- Text Size +
Story Notes:
Disclaimer: I don't own any of it.

This was really self indulgent.
-

When she answers the door, she's in her regular weekend t-shirt-and-hoodie combo, but already in flannel pajama pants. Her hair is messy and a smudge of charcoal is across her forehead, the guilty fingers coated at the tips. She has that look in her eye she gets when she's focused, when she's determined to finish an idea before it slips from her mind.

"Sorry, I just-"

"By all means, finish," he interrupts her. It doesn't bother him when she bounces back to her living room without so much as a welcoming kiss. He knows this more than he cares to admit; he's never even teased her about ignoring him. It’s Pam and her art, which is her, and he wouldn't dream of coming between that in the slightest.

He closes the door behind him and tiptoes into the living room, hearing the quiet acoustic notes of a cd he had burned from her coming out the stereo speakers. She's kneeling on the floor, head bent down and wild curls covering her face. Her hand moves rapidly across the page, leaving bold black lines and jagged edges. Its night, but the only lamp on in the room is a small one by her window that used to be her grandmother's, with plum colored beads hanging off the small red shade. The room is cast in a warm, auburn glow.

He sinks into her cushy green armchair, watching her with interest and wondering. The very idea makes him feel terrible, but he envies her when she gets like this. He can practically see her dreams flowing from her mind to her hand to the paper. He can spot her love, her feeling of comfort, her sense of self. He wonders what it feels like to know who you are.

She tells him, sometimes, that she spent her entire life not knowing. That art was her escape, and she never looked at it like something that might be her life. Even in college, she had minimized it to a simple minor, but she knows now that this is probably the reason why she hadn't lasted. She hadn't known.

She tells him that she discovered it in his absence; that before, she thought she knew who she was with him, and he always encouraged her art. So maybe art had been home all along, but it had taken a little nudge from him to get there. He would have wanted her to take art classes, so she did, and she found herself. Eventually she found him too, and she assures him that he's just as big a part of her.

He doesn't understand loving something that much, yet. Besides her. Before he knew her, he had no dreams. No real goals, just a will to get by. But then he spent so many years hoping for nothing more than her, and now that he had her . . . he wasn't sure what to do with himself. She had her art, she knew it. What did he know?

He watched her as she sat back and contemplated her work. When she turned to him, her brow was furrowed, her eyes holding uncertainty.

"What do you think of this?" she asked, holding up the cardstock for him to see.

The page was full of criss-crossing lines, some thick and unwavering, some measly and fading. They all entwined with each other, forming an intricate black and white palette of something indescribable yet beautiful.

"Wow. What is that?"

"Your brain on drugs," she joked, giggling a little at herself. He smiled, but still looked at her intensely. "It’s an abstract, I guess. I just had this urge to do it."

"Where do you get that urge? I mean, I don't . . ." he trailed off. "I don't have that. With anything."

"You have the urge to do me all the time," she chided, but his persistent eyes told her that he wasn't up for banter right now.

"Pam . . . I've never loved something like you love art. Your art is you."

He took her hands in his, tracing his fingers over the charcoal on them.

"I don't know who I am."

"You're Jim Halpert," she said matter-of-factly, with no hint of a smile. "Why do you need to define that, now? You're Jim. And I kind of love you."

She bent forward to press her forehead against his.

"I want that," he breathed, sounding like a child who couldn't exactly describe what they wanted for their birthday. "Whatever that is . . . I need to know what its like. But I have no idea."

"You'll find it, Jim. You have all the time in the world."

"Maybe."

Later that night, he wakes up naked in bed, reaching next to him but catching humid air.

"Pam?" he calls out, his voice cracking under the weight of exhaustion.

"Right here," she calls out softly, and he turns to see her sitting at the window in her bedroom. It’s a standard window, four-paned with a view of the park across the street. But she's scribbling in her sketchbook, wearing nothing but his oversized hoodie and a smile. The milky white of her exposed legs is a stark contrast to the dark navy of the sweatshirt, and he cocks his head back toward the bed, beckoning her back.

"You are going to have to wear that more often," he teases as she sheds the sweatshirt and slides between the sheets, bare skin sliding against his. She giggles and settles onto her back, watching him closely as he props himself up on an arm beside her.

"What are you feeling right now?" she asks.

"Huh?"

"Don't think, just tell me. What's on your mind?"

"You," he answers simply.

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Who are you, a psychologist?"

"Just answer the question."

He contemplates it, rolling it over in his head. The clear word that pops into his head pours off his lips.

"Safe."

She once again puts her forehead to his.

"I'm not going anywhere," she whispers. "You nudged me. I can nudge right back." She shoved him playfully in the ribs to emphasize her point.

"Into what, though?"

"Whatever else makes you feel like this, someday."

He feels like maybe its okay that he doesn't know yet. He knows who he is with her, and maybe she can help him know who he is on his own. He decides, rather, to not resolve the issue right now. Another day, another time. Something else that makes him feel safe.

He lies on his back, and she immediately folds into him, resting her head beneath his chin and letting her leg fall between his. He begins playing with her hair, twirling it around his finger and letting it go quickly, watching it bounce and snap back. She smiles softly into his skin.

"Such a girl," she mutters against his collar bone.

He smiles.

-


flonkerton is the author of 8 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 7 members. Members who liked Charcoal also liked 2494 other stories.


You must login (register) to review or leave jellybeans