The grey sky spit rain on Pam’s car as she pulled into the parking lot at Dunder Mifflin, and she absently wondered how much longer until this seemingly perpetual rain eventually turned into snow. Even a few feet of snow would be better than days and days of rain. Her mood was already dark and gloomy without the weather adding to her depression, and the day was just beginning. She had the next eight hours of Michael being Michael to look forward to, followed by another drive in the rain back to her small, lonely, empty apartment. A microwave dinner and a half-empty bottle of wine were the only things waiting for her there, and when she finished them both, she would go to bed early and start all over again tomorrow.
Such was life in Scranton without Jim. All these years she put up with Michael’s antics, Dwight’s weirdness, and Angela’s glares with little more than mild irritation. Jim had a way of making it all so amusing instead of maddening. He made it a joke between them, a way to pass the time. With him sitting just a few feet away, answering phones at Dunder Mifflin didn’t seem like such a bad deal. For eight hours – and only those eight hours – she was happy. She was content being Pam. She was exactly who she wanted to be and she was exactly where she wanted to be. It didn’t matter what was waiting for her at home or what was waiting for her the rest of her life. As long as she had him for those eight hours a day, she would be okay with whatever else she received.
Now as she parked her care and stared up at the building, all she could think about was how much of her life she wasted here. She used to think it was fate that brought her here, that she was here for a reason. Roy suggested (read: demanded) she take this job so she would be nearby, so he would always know what she was doing. With her in close proximity, he could keep an eye on her and always be confident she wasn’t straying. But he didn’t count on his little plan backfiring. He didn’t count on Jim Halpert, so the joke was really on him. He thought her job here was giving him more control, and instead, it led her to the one man who eventually gave her the courage to escape. It was funny, at first, until she showed up to work on Monday morning, newly single and ready to start a new life, only to discover Jim was gone. So here she was, alone for the first time and realising just how terrible her life was without Jim Halpert in it.
Nothing made her laugh anymore. Michael still made asinine comments and called ridiculous meetings. Dwight was still a moron with way too many bobble heads. Kelly was still as crazy and obnoxious as ever, and Ryan was still reluctantly dealing with it. But none of it amused her. In fact, it all made her more depressed, more hopeless. This was her life, and every day she spent here was one less day she truly felt alive. Answering phones for a paper company was hardly the fantasy she imagined as a little girl, but what else did she have? She couldn’t just quit working and become an artist. Her rent was hard enough for her to handle on her own. Starting a brand new life at twenty-seven wasn’t really the ideal situation, so until she managed to save up some money, she was stuck here. Dunder Mifflin was taking her nowhere, Scranton was a far cry from Paris or London or even New York, and every day she felt a little more alone.
So maybe the joke was on her after all. Roy brought her to this place and gave her a chance to escape, but she waited too long to take it. Jim was the answer, but she hurt him too much to ever go back. She should have just held onto him when she had the chance. When his lips finally met hers, when his arms finally looped around her waist, when she finally cupped his face in her hands, she should never have let go. She deceived herself when she said she had time to figure it out. She spent ten years with a man who used her, manipulated her, and hurt her in every way. Ten years going nowhere, ten years that almost became a lifetime. The moment Jim Halpert confessed he was in love with her, she should have marched straight to Roy and told him it was over. At the time every instinct in her brain screamed yes, but her desire to protect herself and Jim won out for two long, painful days. When she finally decided to get away, she didn’t think those two days would matter. She hadn’t seen the urgency and the desperation in Jim’s eyes. She didn’t realise his confession was the last thing keeping him in Scranton. The moment she turned him down, she lost him forever, and she should have known from the single tear he shed.
Maybe she didn’t want to see it. She was a coward after all. Only a coward would stay for ten years of Roy’s bullshit and actually consider more. Only a coward would turn down her best friend. Jim wanted her, wanted to be with her, wanted to help her make all her dreams come true. Jim would buy a house with a terrace, even if they had to leave Scranton. Jim wanted her to take the internship. He wanted her to be an artist, and more than that, he believed she could. He believed in everything she did. So how could she even entertain the notion of marrying someone whose only concern was himself? It was insane and stupid and now there was nothing left for her at Dunder Mifflin except stale memories and ghosts of the past. Pranks they played, laughter they shared, wistful smiles, post-it notes and instant messages and stolen touches and oh-so-many daydreams. The things that used to get her through the day now haunted her hours, and the job that once felt like escape now felt like a prison. Jim was the only thing that made this place feel okay. Jim was the only one who made her feel okay. She wanted to be angry with him for abandoning her without even telling her about the promotion, but at the end of the day, she knew it was no one’s fault but her own.
Stamford felt so impossibly far away. Maybe it was just a phone call or a drive, but every time she picked up the phone and thought about dialling the numbers, she realised the distance was about so much more than miles. There was a reason he didn’t tell her he was leaving soon. He wanted her to tell him she loved him without being coerced. If he told her he was leaving she just might have said anything to keep him from leaving her here alone. He wanted her own confession to be as sincere and heartfelt as his, and if he told her he was leaving, it would almost be an ultimatum. Love me or I’m gone forever. Her refusal, not the distance, was what made him so far away from her. So much hurt filled the miles between them, and she didn’t know how to make it right.
He loved her. He spent years of his life loving her and receiving nothing in return. She had a million and one chances to reciprocate, to get some guts and actually love him back instead of offering little bits and pieces of herself. As much as she wanted to call him and tell him about Roy, about what had really been happening all these years, she wasn’t even sure he wanted to hear it anymore. Too little too late. Would it really make a difference now if he knew? Would he even care after what she did to him? She used him almost as much as Roy used her. She asked him to be her saviour, but she didn’t even have the courage to tell him what he was saving her from. She had her chance, and she let it slip right through her fingers. She didn’t deserve another, so every time she thought about jumping into her car and driving to Connecticut, she thought about the pain on his face when she said no and reconsidered.
It was far too late. There would be no going back now. And at least she wasn’t with Roy anymore. At least she had a new apartment that was hers and hers alone. It wasn’t much, but she was on her own for the first time in her life. She tried to think about that every time the despair dragged her into its inky depths, reminding herself over and over that she was finally free. There was no yelling to make dinner or retrieve a beer from the fridge. There was no one screaming and throwing punches when he got too drunk. She could watch what she wanted on TV. She could paint whenever she felt like it without feeling the need to hide. She could get online and look at pictures of houses with terraces and daydream about a life in which that was possible.
But she missed him. God, she missed him so much. She missed playing pranks, missed jelly beans and grape soda and jinxes. She missed the predictable ham and cheese sandwich and the floppy haircut that kept him looking so young. She missed the smile that made her feel like everything was going to be okay, even when the bruises lurked beneath her clothes and screamed that nothing was alright. She missed conversations about music that wasn’t on the Top 40 and movies they couldn’t find in Scranton and oh my gosh, that ridiculous thing Dwight did this morning. She missed the looks, the jokes, the expressions. She missed absolutely everything that made him so uniquely him. She told him once she would blow her brains out if he ever left, and she was just now realising how very true that was.
By the time she realised she was still sitting in her car thinking about Jim, she was already twenty minutes late for work. Every day her tardiness became a bit more of a problem, but Dwight was the only one who really seemed to notice. Even twenty minutes late she beat Michael here, so it really didn’t matter. At this point, she wasn’t sure how much losing her job would really affect her anyway.
When she wandered upstairs and listlessly hung up her coat, not even Dwight seemed to notice she was late. If he did, maybe he’d actually developed enough sensitivity to realise she was spiralling downward and just leave her alone about her rather minor transgression. The light on the phone wasn’t flashing red, so no one had probably called to buy paper this morning anyway.
After an hour, she was already exceptionally bored again. Michael was in trouble for something he’d done – or hadn’t done – and was locked in his office trying to explain himself to Jan. After three games of free cell and two faxes, her mind drifted to its usual resting point – Jim. She wondered if he’d even heard anything about the wedding. Sometimes when things were especially dull, she started to daydream about him hearing the news….from Phyllis, maybe, or Kelly. Kelly would definitely tell him more than he ever wanted to know. And then there was Michael with his meddling. Maybe someday soon he would hear from someone that the wedding never happened, and he would be back in Scraton to sweep her into his arms and rescue her from the loneliness and self-loathing now encompassing her life. He only stayed away because he didn’t want to sit by and watch her become Mrs. Roy Anderson, but the moment he found out she was still just Pam Beesly - his Pam Beesly – he would come retrieve her, maybe take her to Stamford with him, far away from the catastrophe she made for herself here.
It was a silly dream, and she knew despite the fantasy, she needed to be the one to rescue herself. He could only do so much to help her, and she already relied on him for far too long. Even though she missed him with every fibre of her being, the rational, sane part of her mind told her it was right he wasn’t here. Not now. Not yet. It would so easy to fall into a brand new relationship when she still worse so many scars – literal and figurative – from the old one. It wasn’t Roy’s blows that hurt her the most. It was the words that cut to the bone, the inadequacies he heaped upon her, the way he made her feel so insignificant and worthless. If Jim loved her it couldn’t all be true, but it wasn’t fair to be with him when she was still so broken. She just wished she could look into the future and see if they were there together or if she really had done too little too late. If she was just waiting for the right timing, the right moment to call him and tell him the truth, being alone wouldn’t be so horribly painful. She could wait for him. She’d been waiting so long already….a few more months of healing wouldn’t be so bad. But every day that passed without a phone call or a text or an e-mail or an IM, she was sure she would never talk to him again.
And that thought was, quite simply, unbearable.
A month after he left Scranton, she started writing e-mails. She would type his address and his name and just start pouring out the thoughts.
Jim,
There are so many things I need to tell you. I don’t know quite where to start except to tell you I didn’t marry him. Two days after you kissed me and told me you loved me, I broke up with him. Maybe you’re wondering why it even took me two days to come to that conclusion. I guess maybe I’m wondering the same thing. It’s just that….we’d been together so long, and I was so afraid…
No, that wasn’t right. Too many excuses.
Jim,
As you’ve probably heard by now, I’m not married. Thank God, right? Pam Anderson? That’s just wrong.
No. As easy as it would be to use humour, this was one thing neither of them could laugh about.
Jim,
Hey, how’s Stamford? Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? I’m guessing you knew about it long before Casino Night. Is that what you were going to tell me? Is that what you really wanted to say when you confessed that you loved me? Maybe that would have been a better way to start. “Hey Pam, I can’t be around you anymore when you’re with him, so I’m moving to Stamford and out of your life forever.” It might have made me think twice before I rejected you.
Too harsh. It wasn’t his fault she was a coward.
Jim,
Dwight has become more strange since you left. Impossible, you say? Well, just wait until you hear this…
Yeah, right. Like she could just pretend nothing ever happened. He would delete that e-mail and never think about her again.
And then there was one. It was the only one that sounded right, the only one that would adequately convey what was happening, what she was feeling, what he missed since he left her.
Jim,
I’m not married. I love you.
Come home,
Pam.
She typed it a hundred times a day. She recited the words in her head. She turned to look at him and saw Ryan instead, and she opened her e-mail, determined to send it.
But she never did. She wished she could. She wished she would just gather the courage and do it. But if she sent that e-mail, she opened herself up to a whole new world of hurt. Because eventually she would receive a response. In it, he would inevitably tell her it was too late. Thanks, but no thanks, he would say. Or maybe he would try to be her friend again. Maybe he would congratulate her for getting away from Roy and remind her that she always deserved better than him. Then he would tell her about his life in Stamford and how much better it was. His new boss probably wasn’t an idiot. His co-workers weren’t annoying and stupid and obsessed with Battlestar Galactic, bears, and beets. He didn’t feel the need to put anyone’s stuff in jello anymore. He had a great new apartment and great new friends, and maybe even a great new girl. She would be beautiful, of course, and smart and funny and going somewhere with her life. She would have dreams she actually tried to achieve, and she would be bold and brave the way Pam never was. He would realise that his infatuation with her had been nothing more than a silly crush borne of too much boredom in the office and a curiosity with something he couldn’t have. Maybe he would apologise for telling her he loved her and chalk it up to a weird night and nerves about his upcoming promotion. Then he would end with a half-hearted invitation to come visit. He would offer to show her around Stamford, and she would reply with an enthusiastic acceptance and never make any effort to actually drive up to see him. They would e-mail every few days for a few weeks, then once a week, then once a week, and then not at all. He would settle down with the beautiful new girl and never think of Pam again.
She had given this a lot of thought.
And she just couldn’t do it. Her heart had been broken too many times to count, and she couldn’t put herself out there to let it get shattered again.
Maybe someday he would come back and they could pick up where they left off. Maybe not. Either way, she needed to learn to be content with what she had right now. She needed to discover herself again. She needed to figure out who she was. She needed to paint and dream and be okay with just being Pam.
Maybe then she would be okay with or without Jim Halpert.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for reading and reviewing! Here comes the first real chapter! I forgot to mention last time that the story title comes from Kendall Payne's song by the same name. Gorgeous song - check it out!
