When Pam called, it was 1:27 in the morning on June 10th in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That meant that it was 3:27 in the afternoon on the same day in Sydney, Australia. She didn't know for sure if he was in Sydney or if he was somewhere else, but it was her best guess and anyway he was probably busy doing something exciting like surfing or drinking Fosters or-
"Pam?"
Oh my god. "Uh, hey."
"What are...are you okay? Do you need-"
"No, no! I'm fine, I promise. It's early in the morning but it's like 3:30 there, right?"
"What?"
"In Australia, right? 3:30?"
"Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is."
She didn't plan what she was going to say because she didn't plan on Jim even answering, but he had. He was there, his breathing on the other end of the line slow and deep and maybe a little shaky, and she listened for a few seconds. She never thought that she would miss the sound of someone breathing but she found herself realizing that she absolutely had...or maybe she'd just missed Jim in general. She didn't know how to say that, though, so instead: "How's Australia? Having fun?"
"Why did you call, Pam? Why today?"
Shit. She hadn't been expecting that so early in the conversation. "Um, I don't...I'm just really sorry, Jim. There's so much that I want-"
"Don't, please," he said, and it sounded a lot like begging. His voice was thick, like it had been that night in the parking lot, and she suddenly felt crushed by the weight of exactly what she'd done to him. A lump the size of a baseball formed in her throat and she swallowed hard in an attempt to force it down. It didn't work; she felt like she was getting ready to start sobbing. Probably for the best that he didn't want to talk to her. And then his question-why today?-made her feel like throwing up, because he thought she was calling on the morning of her wedding.
But then the weight of what he'd done to her hit, too. He'd done nothing short of ambush her with a declaration of love and then left when she didn't immediately uproot her entire life. He knew her, he knew that she had never been brave and didn't know how to make any huge life-altering decisions on the spur of the moment. And yeah, okay, she'd had feelings too; saying "me too" after their kiss had been the most honest thing she'd said in who knows how long. But she hadn't even had a chance to admit her feelings to herself before he'd all but asked her to admit them to him; shattering her reality in the process and leaving her to pick up the pieces by herself. It was only just now that she realized that not only was she heartbroken, she was sort of pissed.
"No, listen. You got to...I have things I want to say. Let me say them."
He sounded surprised when he said, "okay."
"I'm not marrying Roy."
"You're-"
She interrupted him. "I called it off a few weeks ago. I actually moved into my new apartment at Morgan Manor today. It's nice, I've never lived alone." She shook her head, admonished herself for getting off track. "That's not the point. I just-I didn't have any of this planned out, I don't exactly know what to say or how to say it, but Jim, I'm really kind of mad at you but I miss you, and I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, you're mad at me?" He sounded incredulous and she knew then that he hadn't realized that there were two lives that had been thrown into upheaval that night.
"Yes, I'm mad at you! Or I was, I don't know, but I don't think you understand the position you put me in that night! What was I supposed to say, Jim? It was three weeks from my wedding and my best friend tells me that he's in love with me and then runs away before I can even process what happened?"
"I don't-"
"And even if I had thrown myself at you and told that I felt the same way, what then? You obviously had the transfer in place before you said anything, so would you have backed out? Still gone? Asked me to go with you?" She couldn't stop. Everything she'd been keeping bottled up but burning to get out came bursting forward and it felt good. She was like a new version of Pam; a better, fancier version. One who wasn't afraid to say how she felt. One who was ready to stop keeping secrets.
Jim was quiet on the other end. She didn't know if her questions had been rhetorical or not, but she felt like it was his turn to say something regardless. Because she'd said a lot and yeah, maybe she was fancy new Pam Beesly or something, but it was still exhausting and terrifying and she was starting to worry that she'd said something wrong.
Finally, he spoke. "I'm sorry, Pam. I didn't think-I didn't even plan on telling you that I...what I told you. I was just gonna tell you about the transfer, but...well, you know."
"Yeah."
"I don't know what I expected. I should have said something earlier. Before...before it got so close."
"Yeah. Things might have been different."
She can tell that that caught him off guard by the way he took in a sharp breath. "What does that mean?" He sounded scared.
She felt scared. The courage she'd had when she told him how she felt about his leaving escaped her and it became much harder to get words out. "It means-" she started, then stopped to clear her throat in an attempt to force back tears. "It means that I spent a long time telling myself that we were just friends."
"And...we weren't? You weren't?"
"No, we weren't." Her voice is tiny and tremulous, but adrenaline started pumping through her veins. It propelled her to say what needed to be said, even though she felt like her heart might burst open because it just was so much. "We were...we were more than that."
"Pam-"
"I know it's too late. I'm sorry I didn't know how to say any of this before. It's hard to look back at ten years of your life and come to grips with the fact that you've been less happy than you could have been. I just guess I needed time so that I could figure out how to do that." She laughed (sobbed?) kind of, because now that she'd broken things off with Roy, it was so painfully obvious that they should have never been together that long in the first place. "Anyway. I'm sorry that I hurt you."
"Me too."
"Thanks." The tears she'd been trying so hard to push away finally came; spilled down her cheeks and splashed against her brand new comforter. Their conversation felt like closure. "Um, I'm sorry to call like this and ruin your vacation. I just...I guess I felt like I had to tell you. I don't know. I'll let you get back to it, you're probably missing a walkabout in the outback or something." He laughed softly and even though it seemed to Pam like things were ending, they also felt sort of normal. Like maybe they could get past this and be friends again. One day. "Have a fun vacation, Jim."
"Um...yeah, okay. Bye, Pam."
She flipped her phone closed before she could be tempted to say something else, beg him to give her a second chance or yell at him a little more or try to find a way back to the easy banter that she loved. The clock on her nightstand said 1:52. She watched it until it said 3:04, and then she finally fell asleep.
When Jim called, it was 5:43 in the morning on June 10th in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That meant that it was 7:43 in the evening on the same day in Sydney, Australia. But Jim wasn't in Sydney, or in Australia at all. He also wasn't in Stamford, Connecticut, but that was where he'd been when his phone rang (which meant that it'd been 1:27 AM for him, too). He was in the parking lot of Pam's new apartment complex and called because he needed her apartment number.
Pam answered the door at 5:47 and almost immediately found herself in Jim's arms. He kissed her, like he'd done that night, and she let herself kiss him back the way that she wouldn't before. There was still a lot to be said, she knew, but it no longer felt like things were ending.
It felt a lot like they were beginning.
