He pulls up to her apartment building just as the sun has almost completely slipped below the horizon. Parking across the street, he can see that it’s dark inside; she’s not home. It’s not a surprise to him, but he’s been driving around for a while to kill time until she got home from class and now he just wants to wait here for her. He cuts the engine, opens the door, and unfolds himself from his car, making his way to her front porch.

His mind is still reeling from earlier in the day, the awful scene in the kitchen with Karen yelling at him, calling him a jerk, accusing him of using her, of ruining her life by allowing her to follow him to Scranton. Of being a cheater, a liar, and myriad of other names and accusations before she stormed back out to the office, leaving him bewildered and staring down at the floor.

He deserved it. He deserved it all.

He never meant to hurt Karen, or to use her. But he still felt like she was justified in everything she gave him today. Having good intentions doesn’t equal good choices, and he’d lost count of every bad decision he’d made over the past year.

He and Pam avoided one another the entire day, which made the day more unbearable than usual. They’d gone on three dates since last Thursday night, and in that short time he had gotten used to talking to her every day, hearing her voice, making her laugh. He’s felt unsettled since this morning and he just wants to see her and shake it off, make it go away. She left a few minutes early today, as she does every Monday, to accommodate her 5:30 class. He grabbed a beer and a burger with Mark right after work, and then drove around a little while to wait for her.

Sitting on her porch steps, leaning against the railing, he sits up and peers out every time a car turns on to her street, then deflating and settling back in when it’s not her. He stares up at a crystal clear sky, now dark with stars shining, and tries to forget the day, forget the guilt that has been weighing on him since this morning. He’s hoping that seeing her will put him at ease.

******

Walking out of class and into the night air, she realizes it’s a little bit chillier than she had anticipated tonight, and she left her sweater at work. She’s surprised she managed to remember any of her things when she left work for the day, as she was more than ready to leave by the time 4:30 rolled around. It had been an awful day that began with Karen reaming Jim out practically in front of the whole office, and ended with Michael asking her to help him come up with “safe” words to use with Jan.

She had considered texting him that she would call him after her class, but she thought maybe he might need some space. And he seemed withdrawn all day, clearly avoiding her, which she understood. But it left her feeling unsure of where to go from here. Does she call him? Wait for him to call? Maybe they had rushed too fast..they had gone out Thursday night, Friday night, and again on Sunday. He probably needed time to process it all, clear the air with Karen, and now she can’t shake the guilt she has after spending so much time with Jim and feeling utterly blissful while Karen probably spent the weekend crying, missing him and feeling abandoned. For the first time since Thursday, she is not proud to admit that she feels like the other woman, encroaching on someone else’s territory, being one of “those girls” that steals another woman’s boyfriend. She wants to think of her relationship with Jim as so much more than that, and it is, but in the end he was still with someone else not even a week ago, even after she opened up to him in front of everyone.

Pam gets in the car and closes her car door, flipping her phone open to dial Jim. But she quickly closes the phone and tosses it next to her, leaning back against her seat. She takes a breath and assures herself that he just needs time, and that he will come to her when he can.

But it doesn’t stop her from driving by his house on her way home and feeling a heavy weight on her shoulders when she sees the lights are out and his car is not there.

It’s too early in their relationship, or whatever it is, to be wondering about where he is and why he hasn’t called, so she rolls the windows down to calm her nerves and ease her mind as she makes her way home in the cool spring night.