“Hello traitor” she smirked at the caller, with her eyebrows raised and the mischievous smile she donned.

She nodded to the caller’s response before quipping “Well friends support each other and talk to each other and not go M.I.A for a week without a word.”

“Careful there, for a moment I thought my best friend is avoiding me”

“So are we meeting this evening after work or not”.

“Awesome !!. I’ll meet you at your new place after work’

“Hey……..it’s…it’s really good to have you back. It has been lonely without you”.

Pam was in a much better mood in her last hour at the office and quickly sent a message to Roy that she’ll be taking a cab since she has something to pick up before heading home. As expected Roy didn’t offer to drive her, she was rather relieved that he didn’t ask what she is upto since she had no plans to tell him about her little meeting.

She rang the bell, humming the tune of “sing” which has been stuck in her head since earlier, when the door opened with the brunette waving excitedly at her.

Pam hugged her friend before hitting her lightly on the shoulder “And this is for keeping me hanging”.

“Yeah , yeah I am sorry. You know this dental conference was so last minute. My professor was supposed to take another student but then they fell sick and I had to go with this girl from my class and she is this over prepared one”

“She didn’t let me breathe even for a moment and kept asking if we are on schedule, if that is done or if this is okay. I  am telling you, she’ll be a freak dentist in future where she’ll extract the whole denture - “to make sure everything is covered” Isabelle ranted.

Pam laughed at her friend’s joke before giving her the box of chocolates ” Here you go”.

 Izzy huffed at her before taking it. This has been a prank gift from Pam since Isabelle got into Dental School. These chocolates are usually high in sugar and sticky and Pam knows Isabelle loves them secretly.

Pam looked around when Isabelle went to get them a glass of Sangria, something they both enjoy on Mondays which they’d call ‘Monday misery loves Sangrias’.

“This is a really nice place you’ve got Izz. Your last was good too though though”

“It was but it never felt like mine. Mediating between those two roomies of mine, I never got around decorating the place like I wanted. Now that I am in my last year of school, it feels like I can finally afford a place to myself so here we go.”

Oh and Penny told me her dress fits okay and just so you know I have picked mine and it’s going to be delivered tomorrow..so even  if I missed the dress fittings this weekend, I did manage to get this part done.

Thanks for doing this girl.I really appreciate you two working it out yourself. It has been so exhausting with these arrangements, I can’t wait to get over it now.

You mean, someone is excited to be married and having a hard time waiting for 1 more week, Isabella teased. 

“I wish it was that”sinking deeper into the couch, feeling the weight of errands she still has to finish and the sense of dread she has been working constantly to overcome. She shared with Isabelle she has to meet the florist one last time to ensure he is ready with the right colors; the caterers if they are good with the menu which is a mix of chicken & fish and Kevin if his band is ready  (her mom insisted that last minute checking in with every vendor is key to run the ceremony smoothly). Her family and friends have been really helpful but she can’t ask them to do more in the middle of work week so here she is with piles of work that need to be done on her part in the week to have the weekend wedding. And well Roy is…Roy”

“So you are saying Roy is not your dream man anymore” scoffed Isabelle.

Roy and Isabella never really liked each other. Her friend would often say that she likes a little bit of possessiveness in guys but Roy acts as a caveman at times. It's like he never let's Pam fun but Pam would often justify his actions coming from love and care. Roy too was not far behind in disliking Isabelle after she rejected Lenny. He felt she was a stuck up and Pam shouldn't hang out with her much.

For the first time, instead of defending Roy like she would do instinctively, her frustration started surfacing again thinking how this shouldn’t be this hard. All of this build up to get what she has envisioned for 8 years - being with Roy for  forever has started to feel like a nightmare more than a dream. It’s like she got all these hard parts of this relationship while he gets to get all the good parts.

Isabelle was mixing some concoction which Pam was pretty sure was a heavy cocktail when she heard “Ahh, I wish Jim was here”. Pam did a double take, confused at how her thoughts found a way through Isabella’s voice and blabbered “What…what are you talking about?”

Unaware of the storms of Pam’s mind and heart, her friend responded “You know Jim, the guy I have been seeing on weekends. He makes these awesome margaritas. For some reason I can’t get the portions right’.

“Hmmmm…”

“He is pretty awesome. He's a bit hot-n-cold but you know me, I like the chase”

“Looks like it’s getting serious. So tell me about this ……guy”

“Jim” takes a big gulp of the drink before passing the pitcher to Pam to indulge.

“Yeah…Jim” suppressing the nausea that took over , she took a sip and  finally said the word she has banished for over a week now.

“Well he is not bad. He is a teacher in a high school. Pretty old school really but sometimes he does these really sweet things like the other day we were going to a place for the weekend and half way through I realized I forgot my purse at home. Reservations were under my name so I needed the ID and he drove us back and I realized my ID was there in the bag I had. He wasn’t thrilled but still laughed it off”

“Roy used to be like that too, you know. Easy going and romantic . But now, he would lose it if I make a slip like that”

“Yeah, well in that case, I should be careful if that’s where it ends right. Don’t want to end up being with someone like him for life.”

“Oops sorry Pam. This drink is definitely wrong”

Isabella returned to the kitchen to get them snacks and evening moved towards safer topics like what she would wear on her honeymoon and if there’ll be cute guys from Roy’s side, which Izzy hasn’t met or rejected already.

Pam left her bestie’s place feeling light from the drink and heavy from the feelings with the words never leaving her head - end up with someone like Roy for life…….