There’s something about New York city, he can’t deny that. It’s an energy, a kind of excitement that’s always intrigued him, motivated him. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel bigger than you are, just by existing within it. 

It’s been a long time since Jim has felt motivated. The sensation is new and somewhat foreign.

Pam sits across from him at their little table at the River Café overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. He can hear boats in the East River and traffic speeding along the bridge, ostensibly in a hurry to get somewhere better, faster. 

She takes a sip from her wine and eyes him adoringly. He holds up his own glass and grins. 

“To the future,” he says. He can’t seem to get that afternoon in the rain at the rest stop out of his head, even though it was weeks ago: hearing her saying “yes” on a loop, over and over. 

“To our future,” she replies. They clink glasses and she smiles back at him. The past few weeks have been tough being away from each other, but there’s only one more week of this. And even though she’s sitting right here, even though they’re together celebrating in the greatest city on earth, all he can think about is how he cannot wait for her to come home. 

“So, about our future...” he continues, after clearing his throat. “I want to talk about what happens when you come home.”

“Oh yeah?” She sets her glass down and looks at him. “What’s gonna happen?” 

He pauses for a moment. “Well, I’d like you to move in with me. If you’re ready.”

Her eyes light up. “I’m definitely ready.”

“I mean, before you left, we practically lived together anyway.”

“Practically.”

He grins. “So that’s a yes? To living in sin?”

She smiles back. “Of course it’s a yes.”

They gaze at each other for a moment, just enjoying the way their lives together seem to be unfolding flawlessly. The waiter stops by to ask how they’re doing, and, while never breaking eye contact with Pam, Jim replies “perfect” with no degree of disingenuousness.

The waiter departs, and Jim’s eyes narrow.

“Speaking of sin, I have a little surprise for you,” he says, much to her apparent delight. “To celebrate my last night with you in New York, I booked us a room at the Waldorf Astoria.”

Her jaw drops. “For tonight? But you have work tomorrow.”

“I’ll set an alarm.” He grins. “Don’t keep me up too late.”

She shakes her head. “You really are good at this whole fiancé thing, you know.” 

He throws his arms out, what can I say. “You bring it out in me, Beesly.” 

“One more week,” she says. Then she exhales loudly. “Thank god.”

He eyes her curiously. “I thought you liked it here?”

She looks thoughtful, and maybe even slightly put off by the question. “I do, the city is awesome. I just… I don’t know.”

She picks a bit at her plate. He wonders what’s changed in the past few days. That little speech he’d overheard her friend Alex giving her has been on his mind ever since. Part of him still thinks the guy had an ulterior motive, but after he and Pam had hung up the phone he’d thought about it some more, and deep down he knows Alex is right. There really is much more opportunity here in the city for Pam than there ever would be in Scranton.

“What about... what your friend said?” Jim asks. “About staying?”

Pam shakes her head immediately. “I’m not staying.”

“You’ve thought about it?” He takes a bite of his chicken. 

“Yeah, but I don’t really have to think about it,” she responds easily. “I’ve done what I came here to do and now I want to come home.”

He studies her, suspecting perhaps she’s holding her true feelings back to spare his own, but the conviction in her eyes leads him to believe she isn’t. 

“Are you sure, Pam?” he asks, and although the second part is difficult, it has to be said: “Because... if you really want to consider this, now is the time to tell me.”

He’s already got some huge plans in the works for them: his parents are selling their house and it’s a perfect fit for a couple starting out, raising a family, all that jazz. But he could live in New York, he muses. It’s expensive as fuck, but maybe they could make it happen. When he’s with Pam, their future always feels so bright he imagines he could do anything. 

“Consider what, moving to New York?” she asks, looking genuinely perplexed.

“Sure. If you really want to, we can talk about that.”

She looks at him for a moment, as if she honestly hadn’t thought too much about it herself. “You’d move to New York?”

“Well, it would take some maneuvering, but… maybe? I could look for something out here. We could make it work.”

The idea, while only now really occurring to him, does intrigue him. It might be crazy, sure, but it could also be perfect. From the look on Pam’s face, however, she doesn’t seem to share his level of excitement.

Perhaps, for whatever reason, this endeavor hasn’t turned out quite the way she’d anticipated. She’s always seemed enthusiastic on the phone about her classes, but it’s not as if they’ve had an in-depth conversation about the inner workings of art school. Jim can barely draw a stick figure, he doesn’t typically have a whole lot to offer in that regard. 

Pam appears to ponder his idea, but at the same time he can feel her foot make contact with his, as if her thoughts are somewhere else. He doesn’t mind, of course, but it begs the question: which is Pam more passionate about? Him, or her dream?

“That’s really good.”

It’s just another day at the office. Pam is sitting at her desk with a sketch pad, drawing her coffee mug. Jim stands on the other side of her desk where he usually does, watching. He doesn’t know too much about art, but he likes what he sees. The past few months getting to know Pam has been like unraveling a mystery, and typically he only gets the bits and pieces she wants to show him.

“You really think so?” she asks him. 

He cranes his neck over the edge of her desk to get a better look and yes, he really thinks so.

“I didn’t know you were an artist,” he says.

“Well, I’m not,” she corrects him. “I just sort of do this for fun.”

He takes a jelly bean, pops it into his mouth. “You have talent and you’re using it. You’re an artist.”

She blushes a bit and looks down, but he can tell his compliment has made her day. “So what are you doing stuck at this place when you can do that?” he asks, jabbing a finger at her sketch pad.

“I don’t know what to do with it, honestly. I’ve just always liked to draw.”

“That’s really cool,” he says. “And you know, you have a lot of time to figure that out, if you decide you want to.”

She nods slowly, and a look comes across her face he can only presume means she’s never actually considered this before. “I guess you’re right.” 

“That’s not something you want to do someday?” 

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I guess it just never seemed very practical.”

“What was your answer when you were a kid when someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up?”

“Wow.” She exhales. “It’s been so long since I’ve even thought about it. I guess when I met Roy my focus changed to more… sort of real life possibilities.”

“Such as…?” he prods.

“Well, getting married, having kids."   

“Okay sure,” he says, trying to blow past the image of her actually marrying Roy and breeding with him. “But before that, like when you were really young?”

She thinks for a minute. “I’m not sure. There just really hasn’t ever been anything that’s clicked for me, you know? Other than art.”

Admittedly, he doesn’t know a whole lot about her relationship with Roy, but he can’t help but wonder if this is just one of those situations where high school sweethearts stay together because they simply can’t imagine there being anything better out there. Are they actually a good match, or is Roy just a bullet point on Pam’s to-do list? Get married, check. Have kids, check. Have a magically fulfilling life, check.

How does a person break free from that mindset? He wonders again, as he does every day, if continuing to pursue a relationship with her is merely a fool’s errand.

“Getting married and having kids is a great goal,” he says, even though he’s trying to think about anything but Pam doing those things with fucking Roy. “Lots of people want those things, though. Having something that’s just for you is also a really worthy pursuit.”

She looks at him, and her eyes look different somehow. It almost feels like she’s seeing him for the very first time.

“What about you?” she asks, and he’s taken aback.

“Me?”

“Yeah, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

He probably should have been prepared for this question, but he isn’t. The dreams he’d had as a kid were mostly impractical as well. Pete had relentlessly teased him for wanting to be a professional basketball player, which he’d obviously never seriously considered. So he’d majored in communications in college, thinking maybe he could be a journalist or sportscaster of some kind. 

He shifts uncomfortably, wondering why he’d pressed Pam at all. He’s five feet away from a desk where he does work every day that’s as far from fulfilling as he could possibly imagine. He’s certainly one to talk.

“Professional basketball player,” he smirks, and hopes she takes it with the spirit he intends. Luckily she smiles, and as it seems every time she does, the predictable drudgery of the day morphs into something pleasant.

“There’s still time, right?” she teases. “You’re in your prime, after all.”

“Oh yeah. Got some stuff in the works. Lots of interested scouts after me.”

She raises an eyebrow, nodding. “Well, don’t forget us when you’re famous.”

Grinning, he straightens up and looks into her eyes. “I couldn’t,” he says, his lips falling into an easy smile. 

And there’s a moment then, a genuine couple of seconds, where he sees something on her face like understanding; that she gets where he’s coming from completely, she knows the way he feels about her and maybe, just maybe, feels the same way. 

It’s this moment that instills in him the hope he will hold in his heart for years to come, that encourages him to build upon their friendship rather than stifle it. It’s just a brief moment but it’s the most real he’s ever felt with her. And then, just as suddenly as it had settled upon them, it evaporates.

“I mean… Dwight is definitely unforgettable,” she declares quietly, her eyes darting over to their coworker’s desk, then looking back down at her drawing. 

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes never leaving her. She shifts in her seat a bit in an attempt, be it purposefully or inadvertently, to break the spell. 

He doesn’t want to let the moment end, even though she’s clearly trying to, so he remains silent and just watches her sketch. After a couple of minutes he figures he should probably get back to work, although he wouldn’t mind getting paid to stand here and watch Pam draw all day.

“I’ll let you get back to it,” he says, grabbing one more jelly bean. 

She looks up at him again, a smile in her eyes. “Thanks. You know… for saying they’re good.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Pam,” he lies, his traitorous heart racing with that very enormous truth he cannot tell her.

Jim watches her across the table, trying to read her expression.

“I just don’t want you to think you’re turning down an opportunity because of me,” he says. “I want to support whatever it is you want to do.”

She shakes her head and shrugs. “I don’t know.” 

He feels like maybe there’s something she isn’t telling him, that she’s made up her mind about wanting to leave New York for some other reason.

“Let’s just get through this last week,” she says. “I have a meeting with my advisor on Tuesday, and I’ll talk to her about my options. Okay?” It seems like she wants to stop talking about this. “You’ve been incredibly supportive, Jim. The best. And I’m very grateful. But I’ve been looking forward to coming home for so long… right now I don’t really want to think about anything else.”

While he’s somewhat surprised at her reaction, he’s not altogether displeased. The more he thinks about it, the more this outcome might make sense for Pam. New York is the kind of place that will chew up and spit back out anyone who isn’t absolutely determined to want it. If she isn’t incredibly motivated, could she make it here? Is it even worth it for her to try?

As much as he wants this for her, she’s going to have to want it for herself. And as long as she’s happy, who is he to push her towards anything? In any event, she’s coming home soon. They can always discuss New York later, if she decides she wants to.

“Sorry, I’ll drop it,” he says. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t,” she says, reaching her hand across the table to cover his. “It’s not anything you said, Jim. I don’t know. It all just feels really… big.”

Jim smiles. “Well, sometimes that’s how dreams are.”

“Dreams don’t have to be big to be dreams.” 

He looks at her, the woman he loves more than anything in the world, and it feels like another one of those moments where he completely gets her. Maybe she really is speaking her truth. Maybe she doesn’t need more to be happy.

Maybe this is enough.

“You’re right about that,” he says gently. He certainly can’t count the times over the past several years where he’d only thought of her, so much so that he’d actively avoided thinking about his own future. She’d been his only dream for so long that he can’t remember the last time he had one for himself.

He has her now. That dream has come true, although he can still hardly believe it. So... what’s next?

“Let’s just enjoy our last night here together, okay?” she says.

He grins, squeezing her hand gently. “Okay.” 

She sits back into her chair, gazing at him in that way he’d give up absolutely everything for at any given moment. 

“One more week,” she says again, sipping her wine.

“One more week,” he echoes. 

Tonight, they'll focus on them. The lights of the city aren’t as bright as her smile.