He’s walking back to his car, head down, hands in his pocket, his shoulders set in a firm slope of defeat. He is replaying the events from the work day, those last few minutes before the end of the day where he told her that it was him who complained about her. The coldness that washed over him after that, well, he hasn’t been able to shake it yet.
The irony doesn’t escape him that, of all of the times to find the courage to be honest with her, he chooses this. This truth. It would have been easy for her to stay in the dark, stay angry with Angela. But something inside him wanted to push it a little. Push it and see if he was honest, what would her reaction be?
Of course it wasn’t what he wanted. And he had no right to expect any different, either. He was her friend, and he went behind her back. He was her friend, and he was complaining, seemingly begrudging her of happiness.
She didn’t understand, didn’t know, that each time she talked about her impending marriage, her wedding, it twisted in his gut like a knife. She couldn’t understand because he didn’t have the guts to sit her down and tell her: I love you. I’ve loved you for so, so long.
He’s nearly to his car when he hears the sound of heels behind him, barely has time to register who it could be when he hears her voice. She is out of breath and saying his name and it’s almost like a fantasy that he has, but..well, different.
“Jim, hey Jim wait up...”
He turns around and waits until she catches up to him. It’s spring but when the sun starts to go down it still gets colder, and so her cheeks are red and she’s all bundled in that big white coat of hers.
“Jim, hey sorry I wanted to catch you before you left.” As she catches her breath, she seems to remember what happened before and her lips set in a thin line, arms crossed defensively across her chest. She doesn’t wait for his reply before continuing.
“So, I need to talk to you. Well, we need to talk. Do you have a minute?”
He licks his lips and looks over her head towards the building, scanning for Roy to see if they are alone, “uh..yeah…”
She’s nodding, a little too much, almost like she’s trying to work up the nerve to talk to him, “Okay, okay good.” there’s a beat of silence before she continues, throwing her hands up in disgust, “So…what the hell?”
He’s taken back a bit, she’s never spoken to him like that before, never really confronted him. She looks angry and hurt and he doesn’t know exactly what to say to her, how to explain this – all of it – without breaking their friendship into a million little pieces.
“Yea, I uh…look I’m sorry. I didn’t…I wasn’t trying to like, get you in trouble, but I just…”
“Well I thought we were friends. I thought you could be honest with me.”
He bites his tongue because her throwing that word – honesty - around makes him feel torn between yelling at her, or kissing her and then asking her if that is the kind of honesty she wants. But he just shakes his head and turns to unlock his car door, because he really truly doesn’t know how to answer her. He's never done that before; turned his back on her, refused to answer her. But he’s less afraid of her anger right now than he is of what he will say once backed into a corner.
“Don’t turn your back on me, I’m trying to talk to you.”
“Look Pam, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything, I was just having a bad day…it was just one day…” he trails off…not even able to finish the lie.
She lets out a deep breath and he can somehow feel that she’s softened a bit, that her anger has dissipated, so he turns around to look at her. Her eyes are shining, and he wonders if maybe she was crying before she came running after him.
“I’m not…mad. I’m just confused. I don’t..why didn’t you ever talk to me about this? Why would you complain to Toby? I would have stopped talking about it so much if I knew…”
Knew what? Knew what? In his head he is willing her to say it but she doesn’t, she just stands there, shaking her head and looking off in the distance.
“It really wasn’t a big deal. But you’re right. We’re friends and I should have told you. But it wasn’t anything to tell, really. It was a moment, a thought in my head and I needed to let it out and c’mon who wants to make the bride angry anyway?”
She smiles and lets out a soft laugh, waving her hand, allowing the tension in his shoulders to relax a little. Somehow she always manages to do that.
“I just,” she hesitates for a moment, and he feels himself hanging on every moment of silence, waiting to see what she says next, “sometimes I can feel that you don’t like Roy. Don’t….I don’t know approve? Of him and it bothers me. And maybe that’s not your problem I guess but well…if that’s what this is about, I wish that we could talk about it.”
There are so many things that he wants to talk to her about, but Roy is probably the last on the list. The last thing he wants to think about is Roy Anderson. “That’s not what this is, Pam. It wasn’t about him.” And that part, well it’s mostly true. The feelings Jim Halpert has for Pam Beasley, well they don’t include Roy. Not at all.
“I know, but. Okay I’m just going to say it. You’re going away, coincidentally, a few days before my wedding. Of all the dates you could have picked…” She trails off, raising her eyebrows as if to challenge him, as if to say okay, well explain THAT.
He sighs, looking down for a second and thinking, licking his lips before raising his head to look up at her. He’s at a loss, torn between breaking down and telling her precisely why he plans to be on the exact opposite side of the world the moment she says “I do” or telling her that no, just a good deal – trip of a lifetime, and other lies that anyone who doesn’t know him well enough would probably buy.
The wind is taken from him in a moment as she looks up at him, a small crease in her eyebrow and he swears he sees her eyes flick to his lips before she looks him in the eye again. It’s like she is daring him, maybe even pleading with him, to tell her the truth? It occurs to him then that maybe she does want honesty - the real, actual honesty that he has squashed down for so long. It is in that moment that he takes in their proximity and realizes how close she is standing to him, how both of their hands are hanging at their sides and if he just reaches out even the smallest fraction, he can grab her hand in his.
He opens his mouth to speak, unsure of how his brain may betray him right here – of what is going to come pouring out of him, but he merely utters a quiet “Pam?” and he feels a small prick of humiliation when he hears his voice crack. She doesn’t make a move, doesn’t respond, and they are suspended there for a second, staring at one another while the air hangs between them.
It’s at that very moment, naturally, that Roy’s voice comes booming across the parking lot. Hollering to Pam that they have to go, and to hurry and Jim doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t look away from her despite the approaching footsteps of her fiancée.
Her reaction is delayed, and she finally shakes her head a little and looks at the ground, almost in annoyance, but he can’t tell if she is annoyed with him, with Roy, or the timing of it all. She starts to back away and he ignores the urge to call her name, grab her hand, tell Roy that he’d drive her home, make up some ridiculous excuse to buy ten minutes with her. But even then – would that be enough?
Her voice brings him back to the unfortunate reality, “It’s just…never mind. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have put you on the spot there.”
The look on her face is sincerely apologetic and once again he is left watching after her, confused and hurt and angry with himself as another opportunity has passed him by. He’s had so many, and he just doesn’t think he has much left in him anymore. He doesn’t even know if he can survive the next few weeks leading to her wedding, and after that – then what?
****
It’s those same thoughts that drive him a few weeks later. Standing at her desk in the dark, his belongings packed in a box, a piece of paper in front of him, and a pen in his hand. He’s leaving, starting over and hoping to put Scranton, Pam, and “I can’t” behind him.
He writes her a note that simply says “I’m sorry”, and places it on her keyboard. He takes a final look around before walking out of the door to the elevator, and to a new life.
