“I love you. I’ll always love you.” Even though his voice was scarcely above a whisper, she could feel his words bouncing off the walls of West Scranton High’s gymnasium, reverberating against her spine through the solid concrete blocks beneath several layers of glossy paint and her cotton sweatshirt. She glanced down at Jim Halpert’s sneakers, her bangs falling forward.

“Sure you will.” She looked up at him, coy behind her fringe. He took exaggerated offense, scoffing and taking a step away from her.

“I will! I do! I love you! I LOVE YOU!” This time she really could feel his words, in the concrete against her back and the glossy wood paneling underneath her tennis shoes.  She giggled and rushed forward to clamp a hand over his mouth, even though she was sure the entire athletic building had vacated after basketball practice ended an hour ago. She’d watched them file out of the male locker room in groups, teasing her for waiting up for him, wagging their tongues and eyebrows, among other things.

“I mean it. I love you.” His long arms encircled her tiny waist and pulled her against him. She could smell the soap from his shower and count the dark freckles of moisture on his t-shirt from beads of water left on his skin after toweling off, or dripping from the few still-damp strands of his hair. She studied his face, frozen and waiting for her reciprocation, or rejection. And feeling this heavy pause, seeing the edge of vulnerability sneak up behind her basketball-star boyfriend’s eyes, she knows he means it. And that he doesn’t have anything to worry about. She was certain she loved him, that she had been in love with him for the last year, since the third day of sophomore English. But they’d only been dating for the past few months, and she didn’t like the feeling that he was constantly lagging behind her. She’d crushed on him first, flirted with him first, kissed him first, and vowed to let him do all the chasing from then on. And he did, but she was still unsatisfied. She just wanted them to actually be in sync, not competing, not playing it cool or playing catch-up.

“I love you, too.” Relief and elation flood his face and she can’t fight her own grin stretching across her cheeks. He kisses her perfunctorily, a peck for punctuation, both of their lips stretched taught against their teeth. When he kisses her again, their mouths are relaxed and cooperative and hungry. He pushes her against the wall and into the shadow of the bleachers. Their kisses shrink in length and grow exponentially in quantity and ferocity, his hands slipping underneath the hem of her sweatshirt and riding the modest curve of her hips, waist, ribcage, breasts. She closes her eyes, seeing flashes of him during practice, pausing to catch his breath with his hands on his hips, winking at her as he jogs up and down the court and giving her a fever that pales in comparison to the heat she feels now as his fingers slide inside of terry and elastic and cotton and her, oh god oh god.

Fourteen years later she’s visiting from Harrisburg and flipping through the Scranton Times-Tribune, leaning against her parents’ kitchen counter while her mother makes breakfast and rambles on about how much she likes Scott,  the latest (though certainly not the first and probably not the last) boyfriend to achieve meet-the-folks status. Her eyes land on Jim Halpert’s name among the wedding announcements and she freezes, crumbs from her toast sprinkling the photo of the happy couple like confetti on their wedding day. She closes her eyes, seeing flashes of him. That first day of class. Their first date, kiss, fight, fuck. The first “I love you” and every one after that. The last time she saw him, seven years ago, both of them home from college, still awkward in the wake of their breakup years earlier. I love you. I’ll always love you. She studies his face next to someone else’s and knows he means it.