He couldn’t quite explain it, and he didn’t know when, or where, or how, but he had changed. It wasn’t something that he’d planned for, even, didn’t want to do, when he moved to Stamford, it just seemed to happen. He tried to find himself in the mess that had been created, but all he could do was put on a ‘front’ he hated. He hated that the emotions on his sleeve were covered by his new expensive suit jackets and his tightly buttoned long sleeved shirts.

When Karen came along, he really wondered if she knew he wasn’t himself and if she would ever know the real him.

He’d been back a few months, trying to bury his feelings deep down inside himself. It was like real self struggled to break free to escape the prison they were held in. Jim had managed his return to Scranton well, trying not to fall head over heels the moment he stepped back into the Scranton office.

He knew she noticed how cold he’d been towards her and to anyone that knew the real him. Pam noticed everything and every once and a while, she would call him on it. And, every time, his heart skipped a beat, knowing full well that he would be exposed as the fake he was.

“What happened to grape soda?” she asked, slightly amused, until he answered.

He pulled the bottle of water from the dispenser and looked at her. “Oh yeah. I'm trying to move away from that. Getting into more of a bottled water phase,” he said, trying to keep the mood light despite the awkward tension he was feeling in his stomach.

She continued to joke, “Oh. You've changed so much.”

“Well, I'm evolving, Pam,” he said, being completely honest and bare at that moment.

Jim had tried to use his new position to keep him from returning to his old nature and having a relapse. It was difficult at times to refrain from turning to Pam when Michael said something ridiculous or when Dwight irritated him to no end. He just had to train himself to let go of the past and find a new way to go about life in the office.

Pam was waiting for him to return. He did, a time or two. Like the time he recruited her to help steal Andy’s cell phone, or joke about the hole in the wall, or even joke with her about the fake Ben Franklin hitting on her. He truly enjoyed those moments of relief and freedom even though he willed himself not to.

Then, he realized that those little blips of fun and nostalgia only led to hurt and heartache. The second Karen asked him about his feelings for Pam in the conference room, the time his heart sank 1,000 feet below sea level when Pam mentioned dating one of Ryan’s college buddies, and the ten seconds of pure terror when Roy threw his fist back were only the top of the cake when it came to feeling like trash about ‘metamorphosing’ into his alter ego.

“Do you still have feelings for her?” she asked, her voice low and sounding tortured.

His heart was screaming at him, his brain thumping behind his eyes, and his breath about to run low as he answered her in the most truthful answer he had let himself give in the past few months. “Yes,” he said, trying to avoid looking at Karen, hurt and devoid of emotion at the same time. She walked out of the conference room, leaving him alone; the one thing he didn’t want to be at that time.

He was relieved. It was the truth, he did have feelings for Pam. Even though he couldn’t say that no one could put a candle up to Pam, he had at least admitted the majority of his feelings at the time. Karen would never compare to Pam and he prayed silently for another opportunity to explain it to her.

----

When he couldn’t just tell Karen that he was done with her, she had served her purpose, he waited for the right moment to let things just break between the two of them. Sure, their six month anniversary passed and was great, or so he let her think.

But, while standing in the busiest city he’d ever been to, he knew that it was time to fess up, confess, break free from every bit of the lies he’d strung together. It didn’t hurt as much as he’d prepared himself for, it was more refreshing and freeing. Like ripping it off like a band-aid, he quickly spoke his peace and left her to think.

For the most part, he didn’t care that she would never understand why he did it, why he tried to forget Pam and failed, why he left and moved back, why he played tricks on his own heart and why he had drug her into his mess. He regretted ever letting her into his life when he knew the outcome from the very beginning. Their relationship was destined for failure in every way, all because of his heart.

As he marched away from Karen, triumphantly free from his own personal prison, he couldn’t help but think of all the things he wanted to do, but didn’t. Life would have been completely different if he had followed his gut instincts.

He would have left Karen out of the picture.

He would have hugged Pam a little tighter and longer on the day he returned to Scranton.

He would have fought a little harder for his old desk, the one with the perfect view.

He would have thrown his bottle of water in the trash the moment she noticed and purchased a grape soda instead.

He would have taken Pam up on her offer to get coffee after work his first day back.

He wouldn’t have given her up so easily.

But now, that he has righted some wrongs, changed course, set sail for new horizons, he doesn’t care about the ‘what if’s’, ’why not’s’ and the ‘I can’t’s’ anymore. He’s not bitter about anything, he doesn’t care that he wasted almost a year of his life playing mind games on himself and other innocent people, he’s just happy that he’s actually made a decision on his own and stuck with it.

He’s a different man now. Yes, he’s changed, but he’s a better person for it. He now knows the person he doesn’t want himself to become and the “Jim” he’d rather be. The only thing that will change his world for the good completely is one person; Pam.

So, standing in the conference room doorway, his buttoned up persona slowly unraveling, he asks her for a simple little date. It was something. Something to get them talking, something to roll the ball forward, something to rekindle their desperate dwindling fire. After her euphoric reply, he made his intentions clear, that this indeed was the ‘more’ that he was talking about a year ago.