She stood on the rocks at the edge of Lake Wallenpaupack, far enough from the rest of the beach goers that their laughs and conversations sounded like they were underwater even though she was only just getting her toes wet. The cool water licked her feet as she tried to focus on the horizon. The line that stretched out to the ends of the earth and blurred the reality between shifts in the world.

The bright July sun on her face made tiny rainbow patterns slide down her cheeks with the tears that were beginning to spill over her pale skin. The wind tossed her curls around, gently picking them up and wrapping them around her face in a teasing way that reminded her every few seconds that she was alive and miserable.

Her palm flattened above her heart, its steady beat another gentle reminder that although her soul was aching and she believed it was better off dead, that her body was still well and breathing.

Even though he was gone.

To passersby at the beach that day, she was any plain woman staring out at the scenery. No one paid much mind to her, with quiet tears and a chipped manicure that clutched at the chain around her neck as she busied her fingers with something other than a reminder that she was alone.

She toyed with the pendant, the stupid horse charm that she’d gotten in high school from her mother. It was something she wore out of habit, a constant that she had come to rely on. But it also reminded her of the one time at the office when Jim had asked, "Big horse girl, Beesly?" without making fun of her like Roy's friends had, and when she had sheepishly replied, "No, my mom got it for me. I, uh...it's just something I wear," he had nodded and offered her a genuine, "Cool," that shouldn't have carried so much weight in her heart.

I miss you she thought, the whisper loud enough in her head to echo. Come back to me.

But nobody heard.

The world around her continued to turn, just like the mother laying on the striped towel down the beach continued to ignore her three kids that were fighting over a sand pail and shovel. Just like the man in his beach chair pretended to be reading as he peeked over the top of his newspaper at the college aged girls in their string bikinis. Just like the waves continued to lap to shore with the kick of incoming and outgoing boats.

She huffed out a breath that she knew was being followed closely by a building sob, doing her best to expel it as she took her first steps into the water. Now ankle deep, she felt the tingling in her nerves as her body adjusted to the changes in temperature. For a warm July day, the water temperature itself wasn’t too bad. A few more steps and the water tickled the backs of her knees, her feet sinking slowly as the thick sand sucked them under.

She stuck both hands into the pockets of her jean shorts. Her eyes closed and the last memories of this place washed along the shore. 

It had been much colder that day.

She had still been engaged to Roy that day.

But most importantly, he was there.

She could see the I love you like invisible ink on his lips, just waiting for the light to shine.

But it never did, because she claimed cold when really it was her feet that had been cold. She would have jumped headfirst into the lake itself in the middle of January rather than allow him to blow her entire world apart.

Ironically, he had eventually done it anyway.

And now she was here alone.

Her right hand stilled as her left hand fidgeted in the pocket, brushing against the slick paper that she had tucked away safely before leaving her small apartment that morning. The paper slid between her fingertips as she let herself linger for one more moment before bringing it into sight.

One corner had a tiny bend mark that could be seen through the lamination, and his cutting job was subpar with mismatched angles around the corners, but there he was in black and white. His junior year yearbook photo, the one from the teapot, the one that now went with her everywhere.

Because that wasn’t weird at all. Carrying around someone’s old yearbook photo after you broke his heart and then he broke yours and you were both too chicken to actually hit send on the 37 emails that were clogging up your drafts folder wasn’t a weird habit at all.

If she squinted in just the right way, the edges of the photo were fuzzy and the world around her actually disappeared and it looked like he was sitting on the beach in front of her. Until, of course, her eyes felt the strain and she had to settle for seeing him in his black and white box again.

She spent far too many nights trying to decide what colors were in the plaid of his shirt and what shade of brown his hair had been back then. She also spent way too many nights talking at the picture as if it were him. They had conversations that were mostly one-sided; she made up his parts in her head. Or sometimes she spoke to the photo as if the picture itself could somehow deliver messages, would whisper her wishes like just call me and ask why I called off the wedding or why did you change your number? or just come back, Jim. Just. Come back. 

That, she had finally decided, was unhealthy.

“God, I miss you.”

This time it was a whisper, because she couldn’t bear to keep it inside any longer. The words were banging on the inside of her cranium like a drum.

“Come back to me.”

It was a pleading whisper, one that was breathy and high and stolen by a gust of wind. She wasn’t even sure the picture had heard.

"I wish you would just come back to me." 

But nobody heard anyway. 

She was too far down the beach, too quiet beside screaming children and obnoxious teenagers with boomboxes. 

And the world continued to turn, just like the waves continued to press kisses against the hem of her shorts.

It occurred to her then, with her palm burning at all of the places where she clutched his picture, that she could do it. She could dive into the deepest end, sink to the bottom, and disappear from all of it. With her eyes closed, she imagined the waves churning, surrounding her on all sides before careening down to hug her tightly and use their embrace to swallow her whole.

She continued to wade out to the deeper parts of the river. The water was hugging her shorts and dragging her down, but even as it flirted with the hem of her shirt, she didn’t care. She surged deeper still until she realized that, this far out, people were starting to look over in her direction.

The crazy lady, holding the tiny, crumpling picture in her fist, with the tepid lake water now soaking through her shorts and up the hem of her shirt.

Stop being so dramatic, she chided herself, taking three full steps backwards so that the breeze that sauntered by painted her thighs with goosebumps.

A heavy breath pushed out of her nose as she closed her eyes, this time to scold herself.

When she opened them, she was still alone. And realization dawned on her like the wave that crested over the beach off the back of a jet ski, dumping water over three unsuspecting teenaged girls.

She was alone. 

He wasn’t here.

And he wasn’t coming back.

In a wave that carried anger, frustration, hurt, and a large pocket that was mostly just empty, she crumpled his photo into a ball and hurled it with all her might towards the middle of the lake, releasing a guttural scream that finally had a few stray heads turning back towards her for just a second.

It was anticlimactic, she realized, as the wind carried the flimsy paper in a soft, cheerful, slow wave to the water’s surface. The current pushed it right up against her thigh. Her only escape from this goddamn picture would be actually pulling herself out of the water and onto the shore. The sand tried to pull her under, clung to her feet and tugged them back towards the middle. But she fought. She gritted her teeth and dragged herself onto the short in a fit that probably shouldn’t have had her breathing this heavily.

Maybe it was from trudging ten yards back and forth through the water. 

But, more likely, she realized, as the pain in her chest and her temples and her throat all came roaring back, it was from trying to hold it all in for far too long.

She let herself cry, God did she let herself cry, as soon as she arrived home. With her damp clothes soaking into the bedspread, she let her tears do their own damage to the pillow. Sobbing and exhaustion dragged her eyes closed to a brand new realm that was even more frightening than reality.

Because behind her eyes, he was there. Standing on the sands of Lake Wallenpaupack. Holding out the crumpled photo in his hands. Spreading out the wrinkles and flattening it to the best of his ability.

When he held it out to her, his lips painted the air with, “I miss you. Come back to me. I wish you’d come back to me.”

She cried out in her sleep.

But nobody heard.

And like her world wasn’t absolutely crumbling beneath her, the world kept turning.

--

Saturday was supposed to be the day that the sun woke her through the windows when it was sneaking up on early afternoon. Or when his roaming hands found her skin, fingerprints awakening her with reluctant grumbles that eventually turned into pleadings for more. Saturdays were for too much powdered sugar and syrup, staying in pajamas all day, and going over their wedding guest list for the thirty-seventh time.

It struck her as alarming when the ruckus that woke her was accompanied by 7:42 blinking on the clock on Jim’s bedside table.

Her body was quick to rise, sitting up against the headboard while her eyes fought to catch up as she blinked back sleep and rubbed at what remained with closed fists.

“What happened?” she started, reaching for her glasses and tucking them snugly behind her ears. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, hey, I’m sorry,” her fiance chuckled as he turned with a stunned expression and the contents of his vanity table clutched in his large hands. “Nothing’s wrong. Go back to sleep, babe.”

She tilted her head as he gently place a bottle of cologne and a box of tissues back in their rightful spots before moving, more quietly now, onto the next pile.

“Well, I’m awake now,” she chuckled, leaning more relaxedly against the pillows. “Why are you turning the bedroom upside down?”

“Hurricane Betsy is on her way,” he chuckled, now rifling around in her bedside table.

“What does she need? What is she looking for?”

“She and your mother are apparently putting together some horrific slideshow for the wedding,” he began, continuing to pull things noisily out of dressers and upend their bedroom, “that will take our dearest family and friends on a guided tour of our awkward years while we sit by helplessly. And she needs my high school picture,” he tacked onto the end of his dramatics. “Do you still have--aha! Got it.”

Her teapot was cradled in his large hands when he finally stood, the bright teal contrasting so differently against the tan of his skin that was finally beginning to fade a little with the impending fall. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was always a little jealous of his ability to step outside on the first day of spring and have an immediate beautiful bronzed look that lasted until December; she hoped their little one would inherit that trait. 

She pushed a breath of laughter through her nose; he had flipped their bedroom upside down from something that she kept on her nightstand after all.

“Of course I still have it,” she said sweetly, “but why do you need my teapot for a slide…”

Her thoughts trailed off, wandering all the way out the window and onto the highway, jetting out to the probably vacant beach of Lake Wallenpaupack where the item he was now digging around the pot for lay buried beneath the murky water.

Immediately, tears fuzzied her view as he dumped the contents out, several years worth of inside jokes flooding their bedspread next to her feet.

“I don’t see it. Beesly, tell me you aren’t harboring old photos of me for personal--”

The tail end of his snide joke and the suggestive quirk of his eyebrows fell as soon as he saw the way that her lip was pouting like a child’s.

“Whoa, hey.” He was quick to cradle her cheeks, his eyes knitting in concern as he shifted his body onto the bed beside to her. “What’s wrong?”

His question was tied together with a nervous chuckle, and that spouted the rest of her tears, untied the neat little ribbon and released everything. 

“I don’t...I don’t have the picture anymore.”

“Okay. Not a big deal,” he tested cautiously as his thumbs painted soft circles on her cheeks. “I’m sure Mom has a ton in the basement at the bottom of a bin or something.”

But she continued to cry, and he continued to sit and wait, the patience with her varying moods a new practice that he was still getting used to.

“Hey, what’s got you so upset, love?”

“I...the picture is at the bottom of the lake, Jim.”

“I don’t…”

“From...after you left.”

Her whisper was stolen by the whir of the ceiling fan and flung to an opposite corner of the room, but not before it boomed in his eardrums like she had been saying it over a drug store loudspeaker. He settled gingerly beside her and pulled her hands into his lap. As he ran his thumb over her engagement band, it hit him that despite the circle of silver around her finger and their child swimming around in her belly, there were still memories that could bring her back to a place with cracks in the sidewalk.

“I...went out to Lake Wallenpaupack one day and I...I was so upset that you were gone, and I had your...dorky picture burning a hole in my pocket...and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t need the reminder that you had just left me. So I threw it in the lake. And now it’s gone.”

She turned, nuzzling into his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her more tightly. He did his best to ignore the onslaught of memories that were now flashing before him, to remember that she was here now, and that was what mattered.

He let her expel a few sniffles until she was a bit more calm, but soon had to push himself up to shake the nervous energy that had his veins tingling.

“I’ll be right back, okay?” he mumbled as he pressed his lips to the side of her bedhead, kissed her there lingeringly, and waited for a confirming nod before padding softly out of the bedroom. He was gone for only a few minutes, returning with soft, tentative eyes and full hands.

He scooted the teapot between them and took up his spot at her side, keeping his possessions clutched close to his heart and away from her prying eyes.

“I thought...maybe the teapot could use an upgrade.”

He shrugged, playing it off like it wasn’t a big deal that he was now offering her two brand new photos: one, a copy of their engagement sitting. The other, a copy of her latest ultrasound.

Her tears were thick and uncontrolled for the second time in the past five minutes, her face contorting into a grimace as she took the photos from his hands, clutched them against her heart, and hung her head to let the sobs take over.

“Hey,” he chuckled, wrapping an arm around her and running his hand quickly up and down her bicep.

“No,” she cut him off, shaking her head and continuing to sputter. “These...these are...happy tears.”

He chuckled softly and pulled her more tightly against his body, kissing the crown of her head.

Their bubble of soft whimpers and giggles and whispers about the profile of their baby in black and white was popped when Betsy Halpert stormed into their bedroom to the tune of, “Lord almighty, does it feel weird to walk into this place and not have your father’s underwear on the floor.”

Jim and Pam’s heads popped up simultaneously, shocking Betsy when she noticed tears and a teapot.

“Pam, darling, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Pregnancy hormones are in full force,” she managed, smiling widely as she wiped her remaining tears and watched Jim tuck the photos into the teapot and seal the lid on top.

Betsy was only passing through, insisting that Pam stay in bed as Jim informed her that he didn’t have a copy of the photo after all. Once Jim escorted his mother out the door, locked up, and headed back towards the bedroom, Pam was on the tail end of her sniffling. The smile in her cheeks and the pink color of her skin made him smile, though.

“How are we?” he asked, returning again with tentative steps as he joined her on the bed.

“Good,” she breathed, with her eyes closed and her lips curled into a wide grin. “We’re good.”

His hand found her belly, and hers landed softly atop, squeezing gently.

And, despite the fact that her entire world was about to change in the best way that she never could have imagined she deserved, the world just continued to turn.

--

His tie was sliced in half. They were both soaked with chilly water from the falls, because she wanted to get married in her wedding dress, not in some silly blue poncho. Her wet hair clung to the skin of his neck, and he was sure he had water permanently clogged in his ear.

But none of that mattered. None of it compared to the fact that she was his wife. He was her husband.

As she glanced out over the deep chasm on which their boat teetered, she breathed out a quick chuckle. 

He had almost professed his love to her over water.

She had thrown it away in the very same place.

He proposed in the middle of a monsoon; she was barely able to see him past her dripping lashes.

And now, over international waters, they were sworn as husband and wife.

She was just about to make this revelation, to make a silly remark that their life seemed to be constantly changing with the turn of the water cycle, turning to press her cheek into his chest, when she realized that he was now adjusting them, and fumbling in his pocket at that.

His eyes were still hazy from the honest to God shock that this hadn’t all just been a dream, and she smiled wistfully instead of letting the unknown worry her. With one hand still clutched firmly at her side, he produced a small box, similar to the one he had used to hold their wedding bands.

“Oh my god, Jim! Yes! A thousand times yes!”

She giggled and clapped her hands together and jumped up and down, effectively earning an eyebrow raise and an eye roll that accompanied his, “Can it, Beesly, I’m trying to be serious over here.”

She smiled warmly and tilted her head, studying the way that his hands shook when they opened the box.

“I know that...Pam, we’ve been through so much. So much. Just to get here. I’m honestly still pinching myself to make sure this isn’t all a dream.”

He let his eyes wander to the side, and she realized that he was trying his hardest not to cry.

“I guess...what I’m trying to say, to do really, is...I know that your mom gave you your grandma’s necklace as your something old, and your dress is supposed to be your something new but...can I...I have my own.”

The velvet box opened in his large palm, and a silver heart tucked neatly onto the pillow smiled back at her from its snug spot. Before she was able to inspect it herself, he was pulling the pendant from the box and opening it up.

Her hands clutched at her heart in the same moment that her lips parted in a short gasp.

“I just...thought that we could be your something old and something new. I mean, if you’ll have us.”

On one side of the now opened locket was a teeny tiny version of her latest ultrasound. On the other was the high school yearbook photo that she thought she had lost to the depths of the lake.

“Jim…” 

The Falls absorbed the single syllable as tears blended with mist on her cheeks.

“Told you Mom had a ton of extras in the basement.”

He shrugged, brushing it off like the action was absolutely nothing, before she was buried against his chest in a tight embrace. He tucked her head under his chin, wrapped both arms around her back, and swayed with his whole world in his arms.

And all around them, as if their entire world wasn’t finally clicking into place, the world turned and turned and turned.