He hails a taxi as he descends the stairs from the building to the street. He provides the address of his hotel, tries to focus on each car, person, pet as they flash by on the sidewalk. He winds down his window to smell New York. It is not unpleasant, but he will not miss it. It is exciting and unique, everything Scranton is not, but he will not miss it. It is not exciting and unique he is looking for, anyway.

He unlocks the door to their room and he sees a half-eaten meal sitting on the dresser in the entryway. He shuts the door behind him, adjusts his eyes to the dim light. He sees Karen, sees her standing to greet him. She is not Pam. She is dark and firm and desperately unsure of him. She is intelligent and funny and understands his sense of humour. She is insecure and organised and uses fragrance-free soap. She wears pants to work and leaves her hair down. She is not Pam.

And she is not supposed to be here. She is supposed to be eating lunch with her friends. Without him.

He lets his messenger bag fall to the floor and shrugs off his blazer. She moves towards him, kisses him on the cheek. Her lips are cold.

“How did it go?” She asks tentatively as he rolls up his sleeves. She is watching him.

“It went well,” he says, and he is not lying. “What are you doing here? What happened to lunch?”

She looks down. She is embarrassed. “There was no lunch.”

He doesn’t understand. “Then why did you say that there was?”

“You didn’t want me to stay.” She looks at him, holds his face in her gaze. She wants him, wishes he could want her. “You didn’t need me.’”

He moves around her to sit on the bed they shared last night. He can remember her warmth, her hair, her soft and even breathing. He can remember the hours it took him to fall asleep, to forget her presence and the lingering feeling that he wasn’t making the right choice. That she wasn’t the right choice.

She sits beside him, her weight shifting him towards her. She takes his hand, as he took hers last night as they crossed the street, as they played at being a happy couple, as she told him there were one too many people in Scranton.

“I wish you would just say it,” she whispers. He wonders if she means it. She is looking at him and he is looking at the floor. He has forgotten how well she has gotten to know him after six months. He has forgotten his thoughts aren’t always his own.

“I blew the interview,” he admits. It’s a start.

She is taken aback. “But you said it went well. What does that mean?”

“David asked me where I see myself in ten years, and I said Scranton.”

She is silent for a moment. Her fingers twitch but she doesn’t remove them from his grasp.

“Okay.” She nods to herself, to him, as if he had asked her a question. “Then we’ll stay in Scranton.”

“What if you get the job?” He doesn’t say the rest, that he isn’t moving to New York with her. He doesn’t know if she expects him to. He knows he is afraid to.

Now she disentangles her fingers from his and stands, moving away from him. She sighs. She turns her back to him, turns to face him again.

“I don’t want to fight anymore, Jim. I don’t want to be the only person fighting for this relationship.” She looks at him, imploring him to tell her that she is wrong. “For six months I have been the only one who actually wanted to be here, to be with you. Why couldn’t you ever just want to be with me?”

She has said this before, through the phone in the dark with a voice shaken by tears. Then, he knew what she wanted to hear, what he needed to say. Now, her voice is hard. Now, he knows nothing but that he needs to get out of this room.

“I tried,” he says. It sounds pathetic. “I tried so hard, but...” He sees her handwriting, the yoghurt lid, his name in purple ink. She is there, looming between them, keeping them apart. She is a wall he has never been able to push through. “You asked me if I still had feelings for Pam, and I said yes. And I’m saying it again now.”

“So that’s it? After six months of trying, you’re just giving up?” She is angry, as he expected. His guilt is not diluted by the knowledge. “And you expect me to let you?”

He can see her face flush, her blood pushing against the skin across her cheeks and neck. She grasps his eyes with her own and holds them there, waiting. Hoping. Trying to read what thoughts he hopes aren’t flashing across his face in succession. He sits and looks and holds his tongue, anticipating an outburst. He is surprised when he sees her eyes catch the light in her unshed tears.

“I need you to try again for me, Jim, just one more time.” She doesn’t move. “I won’t let you give up on me.”

“I’m not giving up on you,” he answers, shaking his head and lowering his eyes. “I’m giving up on myself, on the lie, on this life I thought I could build for myself. I would never have been happy in New York. Why did I even bother?”

“You bothered because the girl you’re in love with couldn’t care less, Jim!” She has yelled at him now. The crimson speckled across her face deepens. “I don’t care if she missed having fun with you. You’re not the same person anymore. You don’t belong in Scranton. You’re better than that.”

He thinks of his desk, the desk he has held for so many years he is afraid to count them. He thinks of the view he sits down to each morning, Dwight to his left, Pam on his right, and the muffled noises of Michael’s unintelligible phone calls creeping up on him from behind. He thinks of the computer and mouse and keyboard he has used to browse the internet and sweep mines and do anything but his job. He thinks of the way the office never changes – the carpet is the same uninviting grey it has always been, the walls are the same repulsive brown and yellow fusion, the sound of the phone at reception is the same non-intrusive beeping it was when he heard it for the very first time. He thinks of all the time spent wondering why he accepted this job, why he didn’t have the guts to get up and find another, better one. And he thinks of the reason why Stamford felt so very far away.

“I’m better than this,” he says, his hand covering the space between them. “I don’t need to pretend anymore. I don’t need to force this anymore.”

“I’m sorry our relationship has been such torture for you,” she spits, her dark features contorting into a scowl. “What a horrible six months it must have been for you, tied down to a girl who only ever had thoughts of a future with you. I would have moved to New York for you! I did move to Scranton for you! What did you want from me? I was never going to be able to make your feelings for Pam magically disappear, but you could have at least tried to think of a future without her.”

“I have no future without her!” He retorts, and it feels so good to finally say it aloud, what he has been thinking since the moment she walked him to his desk and told him he could never go back to the moment before he met Dwight. “There has never been a future for me without her in it.”

Karen is stunned by his candor, by this side of him she realises she has only ever seen one time before. The only time he was ever honest with her was when it concerned Pam. He has never been honest with her for her. He has never been honest.

“Get out,” she says. She is defeated. “I’m done.”

He does not move, and she does not speak. Her arms are folded, blocking him out, protecting herself. He slowly rises and scoops his overnight bag up off the floor. It is already filled with a tangled mess of his pyjamas and his clothes from yesterday. He steps around her into the bathroom. His hands are shaking as he drops his various bathroom products into his bag, wet and soapy and destined to ruin his clothes. He catches his reflection in the mirror, sees the unfamiliar silhouette of the haircut she made him get. He doesn’t hate it, and he doesn’t hate her. But the man he is looking at is not himself. He sees Scranton in his rolled-up sleeves, but he sees Karen in his hair. In his tie. In his blazer. He doesn’t want to see her anymore.

He exits the bathroom and she has not moved. He looks at her, unsure of whether he wants to catch her eye. He doesn’t know what to say. Everything seems useless.

He leaves without a word, shutting the door behind him softly.