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He should call a customer. He should enter an order. Anything to distract himself. Anything to keep himself from thinking about it all again.
He knew Pam was looking at him. He knew before too long, he would turn around. Raise his eyebrow. Give a little smirk. Make one of his faces. Anything that says things are normal.
Because that what he does for her. That’s what he’s always done for her. He makes it all ok. He helps her feel comfortable. He didn’t push her on Roy. He didn’t push her about answering phones for a living. He just told another joke and smiled.
But things had changed. He had been in love with her for so long, he had stopped examining the whys. Until last week.
He had been nearly asleep. He was adrift in his consciousness. And then a part of him spoke. Jim sat up in bed. He was frightened and tried to push the thought away.
But it followed him. He tried to ignore it but he had to go to work. And every day at work was a replay of the last three years. She was the first thing he saw when he got there. They would speak. Laugh about something. Nothing too serious, just surface. Maybe another inane conversation about jelly beans. Because Pam was always ready to play the gatekeeper, to shut things down. At least until the next day. Then she would give him that smile as he came through the door and they would start again.
So he tried to disprove the thought. But every argument he made ended up turning against him. All those moments that they had shared. Moments he believed had held so much promise. Each one a possibility. A starting point. The first chapter in the story of Jim and Pam. None of them had bore fruit, but his hope lay in their collective weight. But now he knew better. Because he finally understood why he loved Pam. It was because he hated himself.
Why else had he picked someone who was immediately unavailable? Why else had he made himself into an emotional cuckold? Why else had he fallen for someone so incapable of change? Because it was punishment, plain and simple.
That’s why it didn’t matter that he was with Karen. That’s why it didn’t matter that she was beautiful. Or that she was equal parts confident and submissive in the bedroom. Or that she wasn’t afraid of change. Or that she wouldn’t have allowed either of them to get in stuck in Scranton or at Dunder Mifflin.
And all that should have been enough, but there was still something more. She was Pam’s exact opposite.
He should want that. He should want all of that.
But he didn’t. He wanted Pam. He wanted someone that would stay in a loveless relationship because she was too scared to take a chance on something else. Someone who allowed their dreams to be destroyed because of geography, because “They don’t have houses like that in Scranton”. He wanted someone who let Michael push them around. There were only two people in the office that allowed that to happen and the other one was Dwight. He laughed out loud at this thought. He catch Pam’s eye. She was smiling. She was waiting for the joke.
This was who he loved. Someone that didn’t even love herself.
Why would you love someone like that? Especially when the alternative was available. This is the thought that haunted him. This is what he had been asking himself for a week. And the only answer he could come to, the only thing that made sense, was that Jim was the same way. That he didn’t love himself.
Pam was still looking at him. He smiled at her. Gave her his best Jim face.
She smiled at him and Jim suddenly knew that they would end up together.
He would fuck things up with Karen. Probably do the same with this upcoming interview with David Wallace. Because that’s what people who hate themselves do.
So he would stay in this town. And in this job. And she would do the same. From that point, it would only be a matter of time. And then, Jim would finally have what he wanted.
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