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More (Than That)
He was doing it again.
He wasn’t sure for how long or if anyone had taken notice as the entire warehouse was filled with the building’s employees and their significant others. After all, it was Casino Night. At first, Jim thought it was a ridiculous idea—not to mention highly illegal in the state of Pennsylvania—but nevertheless, he had to admit that the night had turned out to be a pretty great one thus far.
That is, until he realized that he was doing it again.
But in all reality, he simply couldn’t help it.
He couldn’t help but to stare at her. She just looked so beautiful in that iridescent periwinkle dress. Her hair was halfway pulled back as a few perfectly curled tendrils framed her porcelain face. She seemed so radiant, even when she took him all in during their poker game. Her laughter was completely contagious to all those around her, even when she pulled his chips toward her modest pile. Jim and his roommate had hosted many a poker night at their apartment, and while Jim frequently won, for some reason, losing all of his chips to Pam Beesly in that moment made him feel like he had won the lottery. Perhaps it was the way she smiled at him or the almost…flirtatious…way they stared at one another while he tried to assess whether or not she was bluffing. When Pam tossed a few chips onto the pile, Jim shifted his gaze back down to the half empty glass of whiskey in front of him. He was on his third drink of the evening and knew he needed to slow down or else the carefree evening he had spent the last few hours enjoying would simply vanish.
He tried looking elsewhere. He watched Creed steal some of Meredith’s chips. He watched Ryan as he handed Kelly her 7 and 7. He even tried to watch Dwight play craps for a few moments, but inevitably, his gaze fell back to Pam’s direction once more, just in time to see her push some more of her chips towards Kevin. God, he had completely fallen under her spell.
She was his co-worker.
She was his best friend.
She was—everything.
Unfortunately for him, she was also engaged. She had been engaged since the day they met, a fact that remained at the forefront of every interaction they had, because how could it not? Still, as the days, weeks, months—even years—passed, he found himself falling more and more in love with her. She was beautiful—obviously—but she was so much more than that. She was funny, and soft, and warm, and so incredibly kind. Most of the people in the office took advantage of that fact, but not Jim—never Jim. In her, he found a kindred spirit, someone he instantly ‘clicked’ with. At times, it felt as if they were so in sync with one another that they didn’t even feel the need to verbalize what they were thinking.
Jim furrowed his eyebrows before he took another swig of his drink. At least, that’s how it used to be.
Now, things were different. Comfortable silences had been replaced by tension-filled awkwardness. Casual conversations felt strained—almost forced now—and deep discussions about their personal lives were completely non-existent. They both knew the reason why, although neither could bring themselves to admit it.
When he glanced back in her direction, he spotted her fiancé, who had approached the table and had wrapped his arm around her shoulders. It was a completely innocent gesture, but Jim’s chest tightened at the sight.
Because he would give anything to be the one next to her.
The last several months had taken a toll on him, amplified exponentially the moment Roy and Pam announced a date for their wedding. Ever since that horrific night on the booze cruise, he had been forced to sit back and helplessly watch as the woman he loved planned her wedding to another guy, a guy—Jim quickly deduced upon first meeting Roy years earlier—who didn’t deserve her. He frequently blew her off, talked down to her, and discouraged her from pursuing her dreams. He didn’t help at all with the wedding preparations—at least that Jim was aware of—and would, more often than not, spend the bulk of his free time with his brother instead of with his fiancé.
It was maddening because if Jim were in his shoes, he’d do everything in his power to—
No.
‘Stop it,’ he mentally chastised before he quickly finished off the rest of his drink. He wasn’t in Roy’s shoes; he’d never be in his shoes.
Jim slid off the barstool as he threw one more glance at the happy couple.
He had to go get some air before he got another drink.
~*~
The moment Jim walked outside, he spotted Jan Levinson, his boss’s boss. She was leaned back against the hood of her car, a cigarette in her mouth. Jim had to admit that he had never wanted to smoke as badly as he did at that exact moment. The only reason he turned down her offer to have one was the simple fact that he had never actually smoked a cigarette before. Sure, he had smoked a couple of cigars before, but that was years ago, back when he was in college and they were a staple of the Sunday Night poker tournament in his apartment. He was afraid that the combination of smoke and whiskey would make him nauseous, and that was the last thing he needed tonight.
One look at Jan and Jim knew that her night seemed to be going about as well as the last year of his had been. He suspected that something was going on between her and Michael, her presence at Casino Night almost proved as much, but wasn’t Michael interested in his realtor? Truth be told, most of Jim’s thoughts were centered around a certain receptionist these days, so he wasn’t entirely sure what his boss’s current relationship status was, nor, to be perfectly honest, did he really care.
As he leaned against the hood of the car, he attempted some semblance of small talk with her. He quickly shifted into autopilot when he asked her if she was having fun. After all, it was a casino night, right? It seemed as if everyone else was having a blast. When she asked herself why she hooked up with Michael, Jim couldn’t help but to chuckle. That seemed to be the million-dollar question. Without even thinking about it—and he fully blamed the alcohol in his system for the oversight—he asked her why. It was only out of courtesy and not because he was genuinely curious. It was already more than enough for him to be constantly surrounded by his boss’s antics while at work. The last thing he needed was to be filled in on the details of Michael’s life outside of work.
Thankfully for him, Jan didn’t want to discuss Michael Scott any further. All he had been was one huge mistake. “Hey, have you given any more thought to the transfer?”
“Oh. Yeah.” The transfer. A few weeks ago, Jim had finally reached his breaking point. After Pam found out that he had complained to Toby once—just once—about the fact that she had been making wedding preparations while at work, he went to New York and spoke with Jan about transferring to another office. He had never intended for Toby to file a complaint on his behalf against Pam, and Jim retracted it the moment he realized what Toby had done, but still—thanks to another shenanigan of Michael’s—Pam found out. As the entire office posed for the group photo Michael insisted upon taking after getting new IDs for the building, Jim knew his time in Scranton was over.
He couldn’t stand hearing about the wedding in the first place, but when he actually saw her make all of the reservations and constantly discuss the guest list with various people in the office, it all became too real. He had to get out of there. Hell, he booked a trip to Australia specifically to give himself a reason not to attend the wedding. He couldn’t think of anywhere else further away, and knew he had to be as far away as possible when she walked down that aisle. The thought of seeing her at work afterward—to be forced to stare at the band on her left ring finger for the rest of eternity—drove him to the brink of madness.
The office had gotten too small. Scranton had gotten too small. Pennsylvania had gotten too small. He knew that a position had opened up for an assistant regional manager in Stamford, Connecticut, thanks to Dwight. He was so desperate to find a way out of the situation he was in that he applied for—and was offered—the job. He tried to convince himself that the promotion was a good opportunity for him, but now that he was three drinks in, he couldn’t deny the real reason why he accepted the position.
Jan nodded. “Good. Have you told anyone?”
Jim hesitated. “No.” As hard as it had been for him to admit defeat when it came to Pam Beesly, he knew that telling her about the transfer would be just as difficult, if not more so. Keeping this from her for the last week had been torturous enough. After all, she was still his best friend, even though a fog of awkwardness permeated every interaction they attempted now. Jim was well aware of the fact that leaving Scranton meant leaving Pam behind, but he also knew that it was his only chance at survival.
Jan, seemingly oblivious to the civil war that raged in Jim’s mind simply commented, “You should.”
~*~
Prior to his conversation with Jan, Jim had given serious thought to not telling anyone about the transfer. He’d simply stop showing and leave them to connect the dots or wait until, inevitably, Jan told Michael about it. The last thing Jim wanted to do was to drag this whole thing out more than was absolutely necessary. He also knew that if Pam threw him a look that conveyed anything resembling ‘I don’t want you to go’, he’d back out of the position completely, which would bring himself right back to where he started.
During one particularly vile moment of self-loathing, he wondered if she’d even notice if he stopped coming into work, but as soon as the thought landed on his heart, he chased it away. He wasn’t being fair to her. He knew she cared. They were friends, after all. Sure, she might miss him for the first few days, maybe even the first few weeks, but eventually, she’d get married to Roy and would start planning the next chapter of her life.
A chapter without Jim Halpert in it.
‘God.’ Jim rubbed his forehead as he walked around the side of the building. He couldn’t even contemplate what the next chapter of her life would entail because he knew it would contain miniature versions of her and Roy. As badly as he wanted there to be more Pam’s in the world, the thought of Roy being a part of it made him nauseous.
Getting more and more frustrated by his intoxicated trail of thought, he stuffed his hand into the front pocket of his pants and retrieved his car keys. He knew he wasn’t in the best state of mind to drive, but the thought of Pam procreating with Roy was more than enough to sober him up long enough to make it home in one piece.
He unknowingly passed by Roy’s truck as images of Pam—past, present, future—continued to torment him. It was already too late by the time he realized whose truck it was, and that Pam stood on the other side of it. It took every ounce of strength within him to muster up a small smile and wave at the couple.
“Hey Halpert!”
Jim briefly considered ignoring Pam’s fiancé and continuing the trek toward his car, but instead, he turned around to look at the guy whom he envied more than he ever thought was humanly possible. This guy was the one who had the pleasure of falling asleep next to the greatest human in the world. He was blessed to be able to greet each morning with the sight of her.
Jim had to admit that he had wondered—quite frequently—what it would be like to wake up every morning with Pam Beesly nestled next to him. He pictured untamed curls fanned out across her pillow as she slept peacefully beside him. He’d be content enough to watch her sleep while he memorized every single freckle that graced her fair skin. He also imagined that whenever she awoke, she’d look up at him and smile, that gorgeous—but oh so heartbreaking—smile, and he’d fall in love all over again.
Unfortunately for Jim, that wasn’t his reality. It was Roy’s. While Jim was well aware of the fact that Pam wasn’t his, as the days ticked by—as Pam’s wedding day drew nearer and nearer—the knowledge that he wouldn’t be the one to stand up in front of all of their friends and families and swear to be hers forever…well…it was beginning to kill him.
It was why he had to transfer to Stamford.
“Keep an eye on her, alright?”
He wanted nothing more than to just go home and start packing, but maybe Jan was right. Maybe he needed to tell someone that in a few short weeks, the Scranton branch would have one less salesman. “Ok. Will do.”
Jim stood still and watched as Roy pulled away from them. He knew that if he was ever going to tell Pam about Stamford, the time was now. He couldn’t have done it last week while they were in the office. There was too much pressure and he was too fearful of the fallout. He was even more afraid that she wouldn’t react to his news at all. So, instead of facing the consequences of his decision, he clung to the silence.
As he watched the taillights of Roy’s truck slowly disappear down the road, he wondered once again how she would react to the news. Would she speak up and tell him that she didn’t want him to go, or would she quietly accept the fact that he would no longer be part of her daily life? Jim knew what he was hoping for, but feared that the latter was more than likely the response he’d receive.
“Hey.” Pam was positively beaming as she closed the space between them. She hadn’t seen much of him since he handed her all of his poker chips.
Jim met her halfway in the parking lot. As he looked up once more at the disappearing figure of Roy’s truck, he began to fidget with his keys. It would be so much easier to just leave and not have to face this. “Hey, how’s it going?”
Pam grinned at him. For all of his bragging about how good he was at poker, she still couldn’t believe she took him down. Of course, she ended up losing all of her money to Kevin and Phyllis, but she couldn’t care less about that. She had beaten Jim, a fact that she would certainly hold over his head for at least the next three months. “Good…especially after I took all of your money in poker.”
He chuckled half-heartedly as he continued to fidget with his keys. Now that they were alone, now that he could feel time slipping away from them, he knew he needed to summon the courage to tell her about the promotion. He knew that she would ask the obvious follow-up question, and then he’d be forced to either look her in the eye and lie or admit the truth. Both options made him want to sprint towards his car, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t leave without telling her. It would be the coward’s way out. “Yeah…um…hey…uh…can I talk to you about something?” He wasn’t sure exactly what he would say, but maybe if he approached it in a lighthearted way, then it wouldn’t be so terrible. Maybe if he treated it just like a normal conversation, he’d be able to form the words.
Pam was completely oblivious to the slight edge in his tone. “About how you wanna give me more of your money?” She hadn’t been this happy in months. She knew that it was partially due to the fact that she had a few of drinks while at the table. She was so focused on constructing her next jab that she missed his soft ‘no’. “Did you wanna do that now?” She gestured to the building behind them. “We can go inside.” Her smile widened while she waited for him to respond. She wasn’t a big drinker, so she shouldn’t have been surprised that she was feeling giddy after only two mixed drinks, but it was a form of happiness she hoped would last for a while longer. “I’m feelin’ kinda good tonight.”
“I was just um…” The ability to construct simple sentences completely failed him. When he looked into her eyes—a dangerous act these days—his entire future stretched out before him. It was indescribable, but it felt as real as the breeze that surrounded them. There was a house, two children—a girl and boy—and her. Suddenly, another realization dawned on him. There was something else she needed to know, something more important than where he was going. As much as it scared him, he knew that she deserved to know the reason why.
With a steadfastness he didn’t know he possessed, he earnestly uttered, “I’m in love with you.”
Her smile faded as his words slowly sunk in. It felt as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over her head. The giddiness she felt vanished as she stared at the honesty reflected in his gaze. “What?” No, that couldn’t be right. She must have misheard him.
Jim wouldn’t—
He couldn’t—
Ok, so Pam was fairly certain that Jim had a little crush on her. Michael told her as much and it seemed fairly obvious given how awkward things had been with him over the last several weeks, but love? There was no way she heard him correctly. Why would he be in love with her? How could he be in love with her?
He wasn’t surprised by her initial reaction. It was completely in character for Pam to question even slightest disturbance in the ‘perfect life’ she had meticulously constructed; any minor inconvenience or threat to it simply wasn’t tolerated. And this was definitely more than just a minor inconvenience. Jim was well aware of the fact that Pam had always been content enough to stay exactly where she was, but she was weeks away from getting married and he was mere days away from moving, and if not now, then when? Even though he thought he could keep it bottled up, he realized the moment he saw that heartbreaking grin of hers that he’d never be able to ‘forever hold his peace’. He knew that confessing his feelings to her was a selfish move on his part, but he was tired of holding back, of pretending that the woman in front of him didn’t mean everything to him. “I’m really sorry if that’s weird for you to hear, but I needed you to…hear it.”
His gaze drifted to the pavement as every millisecond of silence between them stretched out into eternity. It was deafening. He wasn’t sure why he was anxious to hear her response. He already knew what her reaction would be. The pregnant pause between them said it all. He hated to drop this bomb on her in this way, but she had to have known it was coming, right? After all of the looks they shared, the conversations they had, the way he couldn’t help but to stare at her like she held the key to his very existence? There was no way she didn’t know how he felt after he confessed that he was the one who made the complaint to Toby about her. Hell, he was planning to leave the country a few days before her wedding. If that didn’t spell out ‘I’m getting as far away from here as possible because it would kill me to see you swear your undying love to someone who isn’t me’, then he wasn’t sure what else would. “Probably not good timing. I know that I just…”
His unwillingness to lie, to backtrack, to do anything to erase what he had confessed took away the remnants of the buzz Pam felt from the evening’s festivities. Her joy melted into fear as her eyes locked onto his. She knew that there would be no punch line. He wasn’t going to simply laugh it off and tell her that he got her or write it off as some horrific joke at her expense. In his eyes, she saw the sincerity behind his words. In her heart, she knew the truth.
She had never felt more petrified in her entire life. “What are you doing?”
Jim responded to her question with a knowing look. He could tell that she was scared, and the fact that he was the one to put that look in her eyes made it ten times worse. There was so much he wanted to say, but the knot that was steadily growing in his chest stopped him.
Pam had never felt the full weight of her engagement ring until that very moment. The next chapter of her life was just around the corner. Roy had finally set a date and they were actually going to go through with it this time. Her relationship would no longer be reduced to a punch line for the office, distant relatives, or even Roy—whom just the previous week lamented the fact that they would never again be rewarded for their lack of commitment.
Jim didn’t need to explain further. The look in his eyes said everything. She could feel the walls she had carefully constructed around her life start to crack. A new kind of honesty was beginning to slip through and the pressure of it made her chest hurt.
She wouldn’t accept this. She couldn’t accept it. If she accepted this, then everything would change. She’d be forced to throw away the life she had been cultivating ever since she was in high school. She’d be forced to start over. She’d have to step into an unknown world, completely unaware of how to navigate it. Why? Why would he say that? Why would he do this to her? Why now?
She opened her mouth to speak, to deny it all, but closed it when her stomach lurched. While she knew she couldn’t accept what he was saying, she also knew she couldn’t deny it. Though fear gripped her heart, something else had taken root as well. Butterflies, that had long since been dormant, fluttered in her chest. It had been so long since she last felt them that she wasn’t even sure what the sensation was at first. Her breath caught in her throat. She was completely thrown. “What do you expect me to say to that?”
Jim lowered his gaze to the ground once more as he silently begged for it to open up and swallow him whole. He saw the fear in her eyes, and he hated that he was the one who he put it there—that his declaration petrified her. With every passing second, he felt more and more dejected. He should have been better prepared for her reaction, but he just wasn’t. Because despite the fact that she was engaged to someone else, he just knew that she felt the same way or at the very least, felt something more for him other than friendship. When he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, he looked back up at her. “I just needed you to know…once.” Tears began to form in the corners of his eyes, but instead of forcing them back down, he allowed them to surface. He didn’t care about how vulnerable he seemed at that moment. His was only concerned about her and what she’d say next.
Pam found it difficult to form any sort of cohesive thought. She diverted her gaze from him in an attempt to gather some semblance of a response and figure out some way to communicate that response to him. “Well…I…um…” Her heart raced. Her palms had started to sweat and it felt as if a strong wind could easily knock her over. Jim loved her? The same Jim that she conspired with to play pranks on Dwight? The same Jim that she shared nearly every lunch with in the last three years? The same Jim who had been there for her every time Michael brought her to tears or when Roy would make some offensive remark around her?
Roy.
She was engaged—to Roy. Roy was her fiancé. They had been engaged for well over three years, which was longer than she had known Jim. Roy knew her better than anyone else did. They had been together since high school. He was her first love, her first kiss, her first—everything. After planning it for years, they were finally going to get married in a few short weeks. There was no other option. The deposits had been made. The invitations had gone out. She had just gotten her dress back from getting the necessary alterations. Everything was ready, but now this? Jim decided to tell her how he felt now? Why couldn’t he have said it sooner?
She couldn’t possibly turn her back on Roy now. Not after everything. She shook her head once more before she dared to look back up at Jim. The look on his face, the pain she instantly recognized, the tears that had formed around the brim of his eyes, broke her heart. “I…I can’t.”
Jim’s gaze returned to the ground before he shifted his weight to his other foot. “Yeah.” It hurt a thousand times more than he ever thought possible. He thought it couldn’t possibly be worse than the night of the Booze Cruise. He had to watch Roy announce a date to everyone. He kept silent as she positively beamed over the fact, but to top it all off, Jim had been forced to toast the happy couple, thanks to his (now ex) girlfriend. That night nearly destroyed him, but this? It felt like a thousand knives had stabbed him all at once.
Pam’s heart lurched the moment his gaze fell back to the ground. He didn’t deserve this. He never deserved this. She was with Roy long before they ever met, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Still, she never wanted to hurt Jim. Hurting him meant hurting herself. She was breaking her own heart with her words and she just wanted to go back—go back to the beginning, go back to before things got weird between them, go back to his first day at the office and just start over. Maybe then they wouldn’t be standing in the middle of the road having what had to be the worst conversation of her life. Maybe then he would have spoken up sooner or she would have been braver. There were so many ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs’ running through her mind that tears had filled in her eyes. “You have no idea—“
He looked back up. “Don’t do that.” The last thing in the world he wanted to hear at that moment was some minor consolation for confessing his unrequited love. He didn’t want to hear about how he was a good co-worker or friend or how she had fun with him or whatever it was she was about to say.
“—what your friendship means to me.”
His heart completely plummeted from his chest at her words. This was a million times worse than the Booze Cruise or how he felt after he confessed that he was the one who made the complaint about her last week. This took all of the awkward moments that had sprouted between them and made them look like heaven on earth. It felt as if his entire world had gone up in smoke. He could feel his very existence slipping away. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take, but he knew he had to stay. He had to hear every horrible word. He couldn’t leave anything left unsaid because he didn’t want to have even an iota of hope for the future. “Come on. I don’t wanna do that.” He paused for a moment before he made his feelings perfectly known to the woman who held his heart in a vice grip. “I wanna be more than that.”
This was sheer agony. Pam was convinced that this had to be what hell was. On some level, she knew that he had a crush on her or something at one point, but he loved her? He was in love with her? He wanted to be more than friends? Now? The logical side of her—the side that always won out in the end—once again reminded her about all of the preparations she had made for her wedding. The last several years had led to this, and she couldn’t back out now. She had an obligation she had to fulfill, no matter how much her heart ached for the man who stood in front of her. “I can’t.”
He couldn’t stand to look her in the eyes anymore. The hurt, the excruciating pain that coursed through his veins at her words was more than he could bear. He was still the same Jim he was five minutes earlier—hell, three years ago. He was in love with a woman, who was engaged to another man. Only now, he knew he never had a chance. Now, he knew that those little moments he had clung onto for the last three years—those stolen glances, the laughter, the smiles, the hugs, that kiss at Chili’s—was simply between two friends. She never thought that there was anything more to it, had never considered him as an alternative. He was just Jim Halpert: good friend.
She wanted to reach out and touch him, hug him, beg him to take it all back so they could go back to who they used to be. She didn’t want this. Maybe if she had allowed herself the chance to think about it for more than a few moments, she would have realized where they were headed. Maybe if all of this had happened a few years ago—even just one year ago—things could be different, but it was simply too late now. “I’m really sorry…if you misinterpreted things.” Her conscience would never allow her to fully admit it, but she knew that he hadn’t misinterpreted anything. Their friendship was something special. Somewhere along the line, he became her best friend, and somewhere further down the line, feelings for him—not of the friend variety—had developed. When she realized it, she should have stepped back. She should have pulled away from him, but she didn’t. Instead, some selfish part of her held on even tighter. She wasn’t sure why. She was horrible. She was greedy. She was the worst kind of person, because she never wanted it to be like this. “It’s probably my fault.” As a solitary tear finally escaped from his red-brimmed eyes, Pam’s heart finally broke. This had to be the worst moment of her entire life. When he didn’t even bother to swipe it away, she knew that it was his, too.
‘Misinterpreted things.’ It repeated like a mantra over and over again in his head. He already knew that must have been the case, but to actually hear her confirmation brought on an entirely new level of pain for Jim. Every moment they shared seemed so hollow now. Some of the best moments of the last three years—hell the best moments of his entire life—were spent with her, and now she was telling him that he had misinterpreted things? He knew he asked for this clarification in order to wipe away any trace of hope that lingered, but God, the hopelessness he was left with was indescribable.
He knew at that moment that he needed to get away from there, away from Scranton, away from Pennsylvania. For the first time since the day he met her, he knew—for the sake of his own sanity—that he had to put some distance in between them. “Not your fault,” he managed to utter with the best smile he could muster. He didn’t want her to feel bad. He never wanted her to feel bad. You can’t help whom you love, and unfortunately for him, she was in love with someone else. “I’m sorry I misinterpreted uh…” By some miracle, he found the strength to walk around her as he swiped away the pathetic tear that had dared to escape from his eyes, “our friendship.”
He took approximately five steps away from her before he spun around to face her once more. His lips formed a thin line as he briefly considered not telling her the very thing he had intended to, but since he had already obliterated their entire friendship, there was nothing else for him to lose. “Pam?” The slight tremor in his voice betrayed the steeliness he had hoped to possess.
Pam slowly turned to face him. Just a minute ago, he seemed so vulnerable and honest, but when she forced herself to look at what she had done to him, she noticed that his eyes seemed cold, practically lifeless. “Yeah?”
“You don’t have to worry about things being awkward in the office.” On some level, he knew he was being callous, but if she didn’t care, then why should he?
Pam wasn’t quite sure how to respond. On the one hand, she desperately wanted things to go back to how they used to be, but on the other hand, she wasn’t sure how they possibly could. Maybe given some time things could settle down, but she knew even then that they would never be quite the same again.
When he realized that she wasn’t going to say anything in response, Jim stuffed his hands into his front pockets. “I’m transferring to Stamford on Monday.”
~*~
‘I’m transferring to Stamford on Monday.’
‘Transferring to Stamford.’
‘Stamford.’
Over and over again, his words echoed through the recesses of Pam’s mind when she finally re-entered the makeshift casino. Several of the people who worked in the building had already left, but most of the Dunder-Mifflinites remained as they played poker and roulette, seemingly oblivious to the fact that one of them—the only one who really mattered—was leaving.
Jim was transferring to Stamford.
Pam blinked several times as she passed by the various gaming tables. She could hear Michael’s boisterous laughter on the other side of the warehouse and wondered if he knew. He couldn’t possibly know, she deduced, because he would have told everyone, would have made some sort of scene, and then would have tried to concoct some sort of scheme to get Jim to stay in Scranton.
As Pam looked around the room, she wondered if she was the only one who knew?
She found one of the makeshift bars and plopped down. She propped her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands as she tried to make sense of that entire conversation.
When one of the bartenders came up and asked her what she wanted, she initially waved them off, but after seeing a flash of that lone tear, Pam quickly changed her mind. “Rum and coke,” she spoke up. “Make it a double.”
Jim wasn’t faring much better. He considered going home. He had a lot of packing to do—well, all of it, actually. He hadn’t even begun the process because until about ten minutes ago, he wasn’t sure if he’d actually do it. Pam had made her feelings known. She was going to marry Roy and not only was she not in love with him, but she also had never even considered the possibility of being with him. As he walked towards his car, he remembered that Mark was staying at his girlfriend’s house that night. The prospect of sitting at home alone with all of these thoughts running through his mind seemed less than appealing, so he turned around and walked back toward the warehouse. Maybe someone could distract him. Maybe he could come up with some sort of prank to pull on Dwight, a last hurrah, if you will. Or, maybe he could help Michael with his two-date situation.
And why did he tell her he was leaving on Monday? He still had two more weeks left at the Scranton branch. Maybe he could speak with Jan again? Maybe he could transfer sooner or take some time off to focus on the move?
Unfortunately for Jim, the moment he stepped back inside the warehouse, his eyes fell to Pam, who sat at one of the small bars scattered across the room. She was staring at whatever drink she had ordered as she swirled her straw around the glass. His legs suddenly felt like lead. He felt trapped, forced to stare at the woman who had just broken his heart. She must have felt his eyes on her, because a few seconds later, she lifted her gaze and their eyes locked.
The moment her green eyes landed on his, the heaviness Jim felt evaporated. He quickly diverted his stare as he walked to the opposite site of the warehouse to sit at a different bar. He ordered a shot of whiskey and quickly gulped it down before ordering another. The conversation with Pam had completely and utterly sobered him up. He wanted the searing pain of the evening to go away for a while. He knew he wouldn’t find solace in the alcohol he was consuming at a fairly rapid rate, but as he downed the second shot, he hoped that it would at least provide him with a few hours of numbness.
Pam was acutely aware of the fact that Jim had chosen to go to the bar furthest away from her. She wasn’t surprised, but it didn’t make her feel any better. As she waited for her second drink to arrive, she began to replay every single exchange she had ever had with him, from the moment they met until the moment she saw him re-enter the warehouse. It felt like a movie, some sort of romantic comedy that swerved into a tragedy that could rival the best of Shakespeare’s. They were memories that she had cherished until about twenty minutes ago. Now they felt like remnants of a life she wished she could reclaim. They already seemed like reflections of another life, a life that was no longer hers.
He was leaving.
When her second drink arrived, she realized that he was already gone.
It was over. They were over.
She felt the tears coming. Her chest hurt. Her mind was filled with hundreds of images of Jim: the guy who made work a little more bearable, the guy who always managed to make her laugh at the most ridiculous things, the guy who always found a way to be there for her, even when she didn’t ask for him to be. He was compassionate, patient, sweet, funny, smart. He was so many things that her fiancé wasn’t. She had never really taken the time to compare the two men before. Sure, she had a few fleeting thoughts about how she wished Roy could be more like Jim, but she also chased them away because it always felt like comparing apples to oranges. They were two completely different people and she had known Roy a lot longer. Of course it was easy for her to point out his flaws because she had known him since high school. It wasn’t a fair fight, really.
But now, as she took another sip of her drink, as her carefully constructed defenses slowly crumbled away, she began to think about the differences between the two men.
As Pam mentally assembled a pro and cons list comparing Jim and Roy, Jim drank his way through his heartache. The last thing he wanted to do was think about anything. He knew he would need to stop after his third shot or else he’d never be able to get home, but the temptation to drink himself into oblivion had never been stronger. He forced himself not to look back in her direction. Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely sure she was still there.
No.
That was a lie.
He could feel her there. It was an instinct he had picked up over his three-year stint at Dunder Mifflin. He could always sense when she was around. There could be a hundred people in a room and he’d know if Pamela Morgan Beesly was among them. He always marveled at his ability to do that, but now, he hated it. His sixth sense now mocked him, because what was the point?
Pam fidgeted with her necklace as her mind raced. She shouldn’t do this. She was engaged. She couldn’t possibly be thinking about someone else. It was too late. It was all over. Why? Why did she let her guard down? Why did she force herself to consider the possibility that maybe she had more than a harmless attraction to Jim Halpert?
He was leaving.
He was transferring to Stamford and she was never going to see him again. Her breath caught in her throat at the very real possibility that it would be the last conversation they’d ever have. He’d have no reason to contact her once he moved, and he said he was transferring on Monday. The thought of walking into the office on Monday just to see his desk emptied was too much to bear. She squeezed her eyes shut before she quickly downed the remaining contents of her drink and slid off the barstool. As she made her way through the warehouse, she realized that there were only about a dozen or so people left. Still, it seemed as if there were a dozen too many. She needed to talk to someone. She needed to verbalize everything she was feeling at that exact moment before she imploded.
As she breezed by Jim, he turned around and watched her climb the stairs toward the office. He furrowed his eyebrows. Where was she going?
When the door closed behind her, he spun back around. Was that it then? Was that the last time he’d ever see her?
~*~
As Pam stepped into the office, she brought her hand to her forehead. She could feel the numbing effects of the alcohol she consumed begin to take effect, but her heart still raced. She walked over to her desk and lightly ran her fingers across it as she slowly wandered around the place she had worked at for the last four years. When she looked up at the office space in front of her, she bit her bottom lip. Four years, one of which was spent without knowing Jim. It was hard for her to recall a time before he had shown up. That was how uneventful her life had been before his arrival.
Her eyes landed on his desk, still covered with all of his personal effects. She wondered when he planned to pack everything up. She swallowed as she walked toward his desk. She glanced at the pictures that sat next to his computer. There were several: pictures of his parents, his siblings, and his friends. In each one, he wore that contagious, goofy smile. She knew she didn’t have a right to touch his things, but in her slightly inebriated state, she couldn’t help but to pick up a picture of Jim and his brothers. It had been taken around Christmas, as evidenced by the decorated tree in the background. Jim stood in the middle, his arms stretched out around the shoulders of his brothers. It was hard to imagine, but the lanky Jim Halpert was the shortest son of the Halpert clan. It was a fact that she had teased him mercilessly over the moment she first saw the picture. She sighed as she traced the outline of his figure. Would she ever see that smile again?
It was late—nearly midnight—but when Pam sat the picture back down, she picked up his phone and called her mother. She needed to talk to someone and her mother was the only person she could think of who could possibly understand what she was feeling. She was grateful that her mom didn’t seem groggy or irritated when she answered the phone. It would have only made Pam feel a hundred times worse. She wrapped the phone cord around her fingers and leaned back against Jim’s desk as she poured her heart out to the person who knew her best.
~*~
He needed to go home. He needed to sleep it off, get up in the morning, and call Jan about the transfer. Still, as he watched the dealers pack up their tables, he wondered why Pam had gone upstairs. Unless she took the elevator back down, she was still up there.
As much as he didn’t want to think about their conversation, it began to replay in his mind. He scrutinized every syllable she uttered and every look she gave him. She was surprised by his admission, but not too surprised. She seemed scared when he confessed how he felt, not repulsed, like he initially thought. Then, her words bounced through him. ‘I can’t.’ That had been her response. It wasn’t an ‘I don’t love you’ or an ‘I don’t see you in that way’. Yes, she said that she was sorry if he had misinterpreted things, but she never actually told him that she didn’t have any feelings for him. She simply told him that she couldn’t.
And of course she’d feel that way because she was engaged and she was Pam. He loved this woman with every fiber of his being, but one thing she had a hard time dealing with was change. She always went with the flow and seemed to accept whatever life handed her. What if her ‘I can’t’ meant that she couldn’t even consider the possibility because she had already made a promise to Roy? What if she did care? Jim had a hard time swallowing the fact that everything they shared was strictly platonic and as he replayed their conversation once more, he became even more convinced that there was something she wasn’t telling him.
He looked back at the door in which she had disappeared behind about fifteen minutes earlier. He had to see if she was still up there. As heartbroken as he felt, as hopeless as it seemed, he couldn’t just leave it like that.
~*~
Pam had gone through an entire gamut of emotions twice during the conversation with her mother. She started out in hysterics, which ushered in a bout of sobbing, and finally a few soft laughs as her mother regaled her with a story about her own romantic complications when she was younger. Then, when Pam spoke once again, she dissolved into an amalgamation of tears and hysteria as she expressed her fear that she’d never see him again.
Her mother listened patiently and tried to console her daughter the best way she knew how. All she could do was listen and let Pam explain everything. She knew her daughter. Ever since she was a child, Pam had always been so passive, had always let life happen to her instead of taking control of her own destiny. It was something she had inherited from her father, but Pam’s mother never challenged her to create a life for herself outside of what was considered ‘safe’.
Until now. She wasn’t forceful. Oh no. Being forceful with Pam meant backing her into a corner, and when Pam felt like she was backed into a corner, she would completely shut down.
So instead, her mother danced around the most obvious question until she felt like her daughter was ready to hear it.
When her mother spoke, Pam wrapped the phone cord a little tighter around her finger. She called her mother for advice in the middle of the night. The least she could do was to be brutally honest with her. “Umm, yeah he’s great.” She could still hear the quiver in his voice as she tried to stave off another wave of tears. She knew she had to pull herself together. It was the only way she was going to make it out of this with her sanity still intact. “Yeah, I think I am.”
She straightened her posture when she noticed a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. When she glanced up at the door, her breath caught in her throat. Her bottom lip quivered as she stood up and turned her back toward him. “Um, I have to go.” Her heart slammed against her chest as she tried to process the fact that he was here, and once again, they were alone. “I will.” She quickly hung up the phone and turned to face Jim, whose gaze seemed to be glued to the floor as he walked toward to her. She took a deep breath before she tried to put the last half hour into actual words. “Listen…Jim—”
Jim didn’t even consider the ramifications of what he was about to do. He couldn’t second-guess himself now. He wasn’t sure who she was on the phone with, nor did he really care at the moment. He couldn’t even comprehend the fact that she had addressed him. The moment he stepped into that office, the last three years of his life rushed back at him, and at the center of it all was a curly haired receptionist. Maybe she did care? Maybe she was just scared about what would happen next?
Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his lips to hers. Even through closed lips, he tasted the saltiness of the tears she had shed, tears he had forced from her. He never wanted this. He never wanted to see her cry, let alone be the reason for it. Despite the pang in his heart, he poured his soul into that chaste kiss. He needed her to feel the last three years in those brief seconds. He needed her to know that if she were willing to change the course of her life, she wouldn’t have to do it alone.
Pam was surprised by the kiss. Her jumbled thoughts about the future dissolved the moment she felt his lips against hers. Some small part of her knew that this was a mistake, that she needed to stop this before it got worse, but heart refused to let her. She could feel herself slowly melt into him as she placed her hands on either side of his face. She had to know this was real and not some bittersweet dream.
Everything and nothing flew through Jim’s mind when their lips connected once more. The sensation of her hands pressed against his cheeks assured him that there was definitely more to the story than what he was initially led to believe, but he couldn’t think about those complications right now. This was what mattered. This was the moment—their moment. Even if she rejected him again, even if it changed nothing, he now had something to hold onto to: the moment when Pam Beesly returned his kiss with one of her own.
Their second kiss lasted a little bit longer before their lips parted and they melted into one another for one fleeting moment. Pam knew she could get completely lost in this moment with him, but the conversation with her mother reverberated through her mind as the softness of Jim’s mouth surrounded her bottom lip. She slowly slid her hand down from his cheek to his chest, where it rested for a moment before she gently nudged him away from her.
Silence permeated the air around them as they tried to process what had just happened and what was supposed to happen next. Pam had never felt more conflicted in her entire life. Those damn butterflies ricocheted off of her ribs as her heart did a somersault. All the while, she felt even more confused than before, practically morose at the thought that not only had he had kissed her, but she eagerly kissed him back. That kiss left her with more questions than answers and she was grateful that his desk was right behind her. She leaned against it, fearful that her knees would buckle from the sheer emotion she felt from that sweet kiss. Jim’s arms remained wrapped around her waist, although they had loosened their grip. She knew he had done that on purpose in order to give her an out if she wanted one.
But that was the problem: she wasn’t sure if she wanted to escape.
Jim expected her to get angry and leave. Despite the fact that she pushed him away, he remained well aware of the fact that her hand still rested on his chest. He knew he looked like hell. He knew he had put her through hell. He knew he shouldn’t have just kissed her after their earlier conversation, but he was desperate. He was starved for the truth. He had to gain some clarity, some explanation as to why he had perceived his relationship with her so differently than what she said it actually was.
It had been a moment of selfishness for him. He was inebriated, but not completely out of his senses. He wasn’t about to blame his impulsiveness on the alcohol because while he probably wouldn’t have done that sober, the moment he felt her hands on his face, he knew he’d never regret a second of it. The only problem was that he was certain that she did. Just as he was about to open his mouth to offer an apology, she spoke.
Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Jim slowly lowered his head. She sounded even more petrified than when they were outside. He never wanted this. He never wanted her to outwardly fear him. God. She was right. He shouldn’t have done that. In a moment of brash hopefulness, he thought that he missed something in their conversation, that maybe she reciprocated some sort of feelings for him, but now, he knew with absolute certainty that she didn’t. “Yeah,” he answered just as softly as he slowly turned away from her. “You’re right.”
The moment his hands dropped from her hips, Pam felt a tightness in her chest. “Jim?”
He lifted his head so he could look into her eyes. Her hand was still nestled on his chest, seemingly frozen on the spot.
Pam lowered her gaze to where she had touched him. “Y-Your heart’s racing.”
He glanced down at the hand pressed against his chest for a moment before he looked back up at her. “Yeah.” God. Even through his clothing, he could feel the scorch from her touch. “You…You have that affect on me,” he confessed in his next breath. It was cheesy. It went beyond anything he’d ever think to tell someone, but it was the truth and Jim didn’t have the energy to sugar coat it. His heart rate automatically accelerated whenever he looked at her, whenever they made eye contact, whenever they shared one of those rare moments of physical contact. At times, such as this one, he hated it with a passion. Would he ever be able to be in the same room as her and not feel the physical effects of it?
“Are you sure it’s not the alcohol,” she softly laughed. It was a horrible attempt at a joke given everything that had happened between them, but she needed to know how much he had drunk. She tasted whiskey on his lips, and even though she was fairly certain that he had tasted rum on hers, she knew that she was still fully in control of her senses. She had to know if he was still in control of his.
He shook his head and quelled the urge to wrap his arms around her once more. ‘God. She’s so close.’ When she lowered her hand from his chest, it took all of the strength he had remaining to keep his hands by his sides. “That wouldn’t explain why it does that every time I see you.”
Pam’s eyes ticked down to his chest for a second before she looked back up at him. She could feel her heart rate accelerate at his words. It sounded like a lame pick-up line, but as she stared into his emerald eyes, she knew that he was telling her the truth. “Every time?”
He nodded as he looked down at his desk. “Since the day we met.”
She swallowed. “Jim, I…”
He could feel it coming. She was going to do it again. She was going to tell him that she loved her fiancé and that she wanted to marry him. He knew that at this point, he was breaking his own heart over and over again, but he also knew that he couldn’t leave without trying one last time. He nodded, suddenly unwilling to hear the actual words. “I know.”
When he turned away from her, Pam leaned forward and reached for his hand. Desperation and a sense of urgency consumed her at the thought that she would never see him again. When he turned back toward her, confusion marred his features. She placed her other hand on the nape of his neck and after a beat, she pulled his head down toward hers.
Her lips quickly found his as she wrapped her arms around his neck. When his hands encircled her waist once more, her lips parted.
The moment she pressed her lips to his, Jim became completely undone as years of self-restraint finally shattered. One of his hands slid up her back to the nape of her neck before he finally tangled his fingers in her curls. He reached nirvana the moment he felt her lips open against his. He moaned the second her tongue softly brushed against his bottom lip. When it finally slipped into his mouth, he furrowed his eyebrows as a wave of sheer ecstasy overcame him. This was closer than he had ever been, but still…
…it wasn’t enough.
Pam gasped when her feet suddenly left the floor underneath her. In a flash, he had picked her up and sat her down at the edge of his desk. Without breaking contact, Pam lowered one of her hands to his chest. Jim was certain that she was going to stop him and claim that this was all a horrible mistake. But instead of pushing him backward, her fingers slowly danced down his chest until she finally reached his stomach. In a completely unexpected move, she grabbed a fistful of his sweater and pulled him even closer to her.
It still wasn’t close enough.
Jim, beyond desperate to taste as much of her as she would allow, slid his lips down to her neck. As he began to plant open-mouthed kisses along her jawline, her pulse quickened. The small moan that slipped past her lips sounded like a symphony. The sensation of her hands on his back sent shockwaves throughout his entire system. He was dying for any part of her that she was willing to give. He was even more determined to show her just how much he loved her.
When Jim lowered his hands to the small of her back in order to support her, she leaned her head back, which gave him complete access to her neck. She ran her fingers through his hair the second he closed what little space remained between them. The moment they kissed, every chaotic thought that had ran through her mind disappeared. Now, as his lips slowly traveled down to her collarbone, all other thoughts ceased to exist. This moment with him was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Her entire body hummed with delight. Her entire being was acutely aware of every single contact he made with her skin. It was a type of high she had never experienced before and now that she had, she never wanted it to end.
In an attempt to get even closer, Jim stepped in between her legs and slowly laid her back against his desk. He pulled his lips away from her clavicle, only to descend upon her slightly swollen mouth once more. He was desperate for her. He had to know that she still wanted this—that she wanted to be in this moment with him. When she eagerly responded to his kiss, he allowed his lips to curl up into the faintest of smirks. That slight smirk quickly faded when she tugged on his sweater, which promptly brought him down on top of her. The moment he fell, something dug into the left side of his body. Reluctantly, he moved one of his hands away from the woman of his dreams in order to shove some of his stuff off of the desk. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that things were beginning to spiral out of control, but the combination of the alcohol he had consumed and the scent of her skin left him with no other option. He only wanted to get closer.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Pam heard him move some stuff out of the way. Anxious to reclaim his full attention, she swept one of her arms out in order to push some of the very pictures she stared at earlier out of the way in order to give them a little more room. She knew he didn’t mind her assistance when he smiled against her lips in return. After he somehow managed to slide his monitor over to Dwight’s desk, she felt the full weight of his body press into her. She released a sigh of pure contentment at the sensation. She felt safe now.
Jim breathed his own sigh of relief when he was finally able to refocus his attention on the woman in front of him. He lightly ran his fingers down Pam’s arms until he reached her hands. He slowly intertwined his fingers with hers before he lifted their hands up and placed them on either side of her head. All the while, he continued to communicate his feelings for her through every single kiss they shared.
And she definitely felt it. She could feel how much this man loved her. She knew that for him, this wasn’t just something that happened between two friends; rather, it was something that had been building up for a very long time. Suddenly, flashes of a life she had yet to experience coursed through her. A different kind of future stretched out in front of her. She felt the yearning and desperation in his kiss. She could feel how right all of this felt, how with one word, she could completely change their destinies.
And yet…
She knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
As that sobering thought echoed through her, Pam fell back to reality. They weren’t nestled in a cocoon somewhere far from the world they had always known. They were literally smack dab in the middle of it. She was on top of Jim’s desk in the middle of the office. The small diamond on her engagement ring had dug into her skin as her fingers were intertwined with a man who wasn’t her fiancé.
‘Oh God,’ she lamented before a wave of nausea hit her.
What was she going to do now?
The first thing she did was disentangle her fingers from his. Jim placed his hands on either side of her face, completely unaware of the fact that she had awoken from the magical spell that had enraptured them both.
She wanted to cry, scream, yell, but all she could manage to do was place her hand against his chest and push him away from her.
The moment he felt the pressure of her hand against his chest, Jim pulled his lips away from hers and stared into her horrified eyes. He maintained his position on top of her as his right thumb caressed her cheek. He couldn’t mask the concern that filled his features. “Are you ok?”
She still couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. This wasn’t who she was. She wasn’t the type of person to do this, to throw caution to the wind and act purely based on impulse. She wasn’t the type of person to clear off the contents of someone’s desk just to satiate some sort of forbidden desire.
And she definitely wasn’t the type of person to cheat on her partner—her fiancé.
She blinked twice before she finally shook her head. She wasn’t ok. She was so far removed from ok that the concept of being ok suddenly seemed like some sort of ridiculous fairytale parents told their children to help them sleep at night. She was the worst type of person because while she had never intended for this to happen, she also didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as she did.
“We’ll…I’ll,” he softly amended, “I’ll stop.” He knew he needed to get off of her, to help her to her feet, but for some reason, he couldn’t. Perhaps it was because he knew exactly what was about to happen. He knew that whatever she was about to say would completely negate the last five minutes and throw him back into the nightmarish abyss he had been living in for the last hour—hell, for the last three years.
She expected him to get up. She expected him to look away from her in disgust for leading him on, but he didn’t. He seemed just as frozen as she was. Maybe he realized the same thing she did. She swallowed harshly. ‘Maybe he’s glad he’s leaving.’
Tears quickly welled up in her eyes. ‘He’s leaving. He’s moving to Connecticut. Come Monday morning, he won’t be at this desk.’ They won’t be planning their next prank on Dwight or concocting some sort of scheme to get out of doing their work. Eventually, he’ll become a memory, nothing more. “Don’t go,” she hoarsely commanded. She knew she had no right to ask him to stay, especially after everything she had put him through, but the words slipped out before she could swallow them. Now that they hung in the air between them, she couldn’t possibly take them back.
Jim held his breath. “What?” Was it possible that she had changed her mind—that she wasn’t going to chalk this up to some drunken mistake?
“Please,” she begged as she fisted his sweater. “Please don’t leave. Don’t go to Stamford.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond. He felt her tremble from underneath him as tears cascaded down her cheeks. He felt a lump form in his throat before he gathered the courage to ask her the one question he needed an answer to. “Are you really going to marry him?”
His fingers were still tangled in her hair, his face only a few inches from hers. Even though they had never been physically closer than this, Pam could feel the miles between them. She had never been more torn about anything in her entire life. This wasn’t a decision she could possibly make within the span of a few minutes or even a few hours. Roy had been her world for nearly ten years. It stood to reason that it would take time for her to sort out her feelings for both men. The fact that she was even entertaining the idea spoke volumes to her about how much she cared about the man above her.
The seconds seemed to stretch out into days as a palpable quietness hung in the air between them. Somehow, Jim finally found the strength to stand up after two torturous minutes of silence. Even though his legs quaked, he forced himself to walk toward the door, unwilling to hear whatever excuse she was about to give. He didn’t want to hear how she couldn’t be with him because she was happy and in love with someone else. He ran his fingers through his tousled hair as he forced himself not to turn around and beg for her to reconsider. He knew that she had feelings for him. He knew that Pam wouldn’t have kissed him, wouldn’t have let him kiss her if she didn’t. But knowing that she had feelings for him was worse than thinking that she didn’t, because now the only thing that held them back was herself.
And in that regard, there was nothing more he could do. He said and did everything he possibly could. He laid it all on the line, and she still rejected him. The answer was right there in front of him: there was nothing left for him in Scranton.
Pam was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t even realize he was leaving. When she finally sat up—her thoughts still in chaotic shambles—she tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear before she finally turned toward the door. “Jim?”
But he was already gone.
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali
© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali