Chapter 2

Pam had fallen asleep with her phone on the pillow next to her head, anxious to see if Jim would return her text.  It had been hours and so far nothing.  She was trying very hard to ignore the fact that he may have gotten it and decided not to text her back. 

All night, she had wanted to call him, nearly desperate to hear his voice again. Their conversation a few weeks ago had been magical for her, like he was lost to her and then in a minute they had found each other again.  It had ended too soon and she had been biding her time about calling him herself.  After all, he didn’t even give her his number in Stamford.  She hadn’t anticipated that he would leave her and sever all ties when he did it.  It was startling to be so without him and she was anxious to reconnect with him if she could, whatever he would give her.

The failed marriage proposal seemed so perfect a reason to call that she decided maybe it was divine intervention.  Jim would find the whole thing so hysterical. The entire evening, she couldn’t stop thinking about how much more fun she would have had with him.  That was why she texted him that she wished he were there.  After all, maybe Diwali was as good a night as any to tell him that she missed him.

She rolled over to her stomach, staring at the cell, silently praying it would ring.  Finally, she decided she would go crazy if she sat still much longer so she got up to get a drink of water.  She was halfway to the kitchen when she heard the familiar jingle that signaled she had a new text message.  She flew back through her apartment, her socked feet sliding on the hardwood.

Flopping back on the bed, she flung open the phone.  One new message from Jim.  She bit her lip nervously, her legs kicking the side of the bed as she hit select.

Why? 

Her heart turned over in her chest.  What did he mean why?  Why what?  Her brow furrowed as she thought over what she sent him.  Was he asking why Carol said no?  Why Michael was dumb enough to ask her in front of everyone?  Why….she wished he were there? 

She threw the phone to the side and went for that glass of water.  She ran her fingers along the wall, memorizing the coolness beneath her fingers as she walked languidly down the hall to the kitchen.   Lost in thought, she dug through the refrigerator for a bottle of water. 

She wasn’t sure how to answer his question, assuming she even knew what he was asking.  She just missed him.  There was no one reason for it, rather a million little things that weighed on her so much at times she couldn’t breathe.  She missed his companionship and the way he just got her.  She missed the way he made work a better place to be.  She missed the way her pulse would beat ever so slightly faster when he leaned over her counter.  She missed him more and more as she began to realize so many things about their relationship.  Now, that she had left Roy and grown into her own space.  As she found more and more of herself, she missed him all the more. 

It was kind of crazy.  She didn’t know a lot about Jim outside of the office, but she knew enough to love him.  She hadn’t talked to him in months, but in her mind, he was her constant companion.  It was pathetic how lonely she was. She would talk to him, like he was in her apartment.  Like she was showing him her latest sketch or laughing with him about something that happened at work.  It made her feel less alone; it made her miss him less.

How do you explain all that to someone in a text message?

She glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the stove, 11:15.  She tried to remember the universal rule about calling people.  She seemed to remember that you shouldn’t call people after 10, but who were these people and were they really asleep at 10?  Jim was obviously awake enough to text her 15 minutes ago, maybe she could just call him and talk.  Talk like normal people who didn’t break each other’s hearts.

She walked purposefully back to her phone, still lying where she left it on her bed.  She leaned up against the headboard, scrolled to his name. Taking a silent breath and wishing for good things, she pressed send.

The phone rang a few times, almost five times in fact, and she started to panic.  He either didn’t want to talk to her or he was already asleep.  Either way, maybe she shouldn’t be calling after all.  At this point, she would probably get his voicemail and, even though it was cowardly of her, she felt relieved that she could just left a mysterious message instead of facing him.  She was thinking over in her head what she would say when there was a sudden stirring on the line.  It sounded like he had maybe dropped the phone and then he was there, with her in her room.  “Hello?”

His voice was rugged and maybe a little slurred, so different from the voice she was used to, “Hi.  It’s, …it’s Pam.”

There was a silence on the other end of the phone as Jim shut his eyes tight, not sure what was happening exactly.   He had drifted off to an alcohol soaked sleep as thoughts of Karen and Pam swirled in his head in incomprehensible ways.  He had woken to a noise that he was sure was his alarm clock.  Realizing quickly it was his cell, he picked it up, not checking who it was, trying to make the horrendous noise go away.  The sound of her voice was disarming and he wasn’t sure that it was even real.  Well, what’s the harm in talking to your drunken fantasies?

He rolled over and tried to scrub the sleep from his eyes. “Hi.”

“Yeah, it’s me.”  She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to say such a stupid thing, but she realized that she didn’t know where to start.  “Sorry, is it too late?”

“Too late for what?”  Jim struggled to sit up in bed, hoping against hope that she was actually asking about their relationship.

“To call.  It’s just I got your text.  Did I wake you?”

He let out a heavy breath, deflating in every possible way, “No, I’m kind of awake, no worries.” 

Pam studied his voice on the line and the slurring could not be ignored, “Um, have you been drinking?”

“Huh?  Oh yeah, I had a few drinks with people from work.”

“Oh.  Are the people there cool?” 

“They’re okay.  Mostly normal.  Except Andy.  He almost makes me miss Dwight.”  He stopped to chuckle a bit at the concept that he kinda did miss Dwight.  “There is this nice girl, Karen, she brought me home.” 

Some part of him knew it was mean, but he didn’t really care at that moment.  Maybe he could hurt her a little, maybe she could feel like he felt.  Course she’d have to care for it to hurt and he honestly wasn’t sure that she ever cared like he thought she did.

“Well, that sounds fun.”  The words came out with more sarcasm than she wanted.  Karen?  Pam was suddenly swallowed whole by a wave of jealousy.  Who was this Karen person and why was she taking Jim home?

“It was an okay night.  You know how it is…nothing but a barrel of laughs here.”

Pam realized after things ended with Roy that she had secretly been memorizing things about Jim for years.  Like how much taller he was than her exactly, the way he drummed his pencil on his desk, the way he rotated the same few ties in the same order every week, what he smelled like, and most of all the sound of his voice.  Pam sat back against the headboard thinking that the guy she was talking to didn’t sound like Jim.  It was the right voice but the words were all wrong.

“So what’s new Beesly.”  He drug out her name and got a little hung up on the s. 

“Like I said, I got your text…I just wanted to talk a little, I mean…”  she started to panic, she had so much to tell him, but it all sort of cancelled itself out in her head. 

Jim heaved a heavy sigh, “Pam, it’s really late and I’m not really focusing here…”

“I just miss you.”

“Hmmmm?”  Her words had sounded jumbled in his head.

“Jim, I miss you.”

“Well…”  He felt himself draw further inward, away from her, scared of how she had been able to hurt him before and surely could again.  “I’m sure you can pal around with someone else in the office.”

She fumbled over her words, not expecting him to be so cold.  “No, I don’t want that.”

“Okay, what do you want?”  His brain was so soaked in alcohol that even if he wanted to hide his feelings, he couldn’t stop his mouth.  A part of him, the part that would remember bits and pieces tomorrow, was thrilled that for once he said something, that maybe she could give him some answer, something that would calm his mind.

Pam panicked at such a direct question, she wasn’t ready to tell him everything she wanted and certainly she didn’t want to bring this all up when he was so drunk.  It’d be one thing to get up the nerve, it would be another to do it just to have him forget it all the next day.  She got up and started to pace her bedroom. 

“Well, I just…” she faltered, “I just wanted to tell you…that I…,”  she paused so unsure of how to get out of this mess, “I miss you that’s all.”

He had frozen, trying to focus on her words, trying to will her to say something to let him know what she really felt.  Her non-admission didn’t tell him anything and the frustration was too much to bear.  “Well, okay then, sorry ‘bout that.”

“What?”

“Just, sorry you miss me.  But you know I think Toby’s always had a soft spot for you, you could just hang out with him.” 

“Jim.”  She was shocked.  She didn’t expect him to brush her off this way.  So cold.

“I can’t believe you’re this mad at me…”

“Why would I be mad Pam?”  Jim stood up unsteadily, trying to play off a disinterested tone that came off far angrier than he had hoped.  He knew he was being really rude, but maybe this would all turn out to be a bad dream anyway.  In his current state, everything seemed a bit surreal and it felt like reality, fantasy and nightmare were all blending into one.

“Well…you just seem like you’re mad at me.”  She trailed off.  She knew he had reasons to hate her, but she couldn’t believe that he actually did. 

“Hmmm, I dunno know Pam.  Hey, it’s late, so if you don’t have anything meaningful to say…” 

Pam realized that talking like friends who didn’t break each other’s hearts was out of the question.   Her brain struggled to keep up with him, to come up with something equally hurtful to say.  “Seems like you have something to say, Jim”  she said his name coolly, emphasizing every letter icily, “…why don’t you just say it?”

“Like what?”

She felt like screaming.  She was tired of this game they’d been playing.  “Never mind, I don’t want to do this anymore.” 

“Right.  That’s sounds about like good ole Pam Beesly. Duck and cover.”

“What?”

“Its just you aren’t so much for facing up to things.”  He had no ability to stop himself from saying it.  Everything was bleeding together; his sadness, his anger, his desire…he just wanted to scream at her until she felt worse and he felt better.

Something broke inside Pam and everything she had held inside all summer begged to be let out.  “Oh you’re one to talk Jim, did you pack up your desk that night or sneak in over the weekend?” 

“There wasn’t any reason for me to stay – you made that very clear.”

“You didn’t give me a chance.”  She screamed it into the phone, her throat stinging from the strain. 

His voice cracked as he screamed back, his fingers wrapped tightly around his cell phone.  “You had about a million chances.”

“Oh really, like real chances or just ones you made up.”

“What does that mean?”  Jim’s head was starting to hurt and he had to sit before he fell down.

“I mean you always played it down.  Told Michael it was over, told me it was nothing.”  Pam felt tears starting to run down her cheeks.  “I’ve been talking myself out of you for a year, and then you turn my world upside down and leave.  So excuse me for still missing you.  Some of us can’t move on so quickly.”

Jim felt sick and knew that he should just hang up before he did anymore damage.  “Move on?  Seriously?”  His words slurred more and more into one long sentence as the drunkenness started to over take him, “You ripped my heart out and stomped on it.  I wish I could move on.  I wish I could forget that you exist.”  The last word sounded more like a hiss.

She felt her own heart break as his words found her in the dark of her room.  She felt hot tears start to pour down her face and her stomach twisted as she leaned against the wall for support.  She couldn’t even get a good breath.  She thought that maybe this was what dying felt like. 

“Jim…I…don’t want that.”  Her voice cracked as she tried to stop the tears, she didn’t want him to hear her cry.

“No…” He tried to walk off the anger that swelled inside him but it seemed like the floor was tilted.  “You can’t call me all wounded, make me wonder if you still care.  I hear your voice in my head all day like I’m freaking insane.  Keep hearing that ‘I can’t’ over and over.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to do.”  Pam couldn’t hold back the sobs.  She tried to choke them back but that made her throat and chest tighten up in bitter pain.  She reached for the Kleenex by her bed and tried to muffle the sound. 

“Well,”  he flopped back on the bed, taking a deep mournful breath, “you destroyed me.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Not once, in all the years she'd known him, had she ever heard Jim say so much about what he felt.  She knew he wouldn’t be saying this now if it weren’t for the alcohol.  He seemed to have spent what little energy he had because he become more and more garbled on the phone.    She could hear the sheets rustle and he seemed to be farther and farther away.  She could barely make out the last words he said before passing out. “I miss you too.”