It shouldn’t have been such a punch in the gut. Her reaction was about what he had been expecting. And yet here he was, struggling to breathe just like he had, indeed, been socked in the stomach by the cold, stoic fist of rejection.

In a daze, Jim walked out of the office, his legs heavy and his chest shaking. His mind swirled in every direction, from pure panic, to attempted reasoning, to regret and embarrassment, and back to panic, his thoughts about as organized as the drawing of a child hell-bent on using every crayon.

He couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. He didn’t want to stop thinking about it, even though he knew he should stop immediately if he wanted to have a prayer of moving on.

Who was he kidding? He never had a prayer. Not since the moment he saw the top of her head through the glass doors of the bullpen on his first day.

In some ways, the kiss against his desk had been exactly like how he had imagined it, only better. She had fit perfectly in his arms; her lips were soft, supple, faintly sweet; he felt the silkiness of her dress against his skin, silk that followed the gentle curve of her hips into her waist in a beautifully feminine way. This, this was the stuff that Jim’s dreams were made of.

But in other ways, it was far and away from what he had imagined. He hadn’t been prepared for her to reach up and put her hands at his neck and kiss him back, and he had been blindsided by the momentary relief of pouring his soul into her, by the selfless joy of showing her just how truly amazing she was, and most of all, by the way she tentatively gave back as he gave endlessly to her. That was when he had thought maybe, just maybe there would be a chance for him. Maybe she was getting a taste of the treatment she deserved, maybe she was seeing how different life would be with him, maybe she would start to believe that she could ask for more—and receive it.

Her wordless nod brought that hope to a deafening collapse, the hesitant anticipation in his mind to a screeching halt. The chance was gone. It was probably never there in the first place.

He had taken her delicate hands in his as a final parting gesture, knowing he would never be this close to her again. He could tell she had realized that very thing as well. After all, she had looked genuinely sad.

She isn’t sad, his mind sneered at him. She just feels sorry for you.

Jim hastily swiped away the tears that had started to form again in the corners of his eyes, an action that would quickly become fruitless as the night went on, before pushing open the doors of the building and throwing himself in his car.

He played alternate endings in his head as he drove home. He tested other words out loud to see if anything would have been better than what he had said, if anything might have led her to change her mind.

But he knew: nothing. Nothing would have worked. She was marrying him. Him.

That insanely lucky, undeserving man.

Another punch in the gut hit him at yet another reminder of that fact.

He had failed. This was his last shot at love, at happiness, at his very purpose in life, and he had failed. Again, and for the last time.

The world gradually became brighter and blurrier as three years’ worth of tears made their way down his cheeks, as three years’ worth of unresolved heartache threatened to consume him. The hazy view matched the heavy fog in his mind, weighing him down like he had a head cold. His lungs struggled to keep up with the gasping sobs, and his heart raced itself into a frenzy, breaking every record it had ever set. Whoever had coined the term lovesick had been spot on.

Jim just kept driving, appreciating the tiny distraction and wanting to get home as quickly as possible to put the night behind him. He knew that was impossible, but it was worth a try.

He wasn’t sure how exactly he made it home. There were no less than a dozen traffic lights between the office and the house he shared with Mark, and he didn’t remember stopping at any of them. Hopefully they were all green. Not that it mattered. What was a ticket? Or an accident?

Mark was still up when Jim walked in the door. He took one look at the slumped pile of tears and cashmere and knew what had happened.

“Sorry, man,” Mark murmured sincerely. “That’s rough.”

Jim shrugged a shoulder and looked away, as if to say what did I expect?

“Let me know if you need anything, okay? You know, packing, or whatever.”

Jim nodded. Most of it was already done. There was no use in leaving up a house of cards when the bottom row was well on its way to collapsing.

Fighting the urge to slam down an entire bottle or six pack of something (anything, it didn’t matter), Jim made his way to bed. He flung himself face down, pulled the covers over his head, and let himself succumb to the heavy, stifling misery he had been fighting off for the past hour. At last too exhausted for full sobs, he turned over onto his side and cried silently until his face was cool from the night air blowing against the damp trails.

Scrubbing his face with his hand, he calmed down enough to think, although whether that was any better was still up in the air. His first instinct was to be angry with Roy, but honestly, as much as it hurt to admit it, Roy wasn’t the entire problem. Yeah, he was an asshole, and Pam deserved so much better, but it wasn’t like Roy held all the power. After all, Pam had chosen to be with him. To marry him. God.

His next instinct was to be upset with Pam herself, but he wasn’t going to let himself feel that way about her.  He understood some of her side, anyway. She had been anchored for a decade to a man who was wrong for her, yes, but he was comfortable, familiar. And Jim’s coming in to disturb the waters wouldn’t be enough to untether them.

That only left himself, and God only knew how much self-loathing Jim had done lately. Every memory he had with Pam had become an opportunity for self-loathing, and almost every night had turned into a fucking Russian roulette game of memories. Some to regret, some to savor, most to overanalyze, all to consume his thought like a light consumes a moth. And this night hit every single mark. Whatever the Russian roulette equivalent of that was, he didn’t know, but he was sure it paled in comparison to the night of hell he was experiencing.

In an attempt to calm himself down, Jim tried to reason with himself. Tried to convince himself that this wasn’t the end of the world. After all, Pam was happy. That was all he really could ask for, right?

If he truly loved her and she truly did not feel the same way back, maybe the best thing to do was just be supportive. Yeah, because that had gone spectacularly well in the last three years.

Misinterpret, my ass. There was no way she didn’t know. No way she didn’t feel something too.

Pam had been emotionally open with him so many times, complaining about Michael and his inappropriate comments, expressing her desire to study art more seriously, and, most notably, venting aimlessly about Roy. You know, her fiancé.

But she had never seen him as someone she could be emotional with, instead seeing him more like a partner in crime, innocently and selflessly dependable. Someone she could call for or lean on when she needed someone on her side.

Who you gonna call? Jim Halpert! Jim thought bitterly.

His mind wandered in the same circle over and over again: being jealous of Roy, being frustrated that Pam couldn’t see that Roy was wrong for her, being angry with himself for going three years without saying anything real to her, trying to convince himself that Pam was happy with Roy, and even if he couldn’t be with her, maybe everything would be okay. Of course, who even knew what “okay” meant anymore, but maybe there was a glimmer of hope to be found, somewhere. He would take a few deep breaths to tame his beast of a heartbeat, run his fingers through his hair, and close his eyes once more.

And then he would turn over and, out of habit, imagine Pam nestled in bed against him. He would feel the now-familiar sting of hot tears in the corners of his eyes, and the cycle would begin all over again.

Jim gave up on sleep around five in the morning. He trudged downstairs and walked into the kitchen, figuring maybe some water would help a little bit. His eye caught a photo on the fridge, a photo of him and Pam that Michael had taken at last year’s Christmas party.

It was a very Michael Scott photo, no question about it. Neither Jim nor Pam were in focus, the camera instead picking up Phyllis’s loud floral blouse in the top corner. The camera must have also been slightly askew, as both Jim and Pam looked like they were about to slide off the break room table. About ten minutes before the photo was taken, Pam had dared Jim to take a shot of straight vodka, and he had said yes, but only if she took one too. The end result was Pam positively beaming at the camera, and Jim trying not to reveal his pathetic, undying love as he looked at her.

Michael had made about a dozen prints of every photo he had taken that night and set them out in the conference room. Jim was fairly certain he had been the only one to take a single print.

The quality of the photo was terrible, but it was enough to remind him of the joy he had felt when Pam had wrangled the teapot from Dwight and proudly shown it to him. The giddy pride he had felt when Pam giggled at the bonus gifts and immediately pinned his yearbook photo to the wall of her desk. The amusement at her slightly tipsy, camera-ready grin.

But the Pam that was in the photo was the real Pam, and he had just spent yet another night with imaginary Pam, who was still better than any woman he could ever hope to have. He couldn’t look at real Pam anymore. Not when he had to accept that imaginary Pam was the only woman who could ever be his.

Before he lost the courage, he pulled the photo off the fridge, the magnet landing somewhere on the floor, and pushed the print face down into the trash.

She’s not yours, she belongs to someone else, she doesn’t want you.

Jim was suddenly overtaken by a wave of nausea and an unpleasant tightening in his stomach. He bolted to the hallway bathroom and dry heaved into the toilet, leaving a sour, raspy taste in his mouth. With a moan, he sank down onto the bathroom floor. The muscles in his stomach clenched again at every sob that left his body weak and vulnerable once more.

He calmed himself down for about two minutes, just long enough to get back upstairs and call Dunder Mifflin: “Hi Toby, this is Jim… I know today was supposed to be my last day, but I, uh… think I’m going to take today off. Send me an email if you need me to do anything. Um, bye.” He tossed his cell phone on the floor and collapsed under the covers.

After a few more minutes, miserable exhaustion finally won out, and Jim sank into a heavy, temporarily numbing sleep.