Something was wrong with Pam. 

Months and months of friendship and subtle observations had made Jim extremely aware of the changes in her mood; now, an arrow of his inner Pam-o-meter pointed at 'extremely dismayed.' Pam hid it quite well behind her usual cheerfulness, but when she didn't joke with him or do her typical work tasks, she just sat motionlessly with her shoulders hunched and her eyes boring the holes in her monitor. Sometimes, Jim caught her staring at him with the same wistful expression he had seen once. He had no idea what that meant; even his willing imagination didn't allow him to read in these gazes desire or even interest. Besides, even if Jim didn't know what exactly was off (and Pam still told him nothing), he noticed when it had started: two weeks ago when she had spent the weekend at her mother's. So, Jim concluded, it was something with her family (and it would be insensitive to ask about), or about Roy. They both were good at avoiding the Roy theme, and Jim didn't want to be the one who brought it. In the end, he decided to say nothing. If Pam wished to share her troubles with him, he would be there for her; if not… well, he hoped she eventually would come clean. 

And she did. As usual on Thursdays, they went from work together; Jim was telling her about a new music album of his favorite band, and Pam was mostly silent. Suddenly she stopped. 

'Can you promise me something?' she asked and Jim for the first time in a while couldn't read her expression. 

'Yeah, sure,' he shrugged. Pam took her glove off and stuck her little finger out. 

'Pinky promise?'

'How old are you, Beesly? Six?' Jim smirked. But even if she was six, he, apparently, was four and was up to any of her ideas, so he pulled his hand out of his pocket and laced his pinky with hers. Just a moment ago, she had worn gloves, but her fingers were ice-cold; Jim wished for this moment to linger as long as possible so that a tad of his warmth could pass to her. 

'Could you… could you stay my friend no matter what happens?' she asked almost desperately, and Jim swallowed his dissatisfaction with the word 'friend' at this sight. 

'Of course, Pam, you didn't even have to ask about it. So, where is a dead body that has to be buried?'

Finally, finally, finally Pam giggled.

'Hey, who do you take me for? I can deal with my dead bodies by myself,' she smiled, but her smile fleeted too soon. Her hand dropped flat, breaking their connection. 'It's just… It seems like I'm moving out, and I really don't want to lose our friendship because of it.' 

When Jim had been eight, he had often visited a park that had been near his home. He had liked a swing on an old sycamore tree, but once he had ridden it, a branch above his head had broken. He felt that awful feeling of falling, solidness of ground when his butt had met it, and sharp pain in the back of his head where the branch had hit him all over again. 

'What?' he asked numbly. 

'Yeah…' Pam looked down, fidgeting with her glove. 

'But... when? How?' Jim still hoped that it was an awful joke of hers. 

'We have an appointment in the consulate tomorrow,' Pam said, and either she was the best actress that had ever been born or she wasn't joking. 'If we get our visas, we'll leave next month… I guess.' 

Oh, dear God, no, no, no. Jim's hand flew to the nape of his neck, rubbing it and not realizing this. 

'Well, I always knew you were bored to death with Dunder Mifflin, but moving… that's… that's…' he tried to lighten the conversation desperately; otherwise, he would scream in pain and desperation. 'But if it's something you want, well, then…'

She didn't answer, turning from him and starting to walk again. Another gut-wrenching feeling appeared in his stomach as he caught up with her. 

'You do want to move out, right?'

She was silent for a long time, and when he thought that she hadn't heard him and was about to repeat his question, she said quietly, almost whispering. 

'No, I don't want to leave. I want to stay so much, you have no idea…'

Some of the weight that bowed his shoulders disappeared, but his heart was squeezed with even more force. 

'Then… why do you leave?' Jim asked, but even before the last word slipped from his tongue, he'd already known an answer. 

'Because Roy is going to get a job there,' she explained, and Jim clenched his teeth. 'And he said there would be some opportunities for me as well. It would be for the better, right?' 

I bet none of these opportunities include an art school, he thought angrily. He hoped she asked him to give her the reason to stay, and he would do it in a heartbeat, but she sounded more as she begged him to persuade her that moving out was a good idea. Jim wouldn't do that even if he had a gun pressed to his head. 

'But if you don't want to move somewhere, then you should stay,' he managed to say that in the calm, almost friendly tone. 

'I can't,' Pam shook her head. 'I have the obligations and…' 

And that made him snap. 

'To hell the obligations if they make you so unhappy,' he said harsher than he intended. 

'It's not that simple,' she sighed, and the sign of her defeat irked him even more. 

'I think it's quite simple, but you refuse to admit it! 

Pam looked at him, dumbfounded, and then narrowed her eyes. 

'You have something you want to say, don't you?' she asked with a slight irritation in her voice.

'You know, I have,' Jim said. 'You shouldn't allow someone else to rule your life and decide everything for you. You got to take your own chance on something sometime, Pam.'

'Oh, excuse me! Maybe I just don't want to be a receptionist here till the rest of my days and I’m taking my chance right now!'

'Are you?' he asked with open disbelief. 

She didn't answer. 

They reached the metro station in silence. It took her three attempts to swipe the metro pass through the reader and go through the metro turnstile; he pushed the bar of the turnstile so hard that it turned faster, and the other bar kicked his lower back. They didn't talk on the ride underground; Pam stepped on the escalator first and didn't turn, so all he could see was the top of her head. He stared at it, trying to read her mind and struggling to understand why she was so persistent in her attempts to ruin her own life. The ride was over, and they stood on the platform, waiting for the train. Just a few moments before it arrived, Pam said quietly. 

'I hoped you would support me, not scold.'

'Excuse me, Pam, but I can't support you in something that I think is wrong,' he retorted as the wagon stopped before them. 

She sat on the bench as usual and started to type her usual messages; Jim stood nearby, seething with anger, frustration, and fear. His thoughts were flouncing. What could he say to change her mind? Maybe, he should try to persuade her that she didn't have to leave immediately? He tried to think about it, but his mind went blank. 

At the next station, Pam stood up and offered her place to an elderly woman; she was two steps away from him now, squeezing a handhold so tight her knuckles whitened. She was in turmoil, he knew it, he saw it in her white knuckles, in the way she worried her lower lip with her teeth, in her fidgeting with a zipper of her bag; maybe, something about what he had told might have had an influence on her. Maybe… 

The train almost imperceptibly slowed down, and her attention immediately turned to the window, outside which the silhouette of the abandoned platform of the ghost station could be distinguished. Pam looked at him then, almost as if it was her muscle memory, almost as if she forgot they had had that quarrel. A moment later, she remembered, and her smile that hadn't fully formed, faded. 

That moment Jim's heart plummeted to his feet and broke to shivers. That moment Jim's mind was filled with one word. 

Over. 

All of this, tiny glances and smiles, shared secrets and banter, pranks, and carefully constructed dreams of 'what if's,' would be over soon — if not already. Jim relied so much on 'maybe,' 'perhaps,' obscure miracles, and lucky chances that he basically did nothing to make them come true. And now it was too late. 

Too late. 

The rational part of his brain told him that it would be for the better that without her nearby, he could function as an adult instead of a lovestruck teenager again; but this voice was deafened by others, louder and more insistent that screamed about pain and despair. He had to say something, anything that made her stay. Maybe, 'I'm in love with you,' or 'don't go,' or 'I want to see you happy, please, allow me to make you happy.' But words stuck in his throat, and all he could do was stare at her, motionless, static. Her expression changed, the corners of her lips went down, and her eyes grew big; he could swear he saw his own reflection in her pupils. 

One second, two, three… Jim would have lost the count even if he paid attention to the time. But when her lips twitched as if she wanted to break that silence, the train slowed its move, and the people around started to make their way to the exit. Pam waved goodbye helplessly, and in a moment she was away. The doors opened, and the crowd came out of the wagon, picking Pam up as if she was a petal in the stream. Some other people entered the wagon and crushed Jim from both sides, but he paid no attention. She was gone and took all of his feelings with her; his body and his mind were numb. 

How many of these journeys did they have? Tomorrow she would go home with Roy, and so she would on Monday. Would she still be here on Tuesday, or Roy would insist on leaving by that time? 

Jim had never been fond of Roy, but now he hated him; he hated him so much he saw blinding white before his eyes. He wanted to destroy him for taking away the person that mattered the most to him; he wanted to erase him from existence. If only he had had the power to turn the time back! He would have made anything to prevent Pam and Roy's meeting. Jim always wondered how it could be possible that sweet, witty, talented, and smart Pam existed in the same body with a painfully shy, insecure, submissive girl with the same name. And now, when she was going to throw her wishes away and humbly do something that she didn't want to because of Roy's decision, he found all the confirmations he'd needed. For how many years that oaf had been smothering her dreams, her motivation, and ambitions? What kind of person would Pam have been if he had never appeared in her life?

When Jim got off the metro, it took him the full four minutes to realize that he went out on the wrong station. He smirked humorlessly and, instead of returning underground, walked by the highway towards his house. It was going to be a long, long walk. 

She could have never been like that if she had been his, he thought. He would cherish her, support her every decision, and make her enjoy every day of her life, of their life. Jim imagined how they woke up together, smiling at each other, how they prepared breakfast, and then spent the weekend in idleness, talking about nothing and everything; the picture of pure happiness for him and, as well as he knew, for her too. He could do it; he would do it. He would never be like Roy. 

Jim tripped over his own foot. He would never be like Roy except that, in fact, he was like Roy right now. How many times had he watched her suffering from something Roy had done and said nothing? How many times had he distracted her with a joke or a stupid prank on Dwight instead of speaking seriously about the toxicity of her relationship? How many times his fear of losing her goodwill had set his interests above hers? Today was the first time he had touched her sore spot, and he had done it only facing the threat of actually losing her. 

The thing he wanted the most right now was to go to his mother, curl at her knees, and cry his heart out. But he was a grown-up boy and he had to deal with his problems on his own. 

So he made a stop at the liquor section in the supermarket near his apartment complex. 

...After the three and a half glasses, the rational part of his brain was dead — or, at least, it was in a lethargic sleep. And while his stomach burned from cheap port wine, the ache in his chest grew almost unbearable. He couldn't do without her, without her warmth, her kindness, her smiles, her little quirks, her… everything. But it was too late, and he had lost her forever and ever, and ever, and… 

Jim raised his head from his arms, folded on the kitchen table. Well, if he had lost her, why should he keep his emotions from her any longer? He needed her to know. Just once. 

His drunk determination made him reach for his mobile phone and fumble with the buttons, opening his contact list and starting a search. 

'P-A-' he typed and pressed the call button. 

One ring. Second ring. Third, fourth, fifth… On the sixth, she picked up the phone. 

'Um, hey,' he mumbled before she could say a word. 'Hi. Hello. Sorry, it's probably not good timing, but I need you to hear this. Don't leave, okay? It'll make you miserable, and it'll make me miserable, and that's awful that we'll be miserable together, but not together, you know? So, please, please, stay, because I'm in love with you and…'

'Are you drunk?'

Jim scrunched up his brows when he heard a familiar, yet unexpected voice. 

'Larissa? What… what are you doing there?' 

'Hmm, let me see. What I could do at 2 a.m. on Friday. I don't know, maybe, I was sleeping, you moron!' 

Jim took the phone from his ear and squinted his eyes at the screen. The tiny letters told him that he apparently called 'Pain in My Ass' instead of 'Pam.'

He pressed the button, cutting off his sister's quipping, and dropped his face on his crossed arms, his confidence oozing away like the drops of spilled wine. 

How could he ever get Pam if he didn’t even manage to call her properly? 

Pathetic.