Jim and Pam are fictional characters and are the sole property of their creators and the network that broadcasts the show they inhabit (and hopefully, very soon again) and no copyright infringement on my part is either implied or intended.
I would also like to express my indebtedness to pjries for her welcomed technical assist.
Just a Kiss
He took the back stairs, wanting desperately to avoid her. Jim could just not bear to see Pam. Not now, not after letting those long, exquisitely soft fingers slip from his. The finality of her last silky touch, of letting go the one true dream he’d held onto for so long...was suffocating. He could not breathe. He did not want to breathe. Everything he’d kept bottled within ever since that day he unwittingly realized she’d become the absolute focus of his life...that she’d always be the focus of his life pressed in on him with a weight that only grew with each step that took him further away from her. There was no sound, no sight, no conscious reality...only the dull, gnawing pain of knowing that what had been his everything had really been nothing at all.
****
She started to cry. She couldn’t stop herself. He’d simply turned and walked silently away...never looking back, seeming to fade into the darkness that lurked beyond the shimmering blue electronic glow. Jarring the silence, the crisp metallic ‘click’ of the door as it closed behind Jim sounded ominously like the end of something. She didn’t know what...but in that single moment, Pam sensed a primal emptiness engulf her very being. Something had been lost...something that seemed frighteningly like a part of her. It was a sick, awful, terrifying feeling. One she didn’t understand and one she’d never expected, but one she instantly knew could never be taken back. The tears flowed in an uncontrolled flood of numbed confusion as the cold, stinging realness of what she was feeling scared her beyond reason.
****
There was no sense of time or place as Jim found himself in the cool night air. There was only the flash of memory...a shiny blue dress, a laugh...a smile and a questioning “I can’t” mixed with a low rush of voices and music coming from somewhere far beyond where his instincts had led him. He was here but somewhere else all at once, transported by an aching void to a dimension destitute of human feeling. He had to get away...it was his only chance to keep his head from exploding. But in some sub-level of consciousness, he knew there was no real escape from the romantic illusion that had haunted his every waking moment.
****
She sank into the chair...his chair, her mind flailing wildly out of control as the thought of having made some irreversible mistake overwhelmed her senses. Why did her dismissal of Jim’s declaration feel so wrong? Why did her body reel from the cold that shivered through her spine as though everything she’d convinced herself she ever wanted was nothing more than a convenient lie? Bits and pieces of a different reality whirled around her, a teasing glimpse but still well out of reach...a shiny yogurt lid transformed into a victorious smile, a stapler encased in Jell-o, a yearbook photo in an unknown yet somehow familiar room, a pale green teapot that held secrets she’d been unwilling to face and the warmth of a shoulder against which her dreams were not dismissed in a fog of condescending uncertainty.
****
In the darkness, Jim sped passed lights and sounds of familiar but unrecognized streets and buildings, his mind careening from the shards of a shattered past to a future unknown. He had no destination, no real point of focus. He was angry, confused and tired of it all. All it had led to was pain, but not the kind you could salve with a bandage and soft kiss...no, not just a kiss. There seemed to be no real escape, no relief as it followed him...relentless in its pursuit and torment...unwilling even to free him from the delusion that he’d lived with for years...that she actually loved him.
****
It was too much, these thoughts swirling randomly, chaotically, unmercifully. She needed air, something...anything to clear her head of all uncertainty... all guilt...all fear. She’d let this happen...not intentionally, but it came as no surprise. She’d seen the way he looked at her, the way he’d always looked at her. She liked it, wanted it...at times she craved it...seducing a reaction from him that made her feel almost whole. His attention fed her, nourishing her in a way Roy never could and she’d fooled herself into pretending that it didn’t really mean anything...well, that it really didn’t threaten anything...that it was safe.
****
He found himself parked on the river’s edge, miles from where he lived, miles from anywhere really. It didn’t matter because nothing really mattered now anyway...it was all a sham...wasn’t it? He was leaving. That’d been the plan, his plan in the first place. The answer to everything...but it wasn’t the answer at all. If it had been why had he told her? What was he looking for? If it was the answer, why the hell did he hurt so much? He didn’t know anymore and it really made no difference. She’d made that all so perfectly clear.
****
She walked too slowly past the spot where just earlier he’d unforgivably pierced the defenses of her safety zone, the zone she’d...no, they’d so carefully, so cautiously erected since that very first, wonderful, awkward, dangerous lunch they’d shared at Cuginos. He’d made her laugh and tingle and feel just a little bit free and he’d smiled and she’d let go of her cares, if only for a brief while. It had been so easy, so instant...but she’d been all too aware of just how uncomfortably nervous it made her...to feel so good about a man who wasn’t Roy. It frightened her...how he’d made her feel that day.
****
He welcomed the silence. Walking along the river, alone....in the darkness...all sound distant, muffled... his focus honed solely to the utter hollowness that overwhelmed and enraged him. He’d thought he was past it...this feeling of giving it all up...of giving her up. But she’d never really been his to give up anyway...had she? But why then, did it feel like something had been torn from him...from inside him? Why did it still feel that way? He quickened his pace trying to get away, from what he didn’t really know... maybe himself...maybe from her. But there was no getting away...not from the pain and not from his own failing. He’d told himself it had to stop. He’d told himself over and over, ever since that night on the lake when he’d come so close...when she’d let him come so close to showing her how he really felt...to saying everything he’d wanted to tell her forever. He thought he’d convinced himself. He’d been so sure, even eager once he’d spoken to Jan about Stamford. Sure that he’d put it all behind him. Sure that he could make a new start, find a new life...and maybe finally find a new love he could really call his own.
****
The soft hum of voices mixed with laughter that floated lazily from the warehouse offered an ironic counterpoint to the growing distress Pam felt as she neared the entrance to the parking lot. She silently prayed that no one would see her as she waited the few minutes for the cab to arrive. There was no way she was going to be able to go back to Michael’s casino night. She just couldn’t bring herself to face anyone. What would she do? Try to make believe that nothing had happened...that nothing had changed? That somehow she was the same person who had only stepped away from the poker table to say goodnight to her fiancée because he had to leave early? As much as she tried to deny it, as much as she tried to will it... everything had changed... nothing could really ever be the same again. Not after all this, not after the whole foundation of what she thought had been her life seemed to have imploded in the span of the last half hour because of five words and a kiss...his five words and his kiss!
****
He was out of breath as he turned the ignition. Returning to his car, he’d run nearly as fast as his mind had raced...but still, he found his thoughts outpacing every stride. The physical exertion felt good, even necessary...forcing him to focus on what he knew needed to be done. He couldn’t return to the office, his old desk...his past. And that’s exactly what he’d resolved to do...to make Scranton and everything and everyone in it his past. It still hurt and probably always would...but it would be so much worse to live it for another day. There was nothing more to say, nothing more he could tell her...he’d said it all that evening, finally. From now on there was only his future and the future would take him far away...to a different state. Time and distance would buffer the pain that tore at his heart. That’s what he needed and that’s what he hoped. He didn’t know if he’d ever feel anything for any other women the same way he felt about Pamela Beesly. And at this moment he was in no shape to judge his future desire or capacity for love. All he knew was that he had never experienced anything like the feelings he had for her. He couldn’t find words to really describe it. She had a pull on him like nothing else. From the very beginning, it had drawn him to her in a way that he seemed utterly powerless to oppose. Her smile, her laugh, the way that single lock of hair would inevitably fall away from behind her ear...the hypnotic beauty of her eyes and the pure softness of her skin were all lures that easily broke through any of his defenses. But those were merely physical and there was something much more primal to his attraction for her. She was like no other woman he’d ever known...bright, quick...talented. But above all, she’d remained both a wonder and mystery to him...in her warmth, her humor, in her caring nature and in her basic goodness. They were all a part of what he saw in her, what he got from her. But she just didn’t seem to really believe or trust in herself. He did...he believed in her and he’d tried to let her know that in so many ways. And, there had been times when he’d thought he’d seen a change in her eyes or in her demeanor that signaled some realization of her own inner strength and self-worth. He’d hoped that his love for her would at least help her realize there was so much more she might reach for...instead of what she seemed resolved to be settling for. But it hadn’t turned out that way. So now there was nothing left for him in Scranton. She’d made her choice...and it wasn’t him!
****
Pam couldn’t find an answer when the cab driver asked where she wanted to go. Just where did she want to go...that was the real question, wasn’t it? Home? Where was that? Where she slept? Where she kept her clothes? Where she cleaned and cooked a few meals each week? Where she lived...with Roy? Somehow that place hadn’t felt like home for some while now...not really like home. It was not the place where she could just relax, forget about her troubles and just be herself...just be who she really was or who she’d once wanted to be. And just who was this person living her life, anyway...this person she all too often barely recognized? With eyes closed and lips quivering she searched for answers to questions she should have already known. But answers wouldn’t come. It all just seemed a blur, a vain and repeatedly endless quest to find who she was or where she really belonged...especially tonight, especially after that kiss. That morning...Christ, even an hour ago she’d been sure she knew the answers. But now, nothing seemed sure...nothing felt the same or as clear as she’d thought...or at least hoped. Oh, why wouldn’t the answers come? Where was it that she really wanted to go? Where was it that she could dream, where she felt happiness and support, where she could feel appreciated and wanted? Where was this place...this one place where she really felt loved? As she sat alone in the back seat of the cab, her thoughts kept returning to only one place...not a place really...but to a feeling and sense that surged from somewhere deep inside...a sense she could no longer shake or deny. It was in the warmth of a caring and tender embrace in a dimly lit office...in the arms of one person who’d always been there for her, one person she could always count on, the one man who seemed to only want to understand her needs and encourage her hopes...it was in the arms of the man she hadn’t allowed herself to say “yes” to!
The End
