She's not sure what makes her do it.
She's lonely, but she's been lonely for years, really, even if she wasn't alone.
She's pretty sure it had nothing do with the fact that she's been eating chicken and fish for almost two months on end for lunch and if she has to eat another bite of either one she might just kill herself.
She's almost positive that it has nothing to do with the emails that she get almost daily from Roy's family, alternatively calling her a whore and begging her to take him back. She's almost gotten to used to being called names, and it only stings a little bit that this family who knew her for ten years would think that she might have done this on a whim or for some wrong, shallow reason.
She knows that it's not because she keeps glancing at the desk where he should be, only to find Ryan there instead, giving her these looks. At the beginning of the summer, they were confused and slightly annoyed, but by the end were all pity and definitely annoyed.
No, it's none of those things.
She tells herself that she decides to do this because she can't stay in this dead end job for the rest of her life, keeping a watchful eye over Michael and dealing with Dwight while answering calls for other people.
She's done living someone else's life, and she knows with an absolute certainty that she was not meant to be Mrs. Roy Anderson and all that came with that title. And maybe she wasn't supposed to belong to Jim either.
Pam's finally understanding that maybe she's not supposed to belong to anyone.
And she'd like to think it's that which makes her do it.
She quits her job on the first Tuesday in September, and she thinks it's just right, because fall always seemed like a fresh start, even as the leaves were dying around her.
She gives her two weeks, and tells Michael she'll be taking the rest of the day. It's hot out still, the last gasps of summer making it almost unbearable, but she rolls her windows down and she feels light as she gets into her car (or what will be her car in only 42 more monthly payments), and she doesn't know where she's going or what she's going to do, but for the first time in ten years she feels hopeful at least.
And that's something.
When her two weeks are up, she spends a little time with her parents, and she looks into classes and graphic design before deciding what she really likes to do is create things with her hands. She's tired of sitting in front of a computer. She likes taking something blank, a blank sheet of paper, or a blank canvas, or a piece of clay and actually making something beautiful out of it.
She likes to think that be a metaphor for her life, and she starts to make decisions based on that.
Her parents lend her money, and she goes back to school at a community college to finish her degree. She's going to be an art teacher, she decides. She thinks about the kids she's going to teach. Kids like she had been, and she hopes she's better at encouraging and supporting than her teachers had been.
She likes to think she will be.
Her old coworkers sometimes email her, and some people, like Kelly and Toby will call, to catch her up on gossip. She hears from Toby sometime later in the fall that the branches are going to merge, and that people from Stamford are going to be at Scranton and he says in a strange voice that Jim is going to be returning.
She likes to think that she hasn't thought about him in ages, but she knows that's a lie.
She tells Toby to tell him hi for her, and she likes to think that she's that aloof, that she can casually tell him hello through a mutual friend and that it doesn't mean anything.
She pretends that it doesn't mean anything that he's back in Scranton. Or when Kelly calls to tell her that Jim was asking about her, and that he didn't know that she had quit, and he was all mad that no one had told him, and sort of demanding someone tell him where she had gone, and wasn't that all kinds of romantic?
Pam thinks it's all kinds of dumb, this stupid dance they do, but she murmurs her agreement with Kelly and wonders if she should call him against her better judgment.
In the end, he calls her. He sounds hurt when he asks her why she didn't call to tell him that she was quitting, and she feels a little too vindictive and smug when she replies,
"Oh, like when you told me you were going to transfer?"
He doesn't say anything for a little while, and Pam grips the phone so tightly in her hand that her hands sweat and the phone slips down a little while she waits for his answer. He doesn't respond to her dig, and she almost asks him to repeat himself when he finally does speak up.
"I'm proud of you," he says softly. And it's not what she's expecting and she's thrown a little for a loop. "Toby told me how you went back to school, and how you're planning on teaching, and I just...I'm really proud of you."
"I love you," she blurts out, and she thinks of all the work she did over the past few months, and thinks about it slipping away.
"Really?"
"Yeah," she says, and she bites her lip. She wonders if she's too late, if he has a girlfriend, and a new life, and if she could even fit into it if he wanted her to.
"I, uh," he starts.
"It might be too late, and I'm sorry about that, but I wanted you to know, just once," she doesn't let herself think about the irony of those words.
"It's not too late," he promises. "I don't think...well I don't think it could ever be too late." And she can practically hear his grin all the way through the phone, and her hear beats a couple of times and she knows that they have a lot of apologizing and explaining and understanding to do.
"Can I come over?" She asks.
"Yes!" Jim answers quickly and then he laughs a little and she laughs a little, and she feels less lonely than she has in years. "I mean, that would be okay."
"I'll be over soon," she tells him and she hangs up and slides her books off her lap and changes and throws her hair back into a ponytail and is halfway to her car when she realizes she doesn't know where he lives now that he's moved back, and she calls him to ask and he laughs again and makes her repeat the address back to him until he's sure she has it right.
She makes it to his place in record time, and he's standing outside and it's starting to snow, and she likes the snow, likes how it lands and makes everything clean and fresh, and as her feet sprint across his frozen yard, she decides that this is her making something out of nothing.
Story Notes:
Title is from the song by Ryan Adams. Ryan Adams is the greatest thing since sliced bread. True story.
bashert is the author of 37 other stories.
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