Roy was ominously silent as they walked to the truck. Pam didn’t like it when he was silent. Or at least, this kind of silent. This wasn’t a companionable silence, or a hangover silence, or a busy silence. This was a simmering silence, the kind where any words that were exchanged would just be bubbles of anger emerging from the deep well of whatever-it-was that was consuming Roy.

These silences had gotten more and more frequent in their relationship. When they’d first started dating, they hadn’t been there at all. If there was a bad silence when they first started out, it was a disappointed silence, on each end: him when she was displaying behavior that somehow wasn’t appropriate for a star football player’s girlfriend, her when he…well, when he forgot she existed. Those silences had been hurtful, at times, but the difference was…actually, there were two differences that occurred to her in the too-much-time-to-think she had while Roy simmered away. One was that those disappointed silences ramped down, not up; after a bit of being resentfully quiet, they’d always talk about what had happened, even if it was just a cursory “sorry.” That wasn’t the case with these much worse silences. These built up, and no amount of talking about it helped. Only letting Roy explode and dealing with it would solve the problem, and not even always then.

The other was that the older silences had gone back and forth: sometimes she was disappointed, sometimes Roy was, sometimes both. But only Roy simmered. Or maybe not. Because she felt different today. While she could feel Roy simmering alongside her, she didn’t feel the usual urge to conciliate at whatever cost, to try to see if this once would be the time he’d calm down. No, she felt annoyed. She felt put-upon. Roy had been five minutes early for lunch, which wasn’t a problem, but his caveman insistence that she come with him right then was clearly triggered by her perfectly innocent and pleasant conversation with Jim, and that didn’t sit right with her.

Alright, maybe not perfectly innocent. If she couldn’t be honest with herself, who could she be honest with? She had been flirting with Jim, very lightly, but flirting, and she’d enjoyed it. But after years of watching Roy flirt with waitresses, cheerleaders…anyone with a pulse and hearing it was “just being friendlilike,” it was her turn.

It wasn’t like she was going to do anything about the flirtation. He probably had a girlfriend anyway…except no, Kelly had found that out their first day. He was single. Unless he had been lying to Kelly to get her off his back? Only wasn’t the usual lie that you did have a girlfriend? Maybe one who lived in Canada?

But she wasn’t thinking about Jim. She was thinking about Roy. About how when he was the one having fun, he forgot about her and went to Poor Richard’s, and how two days later he had the sheer gall to expect her to stop having fun herself (even if it was at work, strange as that thought might be) and jump to his call when he was early. They didn’t eat lunch until 12, and that was when Roy bothered to remember; it was only just ticking across to 12:00 on the truck display right now.

So maybe now she was doing some simmering herself. All the more so as they turned into the parking lot at Pizza by Alfredo and she realized that, once again, Roy had screwed up which restaurant had decent pizza. He did this about half the time, as if he couldn’t keep the difference between Pizza by Alfredo and Alfredo’s Pizza Café straight. And usually she gently pointed out that they were twelve blocks away (eleven up, one over) from where they probably wanted to be. But today she decided it was time to let Roy deal with his own mistake. After all, Pizza by Alfredo had awful pizza, but almost halfway decent salads, and she wasn’t too proud to eat a salad. Unlike her fiancé.

The door slammed, breaking her out of her fume, and she hopped out of the truck and followed Roy’s hulking form as he stalked towards the doors.

Once inside, they ordered—had he still not noticed that they were in the wrong place?—and, after paying up front, she followed him again to a booth in the back. She could see his simmering coming up to a boil and carefully avoided rolling her eyes as she sat down.

“What the hell, Pammy?!?” he thundered.

“What?” She knew from experience that ‘playing dumb,’ as he called it, wasn’t a helpful strategy, but this time she wanted him to have to say what it was that had his nose out of joint.

“What?” he imitated her, which he knew she hated, and then slammed his hand on the table.  “What the hell are you up to with the new guy? Are you cheating on me?”

She was speechless. He’d jumped straight to cheating? When would she even have had the time for that, let alone the inclination? Before she could answer though, he’d gone on, as if actually hearing from her wasn’t the point, which she was sure it wasn’t.

“First you’re all over him at the bar, then I have to hear about him every day for three days, then I come upstairs and he’s all over you…are. You. Cheating. On. Me.” His jaw was clenched, always a dangerous sign, but still it was all she could do to avoid laughing.

“What the hell, Roy.” If she wasn’t going to laugh, apparently she was going to yell. “I wasn’t all over him at the bar. I was sitting with Darryl and Darryl invited him over to talk to us. You remember Darryl, your best friend?” Now she did roll her eyes. She felt out of control, not like the Pam she was used to being, but the sudden escalation of Roy’s accusation had knocked her off kilter and built on the resentment she’d already been feeling. She’d anticipated being told to stop flirting, or to watch out for Halpert, or not to encourage him, or something that actually corresponded with (a warped, jealous view of) her situation. But cheating? She’d never cheated on Roy, never would cheat, she wasn’t that kind of person. If she had cheated she’d be a nervous wreck, not calmly continuing to flirt at her desk. Didn’t Roy know her at all? She could already feel that the anger inside her was corrosive, that it was going to leave her weak and exhausted at the end, but she was on the tiger now and there was nothing to do but ride it. “I talked about Jim the last three days because he’s the new guy, his desk is literally the closest to mine in the entire building, and I thought you might actually be interested in what I did all day.”

“You were doing him?” Apparently Roy only heard the words of one syllable.

“No.” She could feel the exhaustion coming on. She didn’t usually yell at Roy. She didn’t usually even disagree with Roy when she could help it. “I wasn’t. I didn’t. I wouldn’t.” A bored-looking server plopped a tray down in front of them, oblivious to the tension in the booth, and she rustled for a tissue in her purse, only to find her keys wrap around the truck keys instead. She grabbed her salad in one hand—thank goodness Pizza by Alfredo was the kind of joint where even dine-in orders came in a clear plastic clamshell—and rose while she was still in the grip of the simmer. “I think we both need some time to cool down. You can get Darryl to pick you up.” She walked off, cherishing the feeling of getting the last word, before throwing a final thought back over her shoulder. “But remember to tell him Pizza by Alfredo, not Alfredo’s Pizza Café. God, Roy, that’s something Michael would do.” She slipped out the door and hurried to the truck, thankful to whatever God might be looking down that Roy didn’t follow her before she had the vehicle moving out of the parking lot and onto the road.

She drove in circles until she found a public park, and ate her salad in the truck, only realizing she was crying as the tears made the salad salty.

Or maybe that was just her fault for thinking she could get something decent to eat at Pizza by Alfredo.