Pam’s eyes snapped open, as they did every morning, five seconds before her alarm clock went off. She strongly considered just ignoring it out of spite at Roy, but thought better of it after the sound annoyed her. Anyway, Roy didn’t know what he’d done—this repetition thing really ruined the joy of a good sulk—so she turned off the alarm and went about the start of her day.

Today, she decided, she was going back to the abstract art class at the library. Well, “back” was such a relative term. But back for her, even though no one would have seen her before. Shit, she’d have to remember to introduce herself, even though she already knew these people in her mind. Well, that was OK. She’d manage. After all, she wasn’t that great with names and faces anyway, so it shouldn’t be too hard to re-make friends without seeming overly creepy. Should it?

The real question was, what should she do with the first half of the day, the part before she could sneak out of the office? She was pretty happy with how things had gone with Brenda and Toby; she could probably manage that again. It had also seemed to calm Michael down, but calming Michael was definitely something that had to be done in the moment: he was like a child that way, and no matter what she might say to him before 1pm he wouldn’t remember (or at least, wouldn’t act like he remembered it, which was kind of the point) by the time the actual cruise came along.

But she was not going on the cruise again. She was not. These even cycles were hers, dammit, and she wasn’t giving one up. She wanted to paint. She deserved to paint. She was going to paint. That was all there was to it.

But who else could she help? She thought about it as Roy drove her silently into work. She could do more work on Ryan and Kelly, she supposed; that hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped, though there was very clearly something there to work with. But that really left Jim and Katy—and Dwight and Angela, but their issues were definitely beyond her. She could maybe help them on the cruise—run interference? Pledge to both that she’d never mention their secret to anyone?—but not today. Today was about Jim…because she wasn’t going to see Katy anyway.

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath before delving into the morass she’d been trying vainly to avoid for two cycles now. What had Jim been thinking, breaking up with Katy? She’d seemed so serious about him, with her questions about engagement and her longing looks. She was gorgeous. Everyone said so, and Pam could see it herself. She wasn’t Pam 6.0; she was something completely and utterly different. It was like saying the sun was a lightbulb 6.0. When she walked into the room, people noticed. She still wasn’t entirely sure Roy, her fiancé (well, soon-to-be-ex, once she could figure that out, but still, her fiancé of three years so far) noticed she was in the car with him.

As if to emphasize this point, Roy started digging for something in his nose. Pam remembered reading that people only did that when they thought they were alone. And she could see why: it was disgusting to watch.

So, Jim and Katy. Why had he broken up with her? It had been when Pam had accepted Roy’s suggestion of June 10. Had he done that the other times she’d accepted Roy? Had he done it the last time, when she’d rejected him? She was suddenly, guiltily aware that she hoped the answer to both questions was yes. She knew she shouldn’t feel too guilty about her own feelings—even though Roy was sitting right there next to her, he’d been very clear a few cycles ago about how little he thought of them as a couple—but she felt guilty for not caring about Katy’s. She’d seen the hurt in Katy’s eyes when Jim had rejected her so quickly and utterly. What kind of person was she to hope for another person experiencing that kind of sheer unhappiness?

She needed to figure some things out about that relationship, even though she’d been trying to avoid doing so for months. Katy hadn’t been at Jim’s barbecue back in the fall, but he’d softly shot down Ryan’s question about getting her number (Pam felt a flush as she realized how well she remembered that short exchange). She was at the booze cruise, but it was the matter of a single sentence to get Jim to replace her with Larissa. Was this a casual thing for Jim? Did he even do non-casual relationships? Katy was the longest-term girlfriend of his (if she was that) that Pam could remember. Not that she and Jim talked about that (she forced herself to think his relationships, no, his love life) all the time, but still. Maybe he just did casual, and that’s why he was so thoughtless about poor Katy’s feelings.

Or maybe that was a one-time thing. He was her best friend. He read her like a book. Maybe he could see how unhappy Pam was even while she was trying to fake her acceptance of Roy’s suggested date. Maybe he’d told Katy they’d never be like that because he wanted to be better than that, more than that.

But then he hadn’t said that, had he? He’d said “I don’t know. Let’s break up.” Maybe he was trying to figure out how to help her, Pam? Maybe he was such a good friend that he’d checked out of his (probably casual? Maybe casual? Pam tried to avoid the thought hopefully casual) relationship for a moment to think about how to help Pam and Katy had just caught him at the wrong moment. Maybe he would be frantically trying to patch things back up now that he knew what was going on.

Or maybe he would be if the day hadn’t reset again. Maybe that was what she had to do to break the loop: help Jim realize he wasn’t supposed to break up with Katy for her sake. Now, why did that make her feel like she had a stomach ache?

These thoughts had taken Pam all the way up to the break room at Dunder Mifflin, and she was putting coins into the vending machine before she was awakened from her reverie by the plink-plink of a dime sliding down the slot.

Before she could think about it, she had selected the Cup-O-Noodles immediately next to Dwight’s stapler. She looked up at Jim with shy eyes (thanking heaven that she was too distracted to be blushing, because in any other circumstances the thought of looking at him while her mind was still half-focused on his love life would have had her beet red—appropriate for a conversation involving Dwight—in less than a second) and gestured with the cup.

“Sorry, my stomach’s acting up, and none of Dwight’s stuff seemed all that helpful.”

“Nonsense.” To her surprise, it wasn’t Jim but Dwight who answered her. “If my wallet weren’t in the machine,” he glared at Jim, “I’d show you the beneficial effects of powdered beet root in an infusion of hot milk.”

“We don’t have milk, Dwight, just non-dairy creamer.” Jim spoke almost absently as he looked at Pam with concern in his eyes. “But just in case…” He pulled out the bag of nickels. “Knock yourself out.” She made the mistake of holding the eye contact as he made the inadvertent pun, and they both broke out into giggles, thinking of the last time that particular bag of nickels had knocked Dwight out.

Dwight sniffed and ignored them, taking the bag of nickels and beginning to slide them into the machine. In a moment, the stapler clunked to the bottom.

“Dwight.” Jim put a hand on his shoulder while winking at Pam. “I hate to break it to you, but that’s a stapler.”

“Yes.” Dwight answered sharply as Pam filled the Cup-O-Noodles with hot water from the tap. “But then, Jim, you were never that observant. A good salesman sees not just the outside, but the inside.”

“Of a stapler?” Jim leaned back. “I assume the inside is…staples.” He gestured grandly. “How marvelous.”

“Obviously there are staples in the stapler.” Dwight pried the top out to reveal a small baggie of red-purple powder slotted into the mechanism behind the staples. “There is also powdered beet root.” He shook the baggie in Jim’s face. “One never knows when one will need a panacea.” He started for the fridge. “Also, I brought fresh milk with my lunch. Mose extracted it just this morning.”

“I didn’t know you had cows on your farm.” Pam dug into the drawer for silverware.

“We don’t.”

“Then how…”

“Mose knows how to milk a lot of things.” He poured a bit of the milk—Pam was glad to see it was white, at least—into a mug from the cupboard, sprinkled the dark powder on top, and put it in the microwave.

“Can you at least promise me it’s fit for human consumption?” Jim was still leaning against the wall, but his eyes were intent.

“I drink it.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

Dwight gave a curt nod. “It is. An…a friend has vouched for its superior quality over and above cow’s milk.” He turned back to the microwave, his face thunderous.

Pam intervened before Dwight could get too embarrassed over his near slip. “I don’t need it to be superior, just drinkable.”

Jim shot her an astonished look. “You’re really planning to drink that stuff?”

Pam shrugged. “I don’t think Dwight’s planning to poison me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Thank you Pamela.” Dwight seemed to take that as a compliment. The microwave beeped. Dwight pulled the concoction out, stirred it with a wooden stir stick from the coffee supplies, and handed it to Pam. “It is best to drink it all in one go.”

“Best for my stomach?”

“Best for your throat.”

 Before Pam could think through the implications of that statement, she’d tossed it back—just like snorkel shots, she thought, and almost choked—and felt a warmth coursing through her body. “Huh. I do feel a bit better.”

“I told you. Now that that is resolved, it is my responsibility to tell you both that your breaks expired thirty seconds ago.”

“Dwight…” Jim started, but Dwight held up a hand.

“In light of Pamela’s…indisposition, I believe we can consider the matter closed if you both return to your desks.”

“The matter was never open,” Jim grumbled, but he and Pam went. After all, the prank was pulled, and Pam had drunk Dwight’s weird drink, so what was left to do in the break room anyway?

Pam’s stomach did feel better, though whether it was the Cup-O-Noodles, the weird powder, or simply the fact that she wasn’t thinking about getting Jim together with Katy, she couldn’t be sure. Unfortunately, the last issue was like a pink elephant—as soon as she was aware of not thinking about it, she thought about it.

Jim’s presence lingering by the candy dish after Stanley found out about the cruise didn’t exactly discourage the thought, and her stomach lurched again.

“Hey, Jim?”

“Yeah?”

She couldn’t just straight up ask him about Katy. He’d wonder why she was asking, since her name hadn’t actually come up in…several weeks, from his perspective (rather shorter, of course, from hers). But while she was deciding that, her mouth took over, and her brain looked on in horror at the question she did ask.

“Have you ever been in love?”

The question hung in the air; more accurately, it became the air, as if she and Jim were somehow just breathing in and out the same question until it became a part of them—but in the same way that you don’t answer the air (even if it talks to you), they remained silent, until her embarrassment finally got the better of her still recalcitrant tongue.

“I mean…”

Her breaking the silence was apparently his cue to break it as well, just half a beat later. “Well, I…”

“You go.”

“No, you.”

She took a breath, inhaling the awkwardness. “I’m sorry, that was a really rude question.”

He grinned sadly. How did one grin sadly? How did she know he was doing that? How well did she know him anyway? Her mind raced as he grinned and then continued. “No, it wasn’t.” The grin turned less sad. “It was an impertinent question, but we’re…it wasn’t rude.”

We’re what? she wanted to yell. Unbidden, Karen’s thoughts from two cycles ago ran through her head. How long have you and Jim been dating?

To chase the thought away—this was supposed to be about him and Katy, and now that she’d started it she’d need to finish—she fell back on her default conversational gambit with him: sarcasm.

“Impertinent? What are you, seventy? I knew you’d stolen all of Dwight’s stuff, I didn’t know you stole his personality too.”

He snorted. “Hardly. He’d have to have one first.”

She giggled, but he didn’t. Instead, he leaned a little bit over the desk, glanced around, and lowered his voice.

“Do you really want to know?”

She couldn’t pretend not to know what he meant, but she also couldn’t breathe enough to form an answer. But her head went on and nodded, almost on its own.

He let out a breath he’d apparently been holding in. “Yes. Once,” he whispered, then straightened.

She realized when she’d seen him act this way before. It was exactly how he behaved when they were passing plans of a prank around without Dwight overhearing. The same semi-casual stance. The same instant return to an even-more-casual position. The same whisper, even.

She could come up with two explanations. One, Jim was playing a prank. Two, Jim was nervous about being overheard.

Or both, of course.

She hoped it wasn’t a prank, but she wasn’t sure why else he’d be nervous. And she wasn’t sure what to do with what he’d said either. Once? What did that mean? It could mean one time or it could mean sometime in the past…which one did he mean?

“Are you still?” Her filter was apparently nonexistent today.

He stared at her, then slumped almost imperceptibly against the desk. “Yeah.”

Pam’s breath came short. He was. He was in love. It had to be with Katy, right? Why else would he have brought her on the booze cruise? But in that case, whatever had made him break up with her? She pushed away the rising thought what if it’s not Katy and took a deep breath.

But Jim spoke before she had a chance to. “What about...” He shook his head. “No, that’s stupid,” he whispered as if to himself. He straightened. “Well, Beesly,” he said in a tone that sounded calm but she could tell—seriously, how well did she know this man?—was anything but. “I guess you were right.”

“What?” How did he know what she was thinking? What was she right about?

“I guess I did get Dwight’s personality, because it’s time for me to get back to the paper…and stuff…” he trailed off a bit and gave her a sheepish smile as he grabbed a jellybean and turned back towards his seat.

Underneath the teasing edge she could tell something was bothering him. Maybe that was what made her, instead of making fun of him for referring to “paper and stuff,” smile back at him and say “you can always talk to me, you know.”

She could swear he stiffened as he walked back to his desk.

She didn’t have time to think about what was going on with Jim, though, because Michael chose that moment to call their all-hands meeting to announce what everyone already knew (her most of all, of course) was already going to happen.

The first time she really had a chance to think about what Jim had said was after she’d snuck out and camped out at the library waiting for the class. He was in love, apparently. She didn’t think it was with Katy—but was that just wishful thinking?

And why would wishful thinking lead her to think that?

Was this about Jim or her? What kind of friend was she if she kept interjecting her own wishes and desires onto his situation—especially when she wasn’t even sure of what those desires were herself?

She’d tried to curl up with a good book, but the thoughts kept coming. Should she be throwing Jim and Katy together, or keeping them apart? Why did her stomach hurt when she thought of the first option?

Oh god, was she in love with Jim? Karen clearly thought so—she’d thought they were engaged. But Karen hardly knew her. Roy clearly didn’t think so, even if he sometimes got jealous of Jim, or else he wouldn’t…

Well, actually, everything about Roy’s behavior could be explained by the fact that Roy really didn’t care about or notice anything outside of himself, the Eagles, the Flyers, and the 76ers. Sometimes the Phillies, too. Certainly not Pam herself, except insofar as she impinged on his life. And she was good at not impinging. Good at disappearing into the edges of life.

She needed an outside expert. Well, she’d had one of those in Karen. She needed an inside expert, then. She pulled out her phone and dialed.

“Hey sis.”

“Hi Penny.”

The line was silent for a moment, until her sister cleared her throat.

“So, to what do I owe the honor of a call?”

“Oh!” Pam hadn’t realized how long the silence had lasted. She didn’t really want to go through the pleasantries—and one of the benefits of a sibling, she realized, was that she really didn’t have to. “Am I in love with Jim?”

“Hm….that’s a tough one,” her sister mused in the voice she’d always used when Pam came to her with some kind of conundrum that she thought Pam was overthinking. Given their two personalities—Pam the deliberate, cautious, but creative one, Penny the quicksilver, impulsive, but surprisingly scientific one—that had been frequent when they were growing up. The only question was: what did she think was the obvious answer here.

This being Penny, though, she wasn’t going to just tell her. No, her sister (her maddening, wonderful, frustrating, helpful sister) always wanted Pam to understand the thing she was asking for help about. So instead of saying yes or no, she asked a question back. “What makes you ask?”

Pam sighed. When they were twelve and ten, she would have tickled Penny to stop her from asking her dumb questions. When they were sixteen and fourteen, she would have told her stop being annoying and just tell her. When they were twenty-two and twenty, she’d have yelled at her for being no help. Now that they were twenty-six and twenty-four, she just answered. But how to answer in a way that didn’t bring up the unbelievable fact that she’d been reliving the same day over and over? “I’m trying to help him with a relationship thing, and it’s making me feel weird.”

“Weird how?” This was how Penny operated: no statements, no answers, at least not on topic. Just the Socratic method until it was obvious what she thought. If this was what Socrates was like, Pam could understand why the Athenians gave him hemlock. Not that she didn’t love her sister…

“My stomach hurt. I thought it was some kind of illness, and I drank something Dwight made…”

“Oh god, it’s serious then.” Penny laughed. “What made your stomach hurt?”

“I don’t know!” Penny was silent until Pam grudgingly admitted the truth. “Thinking about how to get him to propose to his girlfriend.”

“Do you think it’s because you have a problem with people getting engaged?” That was Penny, going right to the heart of things with a bluntness Pam had learned to find endearing. And she’d never had much time for Roy anyway—something that should have been a red flag, in retrospect, Pam thought.

“No. Honestly, I’m about ready to end things with Roy anyway.” Pam listened to her own words and winced. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Jim, though.”

“Doesn’t it?” And all of a sudden the penny dropped. Sometimes Pam thought that was why her parents had named her sister that way: she was capable of real social errors (she didn’t seem to be able to figure out how people right in front of her were related to each other: once she’d asked one of their dad’s friends if his second wife was his daughter) but when you got her on an analytical string like this she could both lead a horse to water and make it drink. In other words, she always knew how to make the penny drop, as it had in this case. She was in love with Jim.

“There are a lot of reasons to break things off with Roy.” She could hear the defensiveness in her words and rushed on before Penny could ask another simple, devastating question. “But none of them mattered until I met Jim.”

“And what have we learned today?” Penny was relentless, but Pam could hear the amusement in her voice.

“I’m in love with Jim.”

“That’s right. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know.” But she had all the time in the world to figure it out. Before she hung up, though, there was one more thing she needed to establish. “How long have you known?”

“How long have you known Jim?” That was not the answer she was expecting, and it just gave her more to chew on. But a glance at the clock told her it was time to drive over to the YMCA for the art class, and she didn’t plan to miss that. “Thanks, sis.”

“Anytime.” Her sister sounded amused. “I’m always here to help you through your epiphanies.”

“Yeah, like I said, thanks.”

Her head was whirling; she was never sure how she got from the library to the Y, and it was a miracle in retrospect that this cycle wasn’t cut short by a car accident. Her discombobulation made it easy to forget people’s names at the class and she found herself once again sitting next to Melanie. This time she knew to steer the conversation towards school and their mutual friend Larissa, and the conversation was a nice respite from her wild thoughts of love and how to grab it. Her painting had improved too: this time it almost looked like a Rothko, she thought, giant bars of paint layered above and below in a way that brought her peace.

But when she drove home that night her thoughts were anything but peaceful. They hinged on one crucial thought. She loved Jim, but did he love her back?