He heard the wedding was nice.  

The bride cried. The groom grabbed her ass during the first kiss, giving a proud thumbs up to his cat calling groomsmen. The bride cried harder. Kevin’s band was a hit. At last word, no honeymoon had been planned. 

Or so he’d heard. 

Jim hadn’t seen Pam in nearly six months. Not since that night. When he told her he loved her. When he kissed her. When she kissed him back.  

When she walked away anyway. 

It wasn’t as though he’d meant to do it. When he’d left Jan, her words rang in his ears. Have you told anyone? Maybe you should. As he slowly ambled back toward the party, his intentions were to tell Michael, tell Phyllis, tell Toby, tell the ones who mattered that he was thinking of transferring to Stamford. Maybe one of them would give him a reason to stay. 

He had his reasons outlined. He needed a change. He needed a challenge. He needed to grow up and take life seriously. 

As long as he veered the conversation away from ‘because I'm in love with Pam’, he thought he may be okay. 

But he’d stumbled across her in the parking lot, in her blue dress and her bright eyes and her playful smile. And he just loved her.  He was so in love with her, it hurt.

And he was so tired of hurting. 

He realized it was selfish of him to lay everything on her on that night, on a night when she was the happiest he’d ever seen her. But he couldn’t leave without letting her know. He couldn’t leave without her knowing how it could be if only she’d give him a chance. 

His words used to haunt him at night while he tossed and turned in bed, alone and lonely. 

Her stricken features still did. 

He didn’t know what possessed him to go back for more. Maybe it was the way her eyes widened at his admission, not so much in surprise at his feelings, but out of panic that he was finally putting it out there between them.  

Maybe it was in the soft, pained way she’d whispered I can’t, rather than I don’t. 

Or maybe he just wasn’t finished offering her his heart only to have her reluctantly crush it beneath her delicate new heels. 

Her mouth was soft against his and she tasted like raspberry. She tensed under his gentle grip for just a moment, taken by surprise by his kiss. He just squeezed his eyes shut and held on, feeling a strange sense of calm run over him when her arms slowly circled his neck and her fingers danced lightly in his hair. 

It had been the first time he let himself hope, those few seconds with her lips responding and her body pressing and their heavy breathing taking up the empty room. Then she pulled away and stared at him with an expression of curiosity and open desire – desperately masked with fear.  

Fear of what it all could mean. 

As it turned out, it hadn’t meant much. 

Because now, she was a married woman and he was in another state with a new job, new challenges, new co-workers, a new life. 

He sits in the back of the new office, near a window. He stares out the smooth, cold panes often and just thinks. Then he works, even if he has nothing to do, so he can stop thinking. Nothing would make him happier than to be able to stare blankly out of a window, to play free cell solitaire, to eat jelly beans, to breathe in and out, and not think of Pam. 

Of the way her fingers shook against his chest as she pushed him away. Of the tears in her eyes as she gazed up at him with such regret. Of the way she didn’t want to hurt him but she just…couldn’t. Of the way he just let her go because there was nothing else left to say. 

He’d put it all on the line and all he had to show for it was an email in his inbox that he couldn’t quite force himself to delete. It was dated June 12th, from Phyllis. Sweet, kind Phyllis. 

He could practically see her darting eyes and hear her soft voice, not wanting to cause him any pain, but thinking maybe he’d want to know. 

The wedding was nice. 

*** 

Her wedding had been nice. 

That was the main compliment she’d been given after her long-awaited nuptials. She would smile politely, say thank you, and then die a little more inside. 

Sunsets were nice. Getting paid on Thursdays is nice. Angela’s cats are nice.   

Weddings were supposed to be beautiful. Joyous. Magical. Unforgettable. The happiest day of her life. 

But nice…just about covered it. 

After waiting close to ten years to finally make it official, Pam had thought marrying her high school sweetheart, her first kiss, her first love, would be like a sigh of relief. That all those years hadn’t been wasted. That it had all been worth it, all the doubts, all the second guessing, all the unfulfilled, unsupported dreams, all the sleepless nights wondering if there was more out there. 

She wanted to be able to look into his eyes, hold his hands, say her vows, kiss him for the first time as his wife – and just know. 

But she couldn’t. And if she were honest with herself, just this once, she knew that she had no one to blame but herself. 

The phone rang beside her and she reached for it on autopilot, never taking her eyes off of the empty chair ten feet in front of her.  “Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam. I’ll transfer you.” 

Sometimes, if she stared long enough, she could somehow conjure him up before eyes. He’d be looking blankly ahead but then he’d turn and flash his signature lopsided grin. His eyes would magically start to sparkle, a dramatic shift from the usual dead-eyed gaze of boredom he usually sported around the office. 

The images were a cruel joke her subconscious liked to pull on her at random moments. And it made her ache. In her gut, in her heart. Jim was gone and she missed him. It was all she would allow herself to feel in his absence.  

His absence. She couldn’t even admit that he was never coming back.  

After all, she was the expert in denial. 

 It wasn’t that she didn’t love her husband. She did. After all the things they’d shared together, it was probably the only thing she was sure of. In fact, she was certain that she would always love Roy. It was so ingrained in her. 

After she had left Jim that night, her denial rapidly shifted to anger. It made it so much easier to deal with the way his eyes penetrated right through her. How dare he make her doubt herself? Doubt everything she’d built her life on since she was a gawky 16 year old madly in love with the high school quarterback.  

She had gone home that night, with the feel of Jim’s mouth still burning hers, and woken Roy. His hair was rumpled, his cheeks tattooed with red lines, and his eyes bleary with sleep. Seeing him that way made her suffocate in her guilt. He looked like a confused child, so innocent. 

This was Roy. Her Roy. He represented everything she knew to be true in her life. Her safe choices. Her safe life. Her safe love. 

She had climbed into bed and kissed him in a way that took him by surprise. Her dress ended up in a crumpled heap somewhere under the covers. She closed her eyes tight and touched him, needing this for just one night.  

His chest was smooth and firm, his touch was gentle, his hair soft and long enough to wrap her fingers through. She tasted peppermint on his tongue rather than beer and morning breath. There was soft whispers of love because no matter how many times he told her, it would never be enough.  

She made herself a promise that she would never do it again. She just had to know.  

Just once.  

She didn’t sleep that night. Roy had rolled over and went back to sleep, not hearing her quiet cries.  The tears trickled out of her eyes, slowly at first. Then without abandon.

For every memory of reading palms and air high fives and unspoken conversations and fabric softener and From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, there were responsibilities and obligations and years of history.  

She was going to be picking up her wedding dress with his mother that next day. Her wedding shower was that weekend. His sister was pregnant and she was going to be an aunt. Her father had already bought Roy a ticket to the season opener of the Eagles game. 

They were getting married in three weeks. She couldn’t possibly. She didn’t even know how she could. It just was what it was.  

And no amount of grilled cheese sandwiches and fireworks and swaying, no amount of yearbook pictures and teal teapots, no amount of stolen kisses in the dark that make her toes curl and her heart race and her stomach drop and her skin flush… 

No. This was her life. And she was happy. She was. 

She had a husband who loved her. Who came home every night, who made an honest living, who fixed things around their house, who would never ever leave her.

Jim was gone now. He left without saying goodbye. And as much as it hurt, he probably wasn't going to come back. 

She would just have to get used to having a hole in her heart when she looked at his empty chair. When she rode the elevator by herself. When she overheard Angela and Dwight discussing their favorite desserts with such obvious undertones it made her skin crawl. When she breathed in and out. 

Because this was her life now.  

And it was nice.