Author's Chapter Notes:
Here's the second and final chapter. I had a hard time coming up with an ending, so I hope it's okay. There aren't any fireworks, but this story was always going to be a quiet little one.
(Sorry about the wait...I live in Australia and my city totally flooded!)
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
(Sorry about the wait...I live in Australia and my city totally flooded!)
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Pam put her empty wine glass in the sink. The neighbourhood was asleep; only the distant buzzing of a motorbike disturbed the calm. She’d kept herself busy since arriving home, methodically completing small household chores to keep her mind off Jim and Karen and the casino night and the whole sorry mess.
Her plants were all watered. The apartment was sparkling. Nothing remained but to lie down and prepare herself for another day of staring at Jim’s neck, dealing with Michael’s inane babble and wondering what on earth she was doing with her life.
She turned the lights out and lay down in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
She just wished she could have finished what she’d started to say. She knew he was with Karen now, and she accepted that she’d missed her chance, but…she just wished she could let him know – once – that she was sorry.
Because despite the embarrassing breakdown today, she really did feel she was in a better place now. A more mature, honest place.
She could finally acknowledge what she’d so assiduously ignored for the last three years. Jim had been in love with her, and she was kind of in love with him back.
She’d taken advantage of him, happily lapping up his attention as though she were actually entitled to it. Of course, she hadn’t known how strong his feelings were – especially after he’d told her he was over any minor crush he might have had on her. But she was certainly aware of something, consciously or otherwise, and had continued to lead him on with her ‘friendship’ regardless. They’d both been so good at lying to themselves and to each other, buying the ‘best friends’ propaganda, that dancing around the edges of anything real or serious became second nature.
And that’s why his parking lot admission had been so explosive. In five words, he demolished a fiction three years in the making. She simply didn’t have the courage and honesty to deal with such a revelation at the time.
And now that she did – overlooking a few missteps in the parking lot – he was with Karen. Someone she could never rival in the courage and honesty department.
And most other departments, too.
She sighed, tossing and turning a final time. Her head ached like crazy. She wasn’t going to get to sleep with this going round in her head. She needed to get her mind off Jim, and onto the business of sleep.
Five minutes later she was rugged up in a coat and scarf, padding towards the drugstore down the road from her apartment.
Ten minutes later, she was having a minor panic attack as the object of her thoughts suddenly emerged from the brightly-lit store, buried deep in a long winter coat, breath coming out in little bursts of frost.
Right.
He saw her only a moment after she saw him, and stopped. He went very still.
She tried to wipe the pained expression off her face, and smiled.
“Hey.”
He gave her a long look, then a half-smile back. “Hey.”
They were both silent. He looked up at the sky, then back at her.
“Out for your evening drugs?”
She smiled. “Definitely. Gotta get my hit somewhere.”
A dog barked in the distance.
“You too?”
He nodded. “Headache.”
She nodded back at him, and they were silent.
It was awkward. Something had changed between them today, and she wasn’t sure yet if it was good or bad.
He cleared his throat. “So, you okay? After…”
She started nodding again. “Oh yeah, I’m…”
They were both silent again. She racked her mind for something to say.
“Such a cold night out. I don’t have heating in my apartment, either. I’m hoping it’ll warm up soon so I don’t have to borrow one of Dwight’s goat hair quilts.”
He gave a half-grin, but didn’t say anything.
She looked down at her feet, and the silence stretched for a long moment.
Then he spoke.
“Why did you kiss me, Pam?”
She stilled, and looked up at him.
Just like that. They hadn’t had a serious conversation for so long that the question was like a slap in the face.
He held her gaze. “At the Dundies, I mean.”
He wasn’t angry about it, or resentful. They could have been discussing socks.
It wasn’t what she was expecting. She’d come down to the store for paracetamol, and here she was having The Conversation with Jim. Somehow, she’d never imagined it turning out like this.
A lot depended on how she chose to answer.
She wrapped her arms around herself, licked her lips.
“When you started seeing Katy, I…got jealous. Even though we were just friends. And I was with Roy.”
Jim didn’t say anything, just looked at her solemnly, brows furrowed slightly.
She breathed out. “I got so used to hanging out with you, having you all to myself, that…I took your attention for granted, I guess. And then when you told me you were going to date Katy…it was like suddenly I had to remember that we were just friends, and that I had a fiancé.”
She was being as honest as she could, trying to remember her exact thought process. As frightening as it was to be revealing her innermost thoughts and workings to him, now that she’d started, it came tumbling out.
“But when I got really drunk at Chilli’s that night, it was like, suddenly I could forget all that. For just a moment, it was just us two again, hanging out like always. Michael gave me that award for my sneakers and I just…I knew that you’d got him to do that instead of the engagement one.”
She looked for confirmation in Jim’s face, and thought she found it. His eyes didn’t leave her face as she continued.
“I didn’t even realise that I’d kissed you until a couple days later. And by that stage you hadn’t said anything about it, so…”
She coughed nervously, and decided to go on.
“I spent the next months just…kinda trying to reassure myself that we were just friends, and that I was marrying Roy and that that’s how it would be. Like on that booze cruise, up on the deck. I thought at the time that maybe you were going to kiss me or something. And you didn’t, and Roy set the date for our wedding, and so it was…easy, I guess, to tell myself that I was just imagining things and you only wanted friendship.”
Jim still hadn’t moved.
“And then, in the parking lot…I was so stupid, but you really just took me by surprise when you said that. I didn’t know how to be honest with you, let alone how to be honest with myself. And…”
She wrapped her arms closer around herself, eyes on the ground.
She shook her head. “Then it was too late.”
There was silence.
After a moment she looked up at him, and squinted her eyes. “You left without saying goodbye.”
He held her gaze for a moment. Drew a deep breath. Then shook his head slowly.
“You broke my heart, Pam.”
She nodded, eyes solemn.
He shrugged. “When Phyllis told me you didn’t go through with the wedding, I thought you’d call. When you didn’t…well, it confirmed that I’d got it all wrong.”
“I thought you hated me…”
He laughed without humour. “I’d just told you I was in love with you, Pam! You don’t just…get over that overnight.”
And for the second time that day, she felt hope returning.
“But you came back and told me you were seeing someone.”
“And you said we’d always be friends.”
“I know…I’d just been so excited about seeing you again, and then you took me by surprise with what you said. I felt really stupid.”
“Why couldn’t you just tell me the truth?”
Why indeed?
He hunched his shoulders. “I put it all on the line and you couldn’t give me one little sign back about how you felt?”
“Why would it have mattered? You’d just told me you’d moved on.”
He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “If it didn’t matter, Pam, why are we even having this conversation?”
Why did this have to be so hard?
She looked at her feet, then back at Jim. All or nothing.
“We’re having this conversation…because I miss you.”
It was the simplest answer and it was the truth, and she felt like crying.
“I don’t expect it to change anything.”
Jim didn’t say anything, just continued staring at her gravely.
A wave of tiredness came upon her.
“I should go.”
She turned around to leave, the idea of going to the drugstore abandoned.
“Pam.”
She stood still and closed her eyes, willing herself to turn back round.
“I broke up with Karen today after work.”
Her heart started beating faster. She stayed where she was.
“I told myself that I’d gotten over you. But I haven’t.”
And just like that, her world was turned around. She felt a fluttering in her stomach as everything she’d hoped for – everything she’d thought about every night since breaking off her wedding – suddenly became real.
She turned around to face him. The hardness that had been in his face for the last three months was gone. There was wariness there still, but in his eyes was an earnestness she’d thought she’d never see again.
“Hey.”
She swallowed, and tried to breath. “Hey.”
His eyes wrapped her up in their warmth. “I would never hate you, Pam.”
She nodded, a sad smile on her lips. “I know.”
She wasn’t sure who closed the distance between them first; suddenly she was in his arms, wrapped in a fierce embrace that felt foreign and natural and wonderful all at once.
“I missed you so much,” she whispered into his ear.
He hugged her closer, running his fingers through her hair. His voice was gravelly soft. “You have no idea.”
Five hours ago she’d watched her soul mate go home with someone else. Now he was beside her and the whole world was shifted on its axis. She felt nervous and elated and at peace.
Five minutes later they were walking back to her apartment for an ice cream social. It was a good day.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading! I've got a plan for a big multi-chapter story next, full of tension and brooding and uncertainty. Might take me a while to write though. :)
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