I.

Pam kicks the blankets impatiently from around her feet. She feels confined, stifled, trapped…she’d like to blame the blankets, but she can’t. Her jerky movements cause Roy to jerk in his sleep, but he merely rolls over and continues his light snoring. He sleeps so soundly, he didn’t hear how late she finally crept in, her sniffling, stifled crying, or now, her restless thrashing.

Pam’s skin tingles as though it is still being touched, caressed, held…she’d like to blame him, but she can’t. She knows that the attraction is mutual. She knows that she’s indulged her feelings over these years, that in some ways she’s led him on, that he hasn’t misinterpreted anything. Pam rolls over again, gripping her pillow over her head as though she could block out the temptation she’d felt to stay in his arms. But she’s in a committed relationship. That means you don’t…you absolutely do not…

Their words, their actions, replay themselves through her head like a script. “I’m in love with you,” he’d said. In love. In love with her. And he’d kissed her and she’d kissed back, and it was like drowning and like flying. She licks her lips, remembering.

 “Are you really going to marry him?” he’d asked. She had nodded. Yes. Yes, of course. She peeks from under the pillow at Roy’s sleeping bulk.

“I can’t,” she’d said. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. Pushing the pillow away, she stares at the ceiling and tries to decide what she means.