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Story Notes:

This is just a little idea that came to my mind while working on The Devil (and Angel) in Pam Beesly. I know that there aren't many fics like this here on MTT, but I thought I'd give it a try.

The inspiration for this came from me thinking about why Angela chooses to be the things that she is, and from how happy she was in "Traveling Salesman" over the fact that Dwight "must really like her."

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Chapter Notes:

Story title comes from 1 Corinthians 13:4.

Chapter title comes from 1 Corinthians 13:7.

 

Angela sighed loudly and reached for the Wite-Out to correct the fifth mistake she had found in Kevin’s work so far. How a professional Accountant who could not add the simplest figures was still employed at Dunder-Mifflin was beyond her comprehension.

Why was it so much to ask for competence from people? Why couldn’t other people put the same dedication and effort into their work that she did? Why couldn’t other people feel the same way about things that she did?….

She tried to push the last question out of her mind as she looked over at Dwight. It wasn’t appropriate to concentrate on something not work related while she was being paid to be the Head Accountant….but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop worrying about it.

What if she had done it again?

What if she had completely trusted and loved someone who was only going to break her heart?

It was the one thing, above all others, that she had sworn to herself that she’d never let happen again. She wasn’t going to be the victim. Someone left to cry and wonder how they were going to put their life back together while the other person just moved on like nothing had happened.

She tried to re-focus on her work, on the mistakes and the numbers in front of her, on the things that made sense and she could fix, but it didn’t work. It had been over ten years ago, and she still hadn’t completely shaken him or the hurt that he had left her with.

It had started after she had graduated college. For those four years she had lived by herself in a small apartment adjacent to campus, trying to broaden her horizons, and prove to herself that she could be independent and a success on her own. She put up prints of Velazquez, El Greco, and Manet. In her junior year she traveled to Madrid to the Museo del Prado, and then to the Church of Santó Tome in Toledo to see The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. She read Philip Roth, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, and tried to read Thomas Pynchon, but decided it was a lost cause.

She joined organizations, clubs, and helped to plan different events. After her trip to Spain, she found herself gravitating more and more towards Christian based ones, but didn’t stay exclusive to them. The one thing she really enjoyed was organizing events, because everyone said that she was the best person to do it. It was something she took pride in, and the camaraderie was welcome.

After graduating summa cum laude, and with Honors, she thought about maybe moving to New York City and working as an Accountant with some big firm. She could live like she had the past four years, and maybe save enough money to travel to Paris and see The Louvre. There were so many options, and her future looked bright. But then her mom had gotten worse.

Her mom had been sick for a long time. Really, ever since her dad had left the both of them. It probably wasn’t a coincidence. But this time was different, this time it was worse than it ever had been before. She didn’t have a choice, she moved back home to take care of her.

She worked nights while her mom slept, so that she could take care of her during the day. It was exhausting and she was tired constantly. The only time that she got out of the house was when they both went to Church every Sunday morning and various other times. It was there that she met him, Alex.

She was a little ashamed of it, considering the fact that she was 22, but she had never had a boyfriend before. It wasn’t that she didn’t notice men, or anything like that, it was that she was simply living her own life and didn’t have the time or the inclination. Her friends would ask her out on Friday nights to go to bars, or parties, or wherever it was there was alcohol and guys, but she always declined. She’d rather just curl up with a quilt and Dostoevsky. She wanted to be in love, not just underneath someone for the night. And anyway, she had more than enough to keep her occupied.

But, now she was so alone, and her life had grinded to a standstill. Even so, she hadn’t been looking for it, and certainly not in Church. But one day, he had sat down next to her, and they had to share a Bible. She tried not to notice how cute he was, and admonished herself for thinking such thoughts in the first place, but even more so considering the circumstances.

Time had blurred the finest details, but she still remembered him well. He was tall, with chestnut hair that got curly when it was humid out. He had a well-kept beard, piercing blue eyes, and a solid frame that filled out shirts in a broad way that made her palms sweat. The most striking thing about him was his smile. It wasn’t just that his teeth were so straight and white, but the fact that when he smiled he used his entire face. His cheeks rose up and made wrinkles around his eyes. Eyes, which held a wonderful warmth in them.

She had taken it upon herself to help the Church to organize various events throughout the year. It helped her feel like she was doing something important, and connected her back to college a little. She noticed for the first time that Alex helped as well, and as they were usually the two youngest people there, they typically fell into conversation with one another.

It was six months of event planning, sitting in the same pew on Sunday, and brief conversation after the service before he had asked her out. She wasn’t sure at first what to say. Her mom was still sick and needed her to be around, to have her attention. But, also, and maybe more truthfully, she was scared. She didn’t know how to be a “date” or a “girlfriend” to anyone. Despite all that she had read and experienced, she had avoided the one thing that it seemed like everyone had learned. How to connect with someone else, and how to love someone else.

Their first date had been a lot of nerves, broken eye contact, and trying to get to know each other outside the confines of Church. They had gotten coffee, and just talked for almost two hours. It was so nice, just to be able to talk unfettered to someone her own age again, and someone who listened to her and found her interesting.

Soon afterwards they were officially a couple, even though she imagined their dates were extremely G rated when she compared them to stories she had heard in college and from scraps of conversation she overheard in the break room at work. But, she wanted it to be like that.

She told herself that the reason she didn’t want to go beyond kissing, and….touching, was that she wanted him to respect her. No man would respect any woman who just jumped into bed with them, and more than that, premarital sex wasn’t something that she wished to participate in. If he loved her, and truly wanted to be with her, than he would be patient and understand.

However, she knew that wasn’t the whole truth. The fact was that she was nervous about sex. She was 22 and had absolutely no experience with it, the whole thing was so embarrassing. Most women were probably experts by now, and knew how to do all of that.

He didn’t pressure her. They made out some, and occasionally it went a little beyond that, but it went no further. They kept getting to know each other, kept talking, and spending more and more time together.

He was her only friend, and the only person she got to see past her mother. Pretty soon, whenever they weren’t together she thought about him. When he was around it seemed like all the bad things, like the fact that she was going nowhere in life, and that her dreams had been at least delayed, if not destroyed, just didn’t matter. She just felt happy, warm inside, and couldn’t stop smiling most of the time.

It was a little before their first anniversary when she knew that she loved him, and that he was it. The man she had been waiting for, the man who she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Unlike most men, he hadn’t broken up with her over the fact that she wasn’t ready for sex, even though she was now 23.

It was then that she decided it was time. She knew that The Bible said premarital sex was a sin, and she was a good Christian. But, she loved him, and he loved her, and wasn’t that was what was really important? She knew that they were going to get married, that they were going to become man and wife, and spend their lives together. So, could God really find her in sin if she started a little early?

On their first anniversary she and Alex had sex for their first time, and her first time. Even though she was incredible nervous, she was still shocked by the intimacy of it. It wasn’t that it had felt all that great, in fact it hadn’t, but the fact they were so connected for those moments still caught her breath short. They had finally become one flesh.

For several months afterwards, she and Alex continued to be intimate, and she finally let herself go. As terrifying as it was, she trusted him completely, and gave herself to him completely. How could she not? He had been so patient and kind. He had waited for her.

To be connected with someone like she was, felt extraordinary, and she wanted to feel like that forever. All that remained was to wait patiently for the proposal, for them to make their connection right in the eyes of God.

She still remembered that it had been an unusually cool day when it happened because she had hung up her buttercup colored winter jacket on the rack when she entered his apartment. She had come over to tell him she had gotten an interview to be an Accountant at a local firm, and that her mom was starting to feel better. Her happiness almost physically propelled her down the hallway. It was a heady dizziness of the realization that her life was finally getting to be where she always dreamed it could be.

It was then that her life had changed irrevocably.

His car was in the parking lot, so she knew that he was at home, and his apartment wasn’t that big, so he had to be in the bedroom. But he wasn’t the only one. When she opened the door she saw a hot blur of skin and tangled sheets. It had taken several seconds for either one of them to notice her in the doorway, where she had stood motionless, taking the entire scene in.

However, after a couple seconds she had overcome her shock, and stumbled backwards, her back hitting the opposite wall, and her hand covering her mouth. Alex had tried to scramble over to her, offering some type of explanation, but she could only see his lips move, there was no noise.

She had walked dizzily out into the living room, desperately trying to just get away from the bedroom. The shock slowly draining from her, and in its place rushed in rage. She had trusted him, loved him, given herself to him both physically and spiritually, and this was what he did? He betrayed her with another woman? She loved him completely, had trusted him completely….

Her jacket was half on when she noticed the picture of the two of them on his coffee table. It had been taken when they went to the park several months ago, and she was kissing his cheek and smiling. It was actually her favorite picture of them, and she had made the frame and given it to him for Christmas.

Without thinking about it, she walked over to it, picked it up, and threw it as hard as she could across the room. The glass shattered on the far wall in the kitchen, and she walked out of the apartment.

She had to pull over twice on her way back home because she was crying so hard. Suddenly, she didn’t know what to do with her life again. What had been the point of her life so far? All of this art that she loved, all of these authors that she read, what did it get her? There was no wisdom there, and no purpose. She was unloved, unwanted, and uncared for. The first thing that she did when she finally got home was take everything that reminded her of her past, of college, and happier times, and put it in a box and take it to the attic.

She resolutely decided that she was going to be a different person. She wasn’t going to be trusting of other people, and she wasn’t going to love so easily. She didn’t need to. Because, when you did that, what did you do but give people the power to hurt you deeply? It wasn’t worth it, and she shut down inside.

Luckily, he stopped coming to Church after that, and it became her sanctuary. It seemed simple to her in retrospect. She had strayed from the words of God, and so she was punished accordingly. Why had she ever rationalized her way into a sexual relationship with him? Here, in one book, were guidelines that would provide her with a life fulfilled and pure. Her reward was obviously not in this life, and was therefore in the next one. She just had to be patient and have faith in herself and in a higher power. She could….

“Angela? Um, are you okay?”

Angela blinked her eyes, which had become watery in remembrance and looked up at the source of the voice. It was Pam with a stack of papers for her. She glanced over quickly at Kevin, who was busy reading some pornographic magazine, and then to Oscar’s empty desk because he was out sick, before she looked up at her.

“No.” She didn’t trust Pam. She was flirtatious and the way that she had bounced from Roy to Jim, reminded her of the kind of woman that was probably in bed with Alex that day. But, she also was the only person in the office that knew about Dwight, and she had gotten Roy to propose to her once. So she must know how to get a man to do it. Maybe there was a trick, something that you had to do to get them to feel the same way about you as you do about them.

“Do you think we could talk in the restroom?” She spoke quietly. She would be mortified if Kevin overheard anything personal that she had to say.

“Oh. Um, okay sure Angela.” Pam smiled at her, and then turned and walked towards the restroom. She waited for her to get a few paces away from her before she stood up and followed.

If anyone could help her, it would be Pam.

Chapter End Notes:

 

I hope that you found it believable. It is definitely a somewhat radical interpretation of how Angela got to be what she is today, but what's fic for, if not for that?

I definitely appreciate feedback and comments on what you thought of the chapter. Thanks for reading.


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