scranton on June tenth. He could have faked an emergency appendectomy, or said that his grandmother had died, but somehow she always knew he was going to find a way to be… not there.

Pam was good at living in denial; she’d become an expert over the years she had been with Roy. He loved her enough, she had enough, he was enough…

But it wasn’t, not really.

Jim had to come along and ruin everything, making her see that it wasn’t enough. There was something missing, and it had always been missing. Now she knows exactly what.

A week after Casino Night, she’s still looking at that damn invitation, which seems to have taken up permanent residence on her kitchen counter. She can’t seem to be the same person she used to be with Roy, and she hasn’t seen Jim since he threw her world off its axis. He hasn’t been into work all week, and she keeps hearing the word ‘transfer’ whispered when no one thinks she is listening. It takes everything she has not to burst into tears the longer he doesn’t show up, and the more no one tells her to her face what’s going on. They all seem to know that it’s her fault, and she wonders why she didn’t until it was too late.

She is a train wreck in every way, and she can’t seem to find her way out of this one. Roy is confused, and she can’t blame him, and Jim is no longer around to save her. But the longer she looks at that invitation, the more she knows what she has to do. The dread pulls and twists at her stomach day and night, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to upend what amounts to almost half her life just because a shaggy-haired boy with the most beautiful eyes she has ever seen said he loves her.

Another three days pass, and Michael, wearing the most dismal look she has ever seen on his face, finally announces that Jim has transferred to Stamford. She tries to keep the emotion from her face as her boss gives her a woeful glance before stepping back into his office, and she succeeds until she goes to the ladies’ room and begins to bawl.

She goes home and the ivory envelope is still looking up at her, mocking her indecision and her cowardice. She knows where Jim is now, and whether or not she ever sees him again, even if she can’t make things right, she knows what she has to do. Now she knows exactly how.

Finis


Cassandra Mulder is the author of 23 other stories.



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