She saw the iPod as she was packing her stuff into boxes. It had been tucked away in a drawer for months. She never listened to it anymore; the memories were too painful. She started to pack it, but then decided she would leave it for Roy.

--------------

She had fretted all afternoon about what to do, and decided in the end that, while Jim was a good friend, he was just a friend, and it would be improper somehow for her to get so sentimental about a teapot. She certainly didn’t relish the idea of explaining it to Roy. So, she uneasily decided to keep the iPod, though she doubted herself every time she saw Jim’s sad expression. He left the party early, saying a terse goodbye, claiming he was tired. She started to apologize, but before she could even get started on it he had turned away and headed out the door.

The uneasy feeling lingered through the weekend, compounded by Roy’s lousy mood and the chaos at the stores as she shopped, alone, while he hung out with Kenny watching television. She was, absurdly enough, anxious for Monday. She and Jim would talk and reconnect, and she would apologize and let him know how much she really did appreciate the thought, and everything would be okay.

She got in early, before Jim but of course after Dwight. The teapot was sitting on his desk. His expression was oddly smug. He looked like the cat who ate the canary. What could be up with him? She didn’t want to know. She had thought she might try to persuade him to give up the teapot to her, but she didn’t like her chances of success and decided dealing with him and this time of the morning was too daunting, particularly given his odd expression.

Jim came in, looking tired and blank faced, and offered her only the most cursory nod and good morning as he plopped in his chair. She hoped he would wander over to talk soon, and she could reassure herself that things were okay between them.

Instead, the horror unfolded. The reason for Dwight’s smugness became apparent. He pulled a frame picture from his drawer and placed it, quite ceremoniously on his desk. He was practically laughing out loud. Jim finally took the bait.

“What is it, Dwight?”

“I received a picture with my teapot. I found the picture so inspiring I decided to have it blown up and framed. It will remind me every day of what I don’t want to be.”

Pam stepped over to see what he was talking about, and saw to her great puzzlement and distress that it was Jim’s yearbook picture. As she pieced together the likelihood that the picture had been placed in the teapot met for her, she saw Jim’s face. His expression was not merely one of annoyance, but of despair, defeat. He would not meet her eyes.

“That’s great, Dwight,” he said in a flat voice. “Just great. Well done.” He shook his head and stared at his computer screen, not willing to face Dwight’s gloating.

Pam desperately tried to save the situation. “Dwight, come on. That wasn’t meant for you.” She searched her mind for what to say that might work. “Name your price.”

“I think this picture is quite priceless, actually. You may have this other junk, though.” He handed her a timer, a golf pencil, and a packet of hot sauce.

She stood confused for a moment, registering what they were, putting the pieces together. Her heart sunk even more. Jim continued to simply not acknowledge that anything was going on; he simply stared at his computer screen.

She kept trying with Dwight, but unfortunately, her obvious desperation to get the picture only increased his determination to keep it, and all her entreaties were ignored or deflected. She reassured herself that she would steal the picture at her first opportunity, then thought with dismay that he might well have a safe beneath his desk somewhere.

She slunk back to her desk in defeat, and IM’ed Jim.

A reply didn’t come for a minute.

Jim read her response. He wasn’t much for metaphors, but he couldn’t help thinking that the whole scenario summed everything up just perfectly. He had so much he wanted to give her, but she wouldn’t take it, and it was all just a big mess. He didn’t reply to her IM, but made a sales call and resolutely refused to meet her eyes the rest of the day.

She tried over and over again over the next several days to get things back to normal. She at least did manage to steal the picture off Dwight’s desk. She kept apologizing, but Jim always responded with a “it’s fine” or a “it’s no big deal” in a tone that clearly conveyed both that it wasn’t really fine and he had no desire to discuss it further.

She sought him out in the break room one afternoon and started excitedly telling him of a scheme to get revenge on Dwight, but he looked disinterested from the start. She managed to get a little laugh out of him, but when she finished her proposal, he just said. “I don’t know. I guess maybe I want to cut that stuff out now. I’d really rather just have as little to do with Dwight as possible. Pam didn’t even attempt to hide her disappointment.

It went on like that. He wasn’t mean to her, or even really cold, but she had lost her close friend and pranking partner. He was just friendly enough so that she couldn’t really call him on it without feeling silly, but things weren’t the same. She became frustrated with him; it seemed terribly unfair and unlike him to hold a grudge like he seemed to be holding it. Mostly, though, she simply missed him and the way he lightened her day and seem to really care about every little thing she had to say. No matter how many times she tried to convince herself that under the circumstances it was perfectly reasonable for her to keep the Ipod, she couldn’t help desperately wishing she could live that day over again.

-----------------------

He knew he wasn’t really being fair. She had no way of knowing what had been inside, or the horrible repercussions that would follow. But, it was really just one more vivid reminder that she didn’t feel like he felt. So, when he felt stupid being mad about the teapot, he thought of how she pretty much told him to go to Maryland, or how she made him feel like an ass when he committed the horrible crime of picking her up, or how she had to make sure that he knew that swaying wasn’t dancing, or simply how she went home every night with someone else who treated her like crap.

The point was that it wasn’t going to happen, and it was time to accept that and move on. He had been hoping for years now that something would change, and it clearly wasn’t happening. That he would put so much into a gift that she would reject pretty much said it all. So, he had resolved that day to really make an effort to let go of his pathetic little crush. And it was easier to do that if he could stay just a little pissed at her. So, he would cultivate his bitterness, sometimes. He would remind himself that her overtures were attempts to make things like they always were, him pining away and getting put back in his place whenever he would dare to hope.

And so, he was laying off the jellybeans and trying to give up on hoping. He started seeking out dates and trying, really trying to think about women who didn’t have auburn curls. It wasn’t making him any happier, but he told himself it would just take time.

Eight hours a day, though, she was ten feet from him. He could keep himself from going over and making small talk and planning pranks and commiserating about Dwight and Michael, but he couldn’t stop stealing glances at her, couldn’t stop wondering how she was. He couldn’t stop noticing that her expression was getting sadder, more anxious, that she was smiling less often. He couldn’t stop wishing that he could have a chance to change that. But then he would remind himself that he never would, and he would turn back to his computer or make the next sales call.

________________

She plopped on the couch next to him. “You wouldn’t believe what Michael did today.”

“Oh yeah?” He didn’t take his eyes off the television.

“He called us all into the conference room and showed us this magic trick. He tied a chicken bone into a knot or something. Then everyone is just silent, wondering why he is showing us this, and he tells us that we need more magic around here. Selling paper is like doing magic, he says.”

He didn’t react, just continued watching two guys beating the snot out of each other. Ultimate Fighting, or something like that.

After a pause, he realized that she was finished, and he should react. Why was she bugging him with this stuff so much lately? “Yeah, well what‘s new? That guy is such an idiot,” he said, a touch of impatience in his voice.

She was exasperated with his disinterest. She squared to face him, and spoke forcefully. “Do I annoy you?”

“You don’t like talking to me period.”

“Pam, come on…”

She got up and went to the bedroom. That night as she tried to go to sleep, she was seized by an almost panicky emotion. Not anger or sadness, or frustration, but a visceral feeling that the whole thing was so wrong, that all the plans and assumptions she had made for years and years were leading her into nothing but a grinding frustration. She would imagine breaking up with him, having a life without him. But, it seemed like stepping into an abyss. She couldn’t imagine it actually doing it, somehow.

She finally fell asleep, and in the morning felt normal again. She felt guilty about her thoughts and tried to blow them off, bury them away.

Things didn’t get better, though. The more she tried to connect with Roy, the more she felt like it was completely futile. He started going out even more often, and it would seem like just having a conversation with him where he didn’t seem annoyed with her was more and more difficult. Had they always had so little in common?

The same panicky feeling came again, and went away again the same way. But, as his gruff responses, annoyed glances, and cutting words mounted, the feeling kept returning. It always went away, but would come more and more often. And it became less panicky, and more exciting. When she imagined starting a new life without him, it started to seem not so impossible. The abyss started to seem preferable to the grind. She would start to think about it calmly, in the cold light of day. She started to imagine that maybe she could do it, after all.

-------------

He hated going to work worse than ever. There was nothing redeeming about the office these days. From the time he got there every day, he could hardly wait to leave. His sales numbers were down, Dwight was more of ass than ever, and Michael’s hi-jinks had become less funny and more exasperating. He thought sometimes about going somewhere else, and thought maybe soon he would, but he just couldn’t be bothered to make the effort.

He was dating, sort of. He had always been able to meet people, and he had forced himself to take some initiative as part of his moving on program. It was all just going through the motions, though. He didn’t actually feel anything. He even slept with one particularly eager bartender that Mark set him up with, but it meant nothing, certainly less than seeing Pam smile on one of the rare occasions he struck up a conversation with her.

He found himself completely indifferent to just about everything. He floated along, taking the path of least resistance. He kept trying to persuade himself that things would get better with time, but he as starting to have doubts. When he finally did really feel something, it was self-loathing.

He went out a few times with Chelsea, the sister of one of the guys he shot hoops with. He still didn’t really care one way or the other, but she did hold his interest a little more than the other women had. She was calm and quiet and interesting. A few times she would remind him of someone, and then he would realize it was Pam, and he would feel a pang of anxiety in the pit of his stomach.

Chelsea seemed interested in him, and he found himself wondering what he should do. Maybe if he hung in there a while he might come around. Then the thought flashed through his mind that he should at least keep dating her until they slept together.

His older brother had a friend, Craig, that Jim had always hated. Craig fancied himself the biggest womanizer on the planet, though from what Jim could tell Craig seemed to despise the whole female gender. He heard his brother ask Craig if he was still seeing some girl, and Craig had responded “I can’t dump her yet, we haven’t even fucked.”

So, when Jim realized he was turning into Craig, that was enough. At least when he was pathetically pining for Pam, he didn’t despise himself. He declared operation move on from Pam a failure, and the next day told Chelsea with all the graciousness he could muster that his heart just wasn’t in it.

“Yeah, I kinda thought so,” she said. She seemed less disappointed or surprised than he expected.

His anger with Pam completely ran out of steam, and turned to guilt. He knew very well that he had hurt her by pushing her away, by withholding his friendship. He had been a jackass, and whatever frustration there was in not having everything that he wanted with her, at least it had been something. At least they had been able to brighten each other’s day. At least he had been an important part of her life. He had tossed that away, and he hated himself for it.

Sunday night, as he watched the Sixers lose another one, he thought of hat he should say to her the next day, how he should apologize. He formed a satisfactory plan in his head, and fell asleep.

He went in early and eager the next morning, and waited for her to arrive. And waited. And waited. Of all the damn days for her to be out.