Seeing her face the next day would have been enough guilt.

Honestly, he told himself, it would have.

She was squirming in her chair, avoiding his eyes, looking miserable as he could remember seeing her. Worse than the day Roy told her not to go for that internship, which made him feel super duper extra awful. She looked defeated.

That would have been bad enough. He never wanted her to look that way, and while he could try to pretend that this had nothing to do with him, that it was entirely the fault of something else that had happened utterly independently of his total and complete failure to go to her art exhibit, he couldn’t kid himself that much. Sure, other things might have contributed to it, and he would later learn they had, but some large part of it definitely had been him.

No, she hadn’t actually explicitly invited him. But he wasn’t that capable of ignoring her hints, of failing to notice her whispered conversations. Hell, if he was entirely honest (which he certainly wasn’t to his girlfriend, nor to the woman he was currently thinking about, but he might as well be to himself if no one else) he knew what art class she was taking (she’d mentioned it to Kelly in the break room a few weeks ago) and he’d definitely looked it up. Not bookmarked it; actually, he erased his browser history every time he went there, because he never knew when Karen would decide to borrow his laptop and he could not risk having it display as a previously visited page. But he’d memorized the URL, and he had noticed the announcement of an art show, with the accompanying little blurb: “Pamela Beesly, watercolor and charcoal.”

So he wasn’t free from guilt. He’d known about it. And he hadn’t gone.

Again, he could spread the blame around if he liked. Karen hadn’t just not gone, she’d practically railroaded him into a night out with her that happened, just happened, to coincide with the timing of the art show (which just went to show that while she might have gotten her way this time, she didn’t know him all that well: offering to spend a night in with popcorn and a movie would have been a much less obvious, much more effective tactic). She’d made sure they went to one of those fancy places she loved (and he tolerated—the food was good at least) where they take an hour to make you an individualized set of dishes (he’d gone a couple times with her in Stamford, where they were rapidly making their way out of the NYC market; he had been startled to learn there was one in Scranton, and he fully expected it to close in the next six months, but there it was). But he’d gone with her, knowing what was going on, so he couldn’t really shake the blame, the guilt in his gut. It was on him, just as much as if not more than Karen. He’d been the one who hadn’t gone, because he’d decided, talking to the mirror in the men’s room, that “she has Roy. She chose him again. She doesn’t need you, and you can’t go back to being there for her when he’s not.” So it was on him.

Which meant, of course, he felt terrible. OK, not terrible enough to break through the walls he’d been putting up to protect himself from her, not terrible enough to go last night or to even actually mention it to her, but terrible enough that he had to put his face in a permanent sneer to avoid it. Had to harden his heart and put her feelings aside—and put his own, deep down feelings aside too—in order to stop himself.

And that was without the second thing. Because he’d come into work a little late today, he hadn’t heard the story of how it had happened, but there was a framed piece of art on the wall in the break room that hadn’t been there yesterday, and he knew, knew before he looked at the tiny familiar signature or asked anyone or did anything more than observe the brushstrokes and the vision of it, that it was Pam’s. Why she’d chosen to memorialize their office building and its parking lot (why oh why did the parking lot have to be there at all?) he couldn’t say. But he knew in his gut that it was Pam’s, knew from years of carefully stashing away every glimpse he’d ever gotten of her art, her style, her sensibilities that this could be no one else’s work. It wasn’t, he knew (and would both snottily point out to himself now and grudgingly admit later) the best of her work. He’d seen better even when she was with Roy; this looked…well, it looked like the painting equivalent of her face today, a little colorless, a little beaten down. But it was undeniably Pam’s and it made him feel even sicker, even more guilty.

Because there was no way this hadn’t been at yesterday’s art show. And that meant someone else—probably Michael, given the immediate appearance of this piece in the office—had gone, and that they’d gotten to see all the pieces, and that he hadn’t. It brought home to him his own inadequacies, his own failures, his own faults. And he hated that. And the fact that Pam still looked sad and defeated this morning even though a piece of her art was hanging from the wall tore at his heartstrings. It must have been really bad—and she must have been really hurt.

And this was all the art of hers he’d ever get to see again.

That was the worst bit. That he’d have to walk in every day and see Pam’s painting, knowing that if he were a little less of an ass he could have seen them all.

He only knew one way to get through the day after that particular realization. Well, he knew two, but he was definitely not capable today of breaking down his own walls, going to her desk, and begging her to take hers down too (assuming she had any; assuming he was ever capable of interpreting her correctly; assuming she cared. But he did assume that, deep in his heart of hearts). No, he would take the other route. He ignored the painting. Ignored the guilt in his gut. Powered on through.

After all, Karen had suggested yesterday that if he did things right, he might be able to get a promotion. And a promotion would mean leaving Scranton, which he was once again realizing he might need to do for his own sanity. Karen had her reasons, but he had his own, and if he wasn’t going to talk to Pam (and he wasn’t) he was going to need to work on that ASAP.