Pam’s eyes snapped open, as they did every morning, five seconds before her alarm clock went off. She got up and turned off the alarm with a bit of pep in her step. Today was a day she wouldn’t need to worry at all about the stupid booze cruise. She could go do…well, pretty much anything else. As she went through her morning routine, she thought for a moment about the advantages of living your life on repeat. No laundry. No cleaning. She could wash her hair every morning without worrying about the long-term effects of washing it too often—or she could skip a day (as she did now) without worrying that skipping an extra day would make tomorrow worse. There was even no need to pick out the next day’s clothes: she knew that today’s clothes, fresh as they had been at the start of the cycle, would be laid out on the dresser every morning. In a weird way it was like having a very predictable, set-in-their-ways personal servant looking over her.

As she puttered about making breakfast and listening to the incipient sounds of Roy awakening upstairs, she wondered where her life had gone wrong so that a day on repeat seemed like a good thing. Especially a day like this one: a day that had somehow gone from one of the happiest of her life to one of the most gut-wrenching even as the same things had happened over and over. Was there something wrong with her? Or with the world? Or with her expectations?

No. It wasn’t her expectations. There was nothing wrong with wanting her fiancé to care about her—wanting the last three years to matter to him as much as they did to her—wanting his proposal to represent an actual desire to marry her for her.

But maybe there had been something wrong with her expectations from the start, or maybe with her expectations of Roy. Because no, it wasn’t ridiculous to want more than she had in her day-to-day life, but it might be wrong to think she could or ever would have them with Roy. After all, while now she might be literally reliving the same day every twenty-four hours, hadn’t she been doing that figuratively for some time now? There was a reason her routines were like clockwork, and it wasn’t her desire for order. It was because their lives hadn’t changed much, if at all, since she had dropped out of college and started at Dunder Mifflin. Bill Murray had at least been in a new town, one he visited only one night a year, with a new producer and a new (and surprising to him) snowstorm on the way. When he’d lived through the same day so many times, he’d had to first acclimate himself to the place and the people. She saw the same people every day anyway, and while the cruise itself might be new to her the ideas of a stupid Michael plan gone wrong, or a distressingly alcoholic party with the office, or of Roy doing something impulsive without real thought about its consequences weren’t new at all.

Roy doing something stupid and impulsive. Like asking her out in the first place? If she had been so “artsy-fartsy,” as he put it, why hadn’t he asked out a stupid cheerleader like stupid Katy? Well, not Katy specifically, she wasn’t actually stupid (some of those purses were actually really well-designed) and anyway she’d apparently gone to one of the other regional schools, but someone like Amy Birdhauser or Lesley Williams, both of whom had quite clearly been interested in him.

A sick feeling gathered in her stomach. Casting her mind back, she remembered a particularly nasty rumor she’d heard floating around high school when she and Roy had first started dating: something about how he’d only asked her out on a bet. Now, she reminded herself, he obviously hadn’t stayed with her for a decade on the strength of one bet. But she knew Roy, probably better than he knew himself if she was honest. And she knew the way his inertia functioned. She could see a world in which Roy had asked her out on a bet, found out he liked her (she wasn’t going to give up the point of self-esteem which reminded her that he had, after all, taken her to prom and asked her to marry him), and just…let it ride.

She took a shuddering breath. Now was not the time to get all worked up about that. Now she needed to scrape the scrambled eggs that had somehow found the time to harden in the bottom of the pan out into the trash and put on an acceptable face for Roy as he hurried out and they hustled themselves into Dunder Mifflin once again.

And how was that different from every other morning even before this all started?

She went through the workday almost by rote, although she did decide to mix things up a little by buying Dwight’s family photo. She almost instantly regretted it, because having to look at what she assumed was Cousin Mose’s face even for half a work day was nauseating, but it was worth it because it caused Dwight to lapse into a series of Germanic mutterings that she was pretty sure were either curses against her soul or prayers for forgiveness to his ancestors. German being an angry-sounding language, she was never certain. Jim gave her a wink and a surreptitious thumbs-up as she swept out of the break room, and she let that carry her through the discomfort Mose’s visage inspired.

Around 1pm she found an excuse (claiming they were out of paper for the copier—she wasn’t quite sure why Michael bought it, but something with Brenda had apparently distracted him from even the most basic of mental processes) and slipped out of the office, keys to the truck in hand. She pulled out of the parking lot and headed to refill the vehicle (Roy never remembered to) while she decided where she ought to go. She rehearsed her mental list of brochures from the library (the brochures themselves had gone wherever it was that the alcohol in her system went every night, which was to say mysteriously away, but she could still remember the ones she’d selected as interesting to her). What was the right one to go to today? Thinking of her doubts about Roy, she remembered one brochure for a low-level minor-league hockey game: not the Penguins, but still reminiscent enough of their first date. And, because it was such a minor league, it played on Thursday afternoons while the ice rink was free.  She wasn’t sure if the players were even paid.  But it would fill an afternoon.

She slipped into the bleachers after handing the man at the door a $5 bill, to his obvious surprise, and noticed that she appeared to be the only person in the stands not actively related to a player. She started to head for the top of the stands, where she usually sat if she had her own choice in her seats, and then thought better of it. Where had she and Roy sat on that first date? He certainly hadn’t let her choose: no, Kenny had already been there, and he’d waved at Roy, who had grinned and led her over to his brother. So where had Kenny been camped out? It wasn’t iceside, of course, no way Kenny had been such an eager beaver as to actually show direct interest in the hockey. No, it had been…about there. Right by the aisle, for easy beer runs (even though neither he nor Roy had actually been 18, let alone 21, both had had fake IDs and the kind of burly masculinity that led no one to question them) and about three aisles up so that they could see out over the players on the ice. She sat down in the same area, conspicuous in her businessy attire at what was clearly a sporting event for the young and underemployed or their retired parents.

The game itself was actually better than she expected. Apparently ten years of hanging out with Roy and watching hockey (mostly on the TV but occasionally in person, though she always drove after that first time) had had an almost osmotic effect on her and she discovered she not only knew the rules, she actually enjoyed the game when it wasn’t accompanied by Roy’s sarcastic running commentary. Rather than hearing his hissed “geez, can’t you see Primeau in the corner?” or a bellowed “Fire Hitchcock!” she could actually pay attention to what she could see for herself, and found she enjoyed the rhythms of the game. In a way, it appealed to the artist in her: the flow of colored uniforms both near to and (surprisingly, she realized) away from the puck; the almost imperceptible but definitively present changes in mood in the building as a given team started a breakaway, or as everyone held their breath during a powerplay, wondering if the home team could kill it; the intricate dance of a breakaway followed by the tense energy of a face-off after the goalie iced the puck down to the far side. Unthinkingly she pulled her sketchbook out of her bag (and when had she last actually used it for something other than calculating a tip at a restaurant when there was no nearby scratch paper?) and started to play around with forms and motion. By the end of the third period the sketch was complete, and she was on her feet cheering with the smattering of moms, dads, and little siblings as the Scranton team made a last-minute charge to first tie the game and then (during a powerplay triggered by the other team’s over-aggressive high-sticking response to the tying breakaway) miraculously pull out a victory. She hugged a woman she’d never seen before in a red pullover, high-fived a man in a Flyers jersey from the ‘80s, and exchanged a grin with a little five-year-old sitting across the aisle.

Suddenly, she could understand why Roy enjoyed sports.

But with that understanding came sorrow, because while this might be why Roy liked sports, it wasn’t why he liked sporting events. His joy came straight from the bottom of a bottle, and he rushed through to find as much of it as he could in the three periods of a hockey game. Looking back on it, she could see that he’d actually restrained himself on that first date: only two beers per period. But he’d still left her when she’d been in the bathroom, and he and Kenny had made their way almost all the way home before rushing back for her. Now she could see families and young couples searching each other out and streaming (or maybe trickling, given the attendance) out the exit, and it made her…what? She had expected to feel angry, had braced herself for the wash of emotion over her causing her spine to straighten and her eyes to flash, but all she felt was sadness. Sadness for Roy, who didn’t seem to access the higher, better emotions of his own fandom. Sadness for herself, who had been tied to him for a decade. Sadness for their relationship, which she could see with clearer, sadder eyes now that she had a chance to look back, not in anger (thanks Oasis) but with resignation. It hadn’t been working; it had never really worked the way she’d always desperately hoped it would. Whether or not Roy had asked her out on a bet—and honestly, after a decade together, did it matter?—they’d stayed together more out of a fear of change than out of the depth of their love. And it was truly a matter of they: she couldn’t blame Roy for this. Or at least not just Roy.

Maybe that was what she was supposed to realize from this whole stupid scenario. That she needed to figure out what she wanted, not what she was used to. That she needed to live her life, not just repeat it day after day.

She drove to her parents’ house—all three hours of it—knocked on the door, and went in with her key before waiting for a response.

“Hey honey!” Her mom’s face reflected surprise, but also joy to see her. She felt guilty. It had been far too long since they’d seen each other—or even talked. Not that she didn’t like talking to her mom, but she’d just let it slip, so it had been a couple weeks, since Christmas really.  “What are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, dear.” She gestured with the mug she was holding. “Your father’s just in the other room watching TV.”

As if on cue, she heard a bellow. “That Penny?”

“No, Pam!”

“Pam?” She heard the couch squeak in the living room. “What’s Pam doing here?”

“Hi Mom. Hi Dad.” She stood awkwardly in the doorway and then rushed over and gave her mom a hug. “I just really felt like I needed to be home.”

“Well, you’re always welcome, dear.” Helene gave her daughter a firm squeeze and then left her to her father, who rubbed her hair like he’d always done when she was little and then hugged her himself.

“Thanks, Mom.” Pam didn’t really know why she’d driven herself all this way. Maybe it was the memories of the other hockey game that had made her feel like she needed to go home—needed to take responsibility for her own mobility instead of waiting for Roy to bring her back. Or maybe (she thought this more likely, now that it occurred to her belatedly) she had just not wanted to bed back down next to Roy again. She knew (or thought she knew—maybe coming here would break the cycle?) that she’d wake up next to him “tomorrow,” but the thought of just one night sleeping in a bed without him beside her was a suddenly appealing prospect.

She briefly toyed with the idea of confiding in them, in unburdening herself to her parents about Roy, about the weirdness of what was going on, about her sudden doubts (and the much worse, long-lingering ones that thronged behind them) that she was feeling about her life. But she looked at her dad, already itching to go back to the living room, and at her mom, sitting alone in the kitchen with a mug that smelled strongly of something other than tea or coffee, and she decided it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth explaining why their life wasn’t the life she wanted anymore, and why Roy, who had always promised to give her that life, not only wasn’t doing it, but wasn’t the man she wanted to be with.

And he wasn’t, was he? The thought occurred to her in a rush that while she’d been so focused on not wanting to be with Roy because of how things had been going and because of the circumstances under which he’d apparently proposed a date she hadn’t actually thought about whether Roy, himself, was the man she wanted to spend her life with. And that was a problem, she saw with sudden insight, because how could she blame Roy for not actively wanting a life with her if she didn’t want a life with him? She needed to forgive him for seeing (through a glass darkly) the truth she hadn’t seen herself: they didn’t really belong together. Now, that didn’t mean she’d forgive him for his neglect of her as a person, or worse for being willing to offer a date for a marriage neither of them really wanted, but (she thought as she mechanically accepted her mother’s offer of tea before bed) it did mean she ought to be specific about what was wrong with her life. It wasn’t that Roy didn’t feel the right way, or that he didn’t act the right way, or really anything to do with Roy at all.

It was her. She wanted different things. She had changed. She had evolved. It was time for her to think about what Pam Beesly wanted, and who she wanted to do it with. Because Roy wasn’t the answer.

She looked at the picture of Roy she’d painted in eleventh grade art class that still hung on the wall above her childhood bed as she put the sheets her mother had given her down, and slipped it off the hook. She knew it was a futile gesture—everything seemed to reset every night—but maybe this would help to break the cycle. She didn’t destroy it, or rip it down, because it was still a part of her past, just like Roy was, and because she’d put a damn lot of work into it way back when. But she slid it into the closet and closed the door on it. It was time to put away childish things—like the belief that Roy was it for her.

It was also time to sleep. She’d figure out what to do with that stupid booze cruise tomorrow, assuming she didn’t wake up here, back in her childhood bedroom. Assuming she woke up again next to Roy. She’d deal with that if it came up—but she kind of assumed it would.