“Marry me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Marry me. Really.”

“Are you pregnant?” She lifted her head slowly off of him, trying to push on a smile as he started to sit up too.

“No, I don’t think so.” He laughed. “I mean it. Why not?”

“Why not? Honestly, Halpert, I’d have thought you could come up with something better than that.”

Leaning forward, he took one of her cheeks in each of his hands, his fingertips extending to the curls that framed her hairline. His lips brushed her forehead, his own resting against hers as he moved his mouth down to her nose.

“There’s never been a doubt in my mind that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. We just have to do it, you know? I mean... I love you. I think I’ve made that pretty obvious. We can make it.”

She smiled, her eyes trailing down from his earnest face to his wrists brushing against her chin.

“Sorry if that sounds cheesy, Pam. I just really think we can make this whole thing work. Pam? You can say something.” He laughed again, his eyes following hers down to her lap.

“It’s not like I don’t... I want it. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I don’t...”

“You don’t have to say that.” His hands fell from her face, finding her own on the cushion between them. His fingers curled around her knuckles while she shook her head, freeing her hair from behind her ears.

“The thing is I did this, you know? I mean, I know you know. It seemed the longer I was engaged, the less likely I was going to be married.”

“Because I’m exactly like Roy, that’ll probably be what happens.” He was mumbling now, his fingers still locked around her hands. It was actually starting to bother her, mostly because she was used to talking with her hands, but also because he was pressing harder the lower his voice dropped.

“I don’t mean it like that. You’re not, I mean... Don’t play dumb, Jim, you know I know you’re not. I’m a lot the same, though. I may be trying to evolve or whatever, but I’m still the same person as I was then.”

“And that’s why I want to marry you. I want that girl who gets scared by zombie movies and has three of the same colored cardigans and blushes when people talk about her hair whenever she changes it. I want her for the rest of my life.”

“I know. I just... I can’t do the whole engaged thing much longer. If we... were going to do this, I’d basically want to get married tomorrow. Why else be engaged, right? We’re fine right now; we’re great right now. I just don’t know if we’re ready to be... those married people, and that’s where I’d want to be if we were going to do... that. Am I making any sense? Because I don’t want you to... look at me like you’re looking at me now.”

His gaze had wandered back up to her neck, still too stubborn to look at her eyes as she rocked towards him, talking with the movements of her back because he was holding her hands prisoners. He shrugged and shook his head, sticking his bottom lip out.

“I don’t... Don’t worry about me. You didn’t have to say yes or anything, I just... I thought it’d be... Whatever.”

“Jim, this wasn’t a proposal. And I didn’t reject you; I just think...”

“That we’re not ready to get married. I understand. And I thought a proposal was just a promise that I... that we were going to get married. I didn’t know you needed a speech or a scoreboard flashing or something.”

“That’s not fair. I don’t need...”

“It’s cool. I was just wondering anyway.”

“Are you seriously going to be mad at me? Because it’s not like I want to... it’s not that I don’t want to be with you. Because I do. So much, Jim.” She leaned gently forward, but he ducked his face back down to look at his hands grasping hers. She sighed, frustrated.

“I’m not mad.”

“You just won’t kiss me.” She closed her eyes, shaking her head again.

“I think we should talk about this is all.”

“What is there to talk about? We’re the same people we were this morning. We didn’t have anything to talk about then.”

“You're right. We don’t have anything to talk about. Even though you don’t want to... Whatever. I’m just not going to... I’m going to go for a walk, I think.” He dropped her hands on the couch, grabbing the remote off the coffee table and shutting off the television.

“Jim...”

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you watching that?”

“God, stop it. You’re acting like a four year old.”

“You sure complain about me a lot. I understand. You know, if you don’t want to marry a dumb four year old. That makes sense. Especially since I’m only asking you to marry me to keep you around, not because I actually want to marry you. Who does that, right? Propose because I’d like to marry you. Soon. Crazy shit, right?”

“Why does this always have to be so hard? We can talk about anything, except ‘us.’” Her air quotes from her newly liberated fingers made him jerk his head away again and stand up.

“That’s because the easy thing to do would be to actually say yes when I tell you how I feel. Once. You know, for future reference.”

“Do not. Jim, that’s not fair.” She stood up too, her free hands sitting firmly on her waist.

“No I get it. You can’t marry me.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I wanted to marry you, just not right this second. I think that’s fair.”

“You’re right. You’re perfectly fair, and I’m being immature. I’m sorry, Pam. And I’m not mad.”

He walked out of the living room, barely registering the sound of her stomping after him. Grabbing his coat, he opened the door, not looking back when he noticed it didn’t close.

“Jim, you want to throw sarcastic lies at me? Fine, go ahead. I’m sorry I told you how I feel for once.” She was nearly shouting from the doorframe, feeling slightly like a trashy wife from COPS in her tee shirt and too big jeans, yelling after the man she loved as he ignored her. It almost made her cry. It would’ve, if the visual of her crying over her boyfriend as he walked away from her wasn’t even more pathetic.

Once he turned a corner, Jim reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, dark box. He popped it open, the diamond inside mocking him as it caught the light from the sun. It looked so hopeful.

He came back home around ten, wordlessly slipping into the bed beside her, turning on his side just as she had so they didn’t have to look at each other.

“I don’t want to break up,” he said, instead of good night.

“Me neither.”

“I want this to work.”

“Me too.”

“I’m not sorry.”