Jim took a deep breath. He knew his face was a mess and his breathing was rough and uneven. He slowly turned around until he could see Pam and Andy. In truth, though, Andy was invisible to him. His eyes went directly to Pam’s, where they locked, like two pieces of a puzzle.
Without taking his eyes off Pam, Jim said quietly, “Andy? I think I’m going to take over from here. So you can go home, and—“
“I don’t mind staying,” Andy interrupted.
“Honestly, Andy, I think Pam needs to go see this guy, and tell him how she really feels. And I know where he lives now, so I’m thinking that…if she’s up for it, I’m going to take her to go see him.”
Pam’s heart, already racing, began thumping at double its previous speed. Jim’s unfaltering gaze was solemn but sure, steady. How she’d missed those eyes, that face.
“Okay, tuna. Good luck, Pam,” Andy said, as he grabbed his briefcase and walked out. Jim and Pam had broken eye contact to watch the door click shut behind him, but they simultaneously looked back at each other.
Pam swallowed as the tears in her eyes wavered on the edge, about to plunge down her cheek. Jim took three large, quick strides to the couch and sat down beside her. His own tears were dangerously close to spilling. He took her face in his hands.
“All this time?” he whispered, worry and impatience and pain and hurt all evident in his voice and on his face.
She nodded slowly, the tears making their way onto Jim’s fingertips.
“I only needed a week, Jim,” she said. Her voice was quiet, ragged. “I know it shouldn’t have taken that long. But once everything you’d said had really…set in, there was no turning back.
Pam took her hands from her face and held them tightly in her lap. She tried to speak, but her voice cracked and she had to cough to clear her throat.
Looking straight into his eyes, she whispered, “Jim, it was always you.”
He looked at her steadily, a thousand different emotions flooding his kind, gentle face.
“You never misinterpreted anything. I did. I thought we were just friends, but never really saw that all along we were so much more than that. Eventually, I realized it, too. You were just one step ahead of me,” Pam said, giving him a small, gentle smile.
He was looking at her with those same eyes, that same expression, as he had on Casino Night. Then, it had made her anxious, uncomfortable, and terrified. Now, it filled her with hope, joy, and an empowerment with the knowledge that she could and would return those feelings and live the life that she wanted, that she deserved.
“Listen,” Jim said. “I have to…take care of some things, but…” Jim trailed off, distracted somewhat by the intensity of the moment, the beauty and prowess of the confidence she radiated, and the promise of things to come.
“I know,” she said. “I’ll be waiting.”
He stared into her eyes again, trying to convey everything he wanted to in a brief, summarized version before he left. Then he took her face in his hands again and pressed a long, lingering kiss to her forehead. Slowly, he got up and walked to his desk for his coat and bag, and then to the door. He looked at her once more as he was about to close it behind him. Not smiling, not upset, but simply taking in everything that had just happened and committing it to memory. Pam’s voice broke him from his trance.
“Jim?” she said, tentatively. He met her eyes.
“I love you.”
He resisted the overwhelmingly powerful urge to drop his stuff, run back to the couch, and pull her into his arms. He told himself that the sooner he took care of his situation with Karen, the sooner that he and Pam could really be together.
“Don’t ever think that I stopped, Beesly,” he said tenderly. “I can’t.”
He smiled, tiredly but wholeheartedly, and gently closed the door behind him.
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