--
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.
Author’s note: So this wraps up this story, I was going to go longer and write a lot more chapters and an epilogue, but I think this is a good place to stop. I hope to come up with something else in the future. Until then, I’ll happily be a spectator here.
---
He wakes up Monday morning with a freight train running through his head and a desert in his throat. After they left the park yesterday, she said goodbye without inviting him in. More than dejected, he went back home, sat on his couch and stared at some sort of sports show while drinking beer after beer. Once the six-pack ran dry, he turned to an unopened, and now almost completely empty, bottle of Jack Daniels. The mistake was staring him in the face, the name on the bottle only reminding him of what he lost, what he tasted for only a few short days, was completely lost because he could not keep his mouth closed for a moment.
He stares at his ceiling, time irrelevant, his eyes angry at the sun’s rays as they pour over him. There is no amount of self reasoning he can come up with that can completely explain why he chose to mention something like the possibility of an out of town job to Pam when he had no intention of taking it, let alone any prospect of being contacted by them. She did not yell, had not yelled in the entire two days they spent together, though she probably should, he thinks. He would rather she did that, would rather she just walloped him with whatever she was feeling instead of holding it in and quietly giving him bits and pieces of information.
Life was simpler when he was away, both times. And the answer to the question, why can he just get over this girl has no answer. He tried, got an E for effort, but something, some kind of quality or component or speck keeps pulling him back in, keeps sucking the life out of him every single time he looks at her, knows he wants more, knows there’s a chance she’s wanted the same thing for more than three years now, and he cannot figure out how in the world to fix it. To mend it and make it better and just be together, happy and secure and in love and do all of the things he always wanted to do.
And there’s a child involved now, not hers, someone else’s, and he’s been afraid to ask what exactly went on, how she became his guardian and not the woman’s family, how a father could deny that he has a son until four months ago. The whole story is a mystery to him, still. And the thing that kills him, aside from the beating of his temples, is that he wants to know everything. Still. Even after being shut out.
It was his fault. That he knows.
But, still.
There are so many things about their past he wants to recreate, put in a time machine and switch details, meet her when they’re in high school instead, a few months before she met Roy, and ask her out. Problem solved. No drama, no moving twice, no hating himself for loving her, nothing but love, companionship and a life together. That’s all he ever wanted.
Now, he watches the blades on his ceiling fan slice through the air, his bleary eyes find the clock on the night stand, his eyes widen when he sees that it’s well into the middle of the afternoon.
He has not slept this late in his entire life. And when he tries to sit up, the entire room swooshes around on an axis he never knew it had. He hangs his feet over the edge of the bed, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, hoping that when he opens them, everything will be one gigantic dream and three years ago he stayed in Scranton instead of moving to Manhattan. That he asked her on a date instead of ruining what was left of their friendship.
Unfortunately, it isn’t. He knows it isn’t. He wouldn’t be hung over if it were. He doubts it would be close to three in the afternoon when he gets out of bed if this were all just a dream.
All he has left is one more chance. She asked him about Tuesday. He had to make it his business today to find out what she needs tomorrow. As crazy as it sounds, she is not the only one who has a hold on his heart. That little boy, with his big brown eyes and dark brown hair and the adorable smile, that little boy has his heart too. It was instantaneous. Jack isn’t Pam’s, not in the way genetics matter. But he is, in the way everything else matters.
He wants them both. He has little idea what is in store for them, if she can keep Jack or if she has to let him go to his father’s. Either way, for reasons unknown to Jim, he wants to be there.
When he shows up at her door, the words are on the back of his tongue ready to slide out, when she opens the door to reveal a man sitting on her sofa, wearing a business suit.
“Hi, uh,” Jim says, rubbing his chin. “I didn’t know you had company. I’ll come back another time.”
“No, no. Come in,” she waves her hand for him to step inside. “Jim, this is Jerry. Jerry, this is Jim. Jerry is Jack’s father.”
“Oh, hi,” Jim says, shaking Jerry’s hand. “Good to meet you. Where is the little guy?”
“Hiding in his room,” Pam says, biting the corner of her lip.
“Ah, may I?” Jim asks.
“Sure, yeah,” Pam replies with an emphatic nod.
He excuses himself with a polite smile and walks to Jack’s room, finding him sitting on the floor with a book opened.
“Hey, little buddy. What’cha doing?”
Jack’s face lights up, his smile wide. “Jim!”
Jim sits on the floor next to him as Jack stands and puts his small arms around him, burying his face in Jim’s shirt. “It’s okay.”
“Do you want to go to the living room?”
“No,” Jack replies, shaking his head. “Not want.”
“Okay. Want me to read to you?”
Jack nods, pushes himself back and sits down.
Jim lifts him, seats him on his leg and opens the book to the beginning and reads. Jack leans his head on Jim’s arm and puts his thumb in his mouth, his eyes closing as Jim reads along.
A few minutes later, Pam pokes her head in the doorway. “Hey, is he okay now? He ran inside his room crying as soon as Jerry walked in,” she said, walking closer to them.
“Yeah, seems so, he’s just resting.”
“Can you see if he’ll come inside, for like a minute? Jerry wants to meet him.”
“He never met him before?” Jim asks without giving thought to it being his business or not.
“No. Nice, right? I don’t want to leave him in there too long by himself.”
“We’ll be right there.”
She turns and takes a step before turning around. “Thanks, Jim.”
“You’re welcome.”
Without knowing what to do first, he finds Jack’s security blanket, drapes the blanket over his back as his head rests on Jim’s shoulder. “Okay, now, I know this is going to be a lot for you. Do you think if I hold you we can go inside?”
Jack lifts his head and turns it to the side.
“Okay, sorry. We go inside?”
Jack shakes his head.
“I’ll hold the whole time, I promise.”
“Not go, Jim.”
“We play cars and we’ll have cookies, okay?”
“Okay,” Jack answers skeptically, his eyes big and round.
“Who wouldn’t want to know this kid,” Jim mutters as he kisses the top of Jack’s head and takes a breath before walking toward the living room.
He uses his eyes to tell Pam not to make a big deal out of Jack being out of his room. She moves her head down slightly in agreement as she offers Jerry something to drink.
“Actually,” Jerry says, “I should run. I have a business trip I have to get ready for.”
“You travel?” Jim asks, sitting in front of the Lego village.
“Yes. I’m usually gone two days a week.”
“Then who would watch Jack?” Jim questions.
“I’d have a nanny take care of him full time.”
Jim nods. “Sounds logical.”
He hopes the guy does not speak sarcasm.
Luckily, it flies over Jerry’s head. “Yes, well. I have to work. Have to pay for my mistakes with something. You know what I mean?”
Jim purses his lips, fights the urge to punch Jerry and brings his sole focus back to Jack.
“Well, I better go,” Jerry says.
“Oh, I’ll walk you out,” Pam says from the entryway of the kitchen.
He’s too busy wondering how someone could call their own child a mistake, not even bother to try and interact with them and still want to have custody of them, to notice that Pam takes a while coming back inside. He stands and moves to the window, watches the scene below through the blinds.
He watches Pam talk as her hands move through the air, sees her bow her head, shake it a bit and watches Jerry walk away.
Her arms come around her as she lifts and lowers her shoulders before she walks back inside.
He wants to move away from the door before she comes back inside. But all he can manage to do is stand there with his hands in his pockets and wait for her to walk back inside, keeping one eye on Jack.
She walks inside, her brow creased at the center, her lips look like she ate a lemon, and her eyes are watery.
“He’s dropping the case,” she whispers. “I have to sign something, just,” she gapes, gasps and covers her face. “I have to sign an adoption form and he’s mine.”
“Wow,” he says, moving closer to her.
“I should be happier. I am happy. I’m just. He didn’t even say hi to Jack. Didn’t even try to. How do you do that? Walk out of someone’s life and back into it and expect them to just drop everything and run to their arms. And then it turns out, he didn’t even want him. He just told me, he said if I was okay with handling his mistake, then he’s all mine. He’d have his attorney contact mine. And everything. But,” she pauses, shakes her head and looks up to meet his eyes. “How do you call your own kid a mistake?”
He shakes his head and shrugs.
She walks over to Jack, lifts him in the air, kisses his cheek and tickles his side, eliciting giggles from the baby. “I love you, sweetie.”
“Love mommy,” Jack replies. “Love Jim,” he says, waving to Jim.
He laughs, walks over to them and puts his arms around both of them, kisses his cheek and hers without much thought.
“Congratulations,” he says, running his hand over her arm.
“Thanks,” she says, smiling.
“Anytime. And, hey, I’m sorry about yesterday. I really didn’t mean,” he pauses, tries a different tactic, a different kind of honesty that if he doesn’t say will eat him alive. “Pam, hey, let’s sit,” he points to the couch. She nods and follows, carrying Jack with her.
“Want cars mommy,” he says, sliding from her lap.
She smiles and helps him down, and then turns her attention to Jim.
He takes a breath and then says, “Look, I know I can’t make up for the past. I want to, believe me. All I want to do is go back to like, 1995 and meet you then, and have four kids with you right now. I want everything to just be different back then.”
She laughs, a flitting sound in the back of her throat. “We’d be a little behind, you know, if you were hanging around this time.”
“I am. I promise. I swear to you I’m not leaving this place. I may never leave this apartment again, if that’s what it takes to prove it to you.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Why would you do that?” she says it almost coyly.
“Because I love you. And I can’t stop loving you and I won’t ever stop loving you.”
“What if you didn’t see me on Saturday? What then?” she asked.
“I don’t care. The important thing is that I did. I am so in love with you I can’t function. I’m like this half a person, and as pathetic as it sounds, I can’t live without you. I tried. I can’t do it. I don’t want to.”
Her finger crosses over his lips as she smiles, her voice choking. “I love you too. I tried to stop too,” she says, inhales and continues. “I tried to tell you, before you took the job, I tried. But you didn’t hear me.”
He takes his finger, outlines the side of her face with it, his thumb sweeps across her lips before he leans in and kisses her.
The fireworks that go off in his head as her arms fold around his neck are bright and colorful and he can see now, this is the right path, the one he should have taken years ago.
He pulls back, holds her cheek in his hand and they smile. “I love you,” he says again.
“I love you, too,” she replies, hugging her arms around his shoulders.
---
perfect_match is the author of 1 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 11 members. Members who liked All I Ever Wanted also liked 2544 other stories.
