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“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam. Oh, yes! I was calling to ask about the wedding packages you offered on your website. June 10th. Okay, great! Let me get you the details...”

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam. Yes. Yes. June 10th. Um...chocolate? Oh, I guess then vanilla, and maybe...strawberry? Sounds good. Okay, see you then.”

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam. Hey, mom. No, I made the appointment for next week. That’s enough time, right? How long does it take to get a dress altered? Oh, and did you talk to Aunt Shelia about the veil?”

Jim grips the edge of his desk and watches his knuckles turn white. Listening to Pam plan her wedding has become a daily occurrence, so much so that he (a little bitterly) wonders if it should be added to his job description. Sometimes he even gets sucked into helping, which he does because he can’t say no to her and because she values his opinion on colors and flowers and because he’s a little (a lot) pathetic and being near her soothes the ever present ache in his heart, even though it’s just for a moment. And even though the wedding that he’s helping her plan is her a wedding to another man.

But.

The closer it gets to June 10th, the more difficult it gets for Jim. He feels like time speeds up every day and that the event horizon that is Pam’s wedding to Roy is rushing towards him and that there’s nothing he can do to stop it. It’s been especially difficult lately because abstract details have steadily started becoming concrete ones. Jim doesn’t know how much more of it he can take.

Because it hurts. It really fucking hurts.

After the ill-fated booze cruise, Jim had grand ideas of confessing. At the time, he’d figured that since he’d already ruined one relationship he may as well potentially ruin another and take Michael’s advice: never, ever, ever, give up. Because what if telling Pam how he felt didn’t ruin their relationship but instead elevated it? So he planned it all out: the phone call he’d make, the reason he’d give for wanting to meet her somewhere. How he’d tell her that he lied about being totally over it, totally over her. Hell, maybe he’d even quote The Notebook at her: “It wasn’t over. It still isn’t over.”

The only thing he couldn’t plan out was how she’d react. His mind has run the gamut of possibilities, everything from her laughing in his face to throwing herself into his arms. On the days he imagines the latter, he lets himself get as far as scrolling through his phone contacts until her name is highlighted before giving up on it. Because realistically, as much as he likes to look for hidden meanings and indications that Pam feels even the tiniest bit for him that he feels for her, he knows that he’s grasping at straws.

Especially after their argument. He can still hear her voice ringing so clearly in his mind: “Oh, excuse me, I’m fine with my choices!” Not pursuing graphic design program, contenting herself to be the receptionist at Dunder Mifflin for the rest of her life, marrying Roy. Her choices. None of them have anything to do with him, so what point is there in telling her that he loves her?

None.

So he pushes Michael’s advice of never giving up to the side (like he should have done in the first place) and tries to ignore the twisting, stabbing pain in both his gut and his heart with each phone call she makes or takes. He throws himself into his work for the first time since he started, figuring that if he has a client in one ear he’ll have a harder time hearing her talk about dresses and rings and vows in the other. The sales come without him even really having to try and it makes him wonder if he’s fine with his choices...mostly his choice to stay at a job that is neither a challenge nor fulfilling, all so he can stay next to a girl that is neither interested nor available. But those kinds of thoughts are counterproductive to the whole “distract from Pam and Pam’s wedding” thing he’s trying to do so he pushes those aside, too.

Try as he might, though, he can still hear her. He’s still surrounded by it. And it still really, really hurts.

On this particular day, the day that finds Jim white-knuckling his desk and pressing his telephone receiver into his shoulder so hard that he wouldn’t be surprised to find a bruise there later, it hurts more than it ever has. Because she just looks and sounds and seems so happy and he’s such a dick because she’s his best friend and he should be happy for her but she’s also the love of his life and the last thing he wants in the world is for her to be happy with someone other than him.

Not to mention that Dwight is in top Dwight form, boasting about being the top salesman for the previous year and the fact that he’s going to be “an honored guest” at some convention later. Jim is getting wedding planning in one ear and over the top bragging in the other. He’s going to go insane.

The wedding planning is the worse of the two, though. He can’t listen to another second of her talking to her mom, hearing her talk about what she’s going to do for her “something blue” and Roy’s tuxedo and what does her mom think is a good groomsman gift? It’s only 10:15 (how in the world could she have gotten so many wedding related calls already?) but he needs respite from the anguish he feels, from this very specific and particular brand of torture. His own personal hell. Well, at least until she adds a second ring to her finger and has a new last name.

He heads to the break room because the kitchen doesn’t feel like enough of an escape. He stares into the vending machine unseeingly and is contemplating bashing his head against the glass. Whether or not the cleanup would be worth the possible partial lobotomy is the question on his mind and he’s so caught up in his internal debate that he doesn’t hear someone else walking in.

“Hey, Jim.” The low and unassuming voice startles him out of his thoughts. He relaxes when he sees it’s just Toby. Jim used to feel bad for Toby, isolated in the annex away from (almost) everybody, but today he’s envious.

“Oh, hey, Toby,” he sighs. He heads his forehead against the cool front of the vending machine. It’s dramatic, he knows, but his entire life feels pretty dramatic right now so he thinks it’s fitting.

“Can’t decide what to get, huh?” There’s a hint of humor in Toby’s voice, but Jim knows what the other man is really asking. He doesn’t respond, and Toby gets the hint. “Well, if you need help. You know, with deciding what to get. Or with anything…else. You know where I sit.”

Jim nods. “Thanks. I’ll figure it out eventually, I’m sure.”

Toby offers him an encouraging smile. “I’m sure you will.” He returns to his desk and Jim doesn’t get anything because none of it tastes good, or even tastes like anything at all. An unfortunate side effect of being lovesick or heartbroken or whatever it is that he is, but he can’t quite work up the energy to worry about it. He can’t quite work up the energy to do much of anything, except drag himself out of bed so he can come to work and see Pam and then throw himself into working so that he can avoid the unpleasant realities that come with seeing Pam--bridal magazines, her engagement ring, Roy himself. It’s not a good way to live, but what can he do? It hurts to be near her, but it hurts worse to not be near her.

Lately, though, the hurt of being near her is starting to hurt worse. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when she’s not Beesly anymore and is Anderson instead. Can a person literally die from a broken heart? If so, he feels pretty positive that’s what will happen, if it’s not happening already. Because he’s just so fucking miserable. He tries to put on a brave face and most of the time he thinks he succeeds, but internally he’s just a husk of the person that he was before he met Pam, before he fell in love with her.

But that’s not true at all. He’s a better person because he’s met her, and maybe even because he’s in love with her. She’s taught him about looking for the best in people and how to trust and how to listen and be still when someone needs you to be. She’s made him laugh harder than he’s ever laughed before in his life, she’s expanded his horizons as far as music and books and art, she’s made him want to be a better person, the kind that she’d be proud to be friends with. Or proud to just be with, period.

Way deep down, he knows that eventually he’ll have to cut her out of his life. He should have done it a long time ago, as soon as he started to have feelings for her--so basically, the first day he met her. He should have moved her from the “friend” column to the “coworker” column and treated her as such: friendly, but impersonal. If he’d just done it back then, then maybe he’d be in a happy and healthy relationship of his own with someone who wanted to be with him. Maybe he’d be excited for Pam as she plans her wedding, maybe he’d even be making plans for one of his own. Maybe he just wouldn’t care about any of it at all and not think one thing about Dunder Mifflin Scranton or the people that worked there after he walked out the door at 5:00.

The thought of not having the last few years of memories with Pam is heartbreaking, though. He knows he’d rather have those than have nothing at all. It’s just going to make it that much worse when he finally finds the self preservation that got lost somewhere along the way as he fell in love. The thought of not having Pam in his life make his throat close up and his chest constrict, but so does the knowledge that he’ll never be able to move on as long as he’s ten feet away from her and seeing her smile every day.

Staying in the breakroom for the rest of the day is tempting, but he’s sure that Dwight will eventually come looking for him and threaten him with demerits while simultaneously and not so subtly insinuating that the amount of time Jim wastes is the reason that he was the ninth place salesman and not the first. Maybe a cup of coffee will soothe the pounding in his head, so he pours one and starts to head back through the annex. At the door out of the kitchen he looks up and towards Pam’s desk, as is his habit. She’s laughing, her head thrown back, and Roy is there with a self-satisfied smile on his face. As Jim watches, Roy reaches out and catches Pam’s chin between his thumb and his finger as he smiles down at her. The whole interaction looks familiar and comfortable (because it is) and Pam’s smile is radiant and Jim wants to sob or puke or both.

He can’t walk go back to his desk, not when the two of them in there. So he turns away and winds up back in the breakroom. He sits at a table and puts his head in his hands, grinds his palms into his eyes in order to force back the burning hot tears that are collecting there.

“Jim? Do you want to talk?”

It’s Toby again. Jim feels the tell-tale sensation of words he doesn’t mean to say building up in the back of his throat and threatening to spill out of his mouth and for once, he doesn’t stop them.

“It’s just...does she have to plan her wedding on office time? Can’t she do that at home?”

Toby doesn’t look surprised, which is at least a little expected. The entire office probably knows or has some idea of how Jim feels. Everyone except the person that matters. “I’m sorry, Jim. If you want, I can talk to Michael about it? It’s a misuse of company time, anyway, so…”

Jim shakes his head. “No. I don’t want to get her in trouble. Today has just been hard. Harder. I don’t know how much more of it I can take. And that makes me feel like such an asshole, you know? I go back and forth between being sad because it hurts and being pissed off because I know she can plan at home and hating myself because what right do I have to be anything at all? ”

It feels good to get it out. Toby stands there with a look that is a mix of pity and understanding and Jim doesn’t know if he wants to slap it off his face or give him a hug. He decides to just sit there and take a deep breath in an attempt to shrink the boulder that’s gotten lodged in his throat. Toby gives him a moment before speaking. “You have the right to feel however you feel. And look, I have to write this up anyway, if you want to make it a formal complaint I can do it without--”

“Wait, you have to write this up? Why?”

“I’m your HR representative. Any complaint made by one employee about another has to be written up. It’s company policy.”

Jim shakes his head vehemently. “No. I don’t want to make a formal complaint. Can’t you--I don’t want her to find out.”

“That’s fine. I can take your name off it and file it with the resolved complaints. Don’t worry about it.” Toby turns to walk back to his desk, but stops short and turns back to Jim. “Listen, if you ever want to talk, you can talk to me. Just, we’d have to do it off the clock so that I’m not your HR rep.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll let you know.”

He waits in the breakroom for a little bit longer, but eventually he feels back to normal enough to head back to his desk. Roy is still out there, though, leaned against Pam’s desk like he belongs there, so Jim nukes his cold coffee and sits at the kitchen table, because what else can he do?

Phyllis comes in and pats him on the shoulder as she passes by on her way to the bathroom. Jim is pretty sure it’s out of pity. He’s wondering if it’s safe to leave when the door opens again and Pam walks in.

Her eyes find his and she smiles brightly. Every fiber of his being reaches out to her, like they know that they’ve found their counterpart and are yearning to complete the connection. He resists the pull, as he always does. If she picks up on his weird behavior she’s good at hiding it, because she certainly doesn’t seem to think that anything is wrong when she speaks. “I was getting ready to send out a search party. I was worried you’d gotten lost or something.”

He laughs, just a chuckle, but it’s genuine. The hurt both lessens and intensifies. “No, just talking to Toby. Had to get away from...from Dwight.”

Pam rolls her eyes. “Tell me about it. He didn’t seem to want to leave you alone this morning, did he?”

He likes that she even noticed. He didn’t think she had, she’d been so busy on the phone. It ignites a spark of hope deep inside his chest, but he quickly snuffs it out. She’s probably just being friendly. “Nope. And you know, I can’t figure it out. What did I do to deserve this?”

“Are you sad that Dwight beat you?”

“No.”

“Are you gonna cry, Jim? Do you need a tissue?” She teases him and her eyes are sparkling. He hides his smile with his coffee cup and thinks that maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if the two of them could stay in this kitchen forever and leave talk of weddings and top salesman and paper and everything else behind them.

But he’s not quite that lucky, because Phyllis comes out of the bathroom then and asks Pam about her wedding dress. He doesn’t miss the way the camera immediately swings in his direction, of the way Phyllis looks at him over her shoulder. The safe little bubble that was him and Pam and the kitchen is popped and he thinks he might suffocate. He plasters what he hopes is an unaffected expression on his face and all but bolts for the door. “Oh, I should get back. Talk to you guys later.”

Back at his desk, he doesn’t even bother trying to get any work done. It’s a lost cause already. He tries to distract himself with Dwight and Michael and Dwight’s sudden onset anxiety about making a big speech, and it almost works.

Almost.

His ears are trained to perk up whenever he hears Pam’s voice, so he hears every word of her conversation with her mother. She rolls her eyes at him when she mentions orange invitations and it pushes him to the verge of anger, kind of—like this is something they’re dealing with together instead of very much apart—but also right over the edge of heartbreak.

He makes a decision, then, and picks up the phone himself. Maybe because that self preservation he’s been missing has finally decided to show up, or because he has airline miles going to waste, or because he’s long overdue for a vacation.

But, if he’s being honest, he knows that it’s because it just hurts too much to bear.

“Hi, yeah, can I speak to one of your travel agents, please?”

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Chapter End Notes:
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