Season 3:
”Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word” (Ray Charles & Elton John)
Lyrics
And I wake to find that you're not there
Pam didn’t know when she finally accepted the fact that Jim had really left. Sometimes when she looked up from her desk, her eyes would play a trick on her and give her a glimpse of him turning toward her with a smile. A smile would hover at her lips, but then she would blink and it would all disappear.
When she came home that night, she stayed awake trying to find a way to talk to him and move on. They had done that before, pretending nothing happened. They were good at pretending. That night she didn’t know that none of the excuses she came up with would matter.
Relief was the first emotion that came to her when she didn’t see him at work. Relief soon gave way to concern, then anger that he was pulling this disappearing act. And when she saw his bare desk when she came in to work one morning, she stared until everything became blurry.
When she moved into her new apartment and experienced the exhilaration of being free and unencumbered, her hand reached out to her cell phone. Her fingers paused when she realized he had probably changed his number, and her excitement dimmed when the enormity of it hit her: Jim had truly left.
And sorry seems to be the hardest word
When she finally talked to him one evening, the word “sorry” was on the tip of her tongue. It never came out because they were laughing and joking and talking nonsense as if nothing had happened—as if he had never left. It was the best time she had had in a long time, so she refrained from saying “sorry”. She also thought he deserved to have her say it to him in person.
By the time the Stamford staff joined the Scranton branch, she realized that what she felt when she realized Jim had left was nothing compared to seeing him return…not hers. The scenario in her head was of them having coffee and her finally telling him that she was sorry and…because he loved her, he would forgive her. Jim with someone else was not part of any of those scenarios. Jim moving on without her was not part of those scenarios. Jim’s warmth and laughter and smiles for someone else...
They met again in the parking lot and she never said “sorry.” But she was sorry for many things that he would never know. Most of all, she was sorry that it was too late.
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd
A lot of times she wondered if everything would be better if she’d leave the same way Jim did. Just…leave. Her job was easily replaced. There was nothing to hold her here at Dunder Mifflin. Not when she realized that the best friend she had fallen in love with was no longer her friend. Not when she spent almost half an hour crying in a darkened hallway next to Dwight. Not when the view from her desk included the back of him and the occasional exchange of looks between him and his girlfriend. Not when she realized that his indifference hurt as much as his leaving had.
More than all of that was the fact that they were now merely good acquaintances. She didn’t know any more about him than Angela or Oscar or what she accidentally pried out of him. And he didn’t know she had begun to immerse herself in art again, partially thanks to him. There were so many things she wanted to share with him again, if only he would let her.
It then occurred to her that maybe there weren’t second chances for some things in life. Anywhere but Scranton looked better and better each day. But then he would look over and smile and she thought that ‘anywhere but Scranton’ didn’t have him.
What have I got to do to be heard
She didn’t know why she gave him that CIA prank for Christmas. Or why she went along with his prank on Andy. Actually, she did. She wanted to show him that she was still the same. And hopefully by showing him that, he’d finally come back.
But another missed opportunity at a wedding led her back where she began, with the man who was not him. She willed herself to be content because when you hurt someone as much as she had hurt him, maybe things worked out for the best and he was with someone who wasn’t as careless with him as she was.
His non-appearance at her art show and near violent skirmish with her ex-fiancé seemed like the last nails in the coffin of whatever used to exist between the two of them. Then when she finally told him she was sorry, it was for all the wrong reasons.
A day of looking at what-ifs and a night of staring at embers finally pulled her out of the inertia of her life and gave her voice to finally, finally tell him everything that she was waiting to tell him since he came back into her life. When she came home that night, she felt a freedom that had nothing to do with physical space and everything to do with being honest with herself.
It was only a fleeting ache she experienced when she wrote the note and dropped it in his file. She truly wished only happiness for him in whatever road he chose to take, even if she couldn’t witness any of it. She smiled when he waved goodbye, because she thought maybe this was a sort of happy ending.
What have I got to do
When sorry seems to be the hardest word
Some people were right when they said that if you have no expectation, you won’t face disappointment. But what was the saying when you expected nothing and got everything? The only word that came to her mind was “bliss.”
At the end of their third date, as she watched him get up from her couch to head home, it finally occurred to her that there was one more thing she needed to tell him.
“Jim?”
At the sound of his name , Jim looked over at her and smiled. She was wonderfully mussed from his kisses. All he could do was grin at her and say, “Yeah?”
She walked over to him and cupped the side of his face. “I’m sorry.”
His grin turned into a puzzled look. “For what?” When she didn’t say anything, he pulled her closer and tipped her face up to his. “Pam?”
“For everything! It was because of me that…” She stopped when he shook his head.
“It stopped mattering, Pam. We’re here now,” he said. “And that wasn’t what I needed to hear from you anyway,” Jim murmured while staring straight in her eyes. “But I can wait to hear those words.” Having said that, he leaned down and kissed her.
When he lifted his head, she stood on tiptoes and threaded her fingers in his hair. “Jim? I love you.”
His fingers pressed into her back as he brought her flush against him. “What?”
“I said…I love you. I really do, you know. With all my heart.”
“Say it again,” he whispered. And she did, between his kisses.
Jim didn’t leave that night. Or the many other nights that followed.
