Whac-A-Mole.

That’s what she feels like.

Like one of the plastic, cartoon-faced creatures in the arcade amusement over at Sid and Dexter’s. Despite her best efforts to stay up, she’d been beaten down again.

Just like the subjugated animal in the game, she’d been pummeled and crushed by the day, the assaults coming at her from every angle and inflicted by everyone.

Even Jim.

After he’d left her in the breakroom, the turmoil she felt festered, along with a headache that only got worse when barraged by an incessant whining of the main phone when she came back out to man her desk.

But while the calls seemed to multiply in the last hour of the workday, she couldn’t help but to notice the silence in between the piercing rings.

The Advil she kept in her drawer worked for the pain in her head, but it couldn’t stop the blaring quiet or the swelling anger that filled the space it left.

By quitting time, she was miserable but also furious.

She knew it was not truly with Jim, even though he was who she released on when he accosted her earlier in the breakroom.

And who still couldn’t or wouldn’t look up at her.

He’d never left before without saying goodbye, and while she might have missed his wave while she looked down to transfer one final call, she deep down knew he didn’t and rather he had slipped out as she focused on the keypad and punching in Oscar’s extension.

She might have tried to catch up with him but there was still the pile of fax reports and copies to distribute. Besides with the fury still inside her, and clearly him as well, she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t make things worse.

Instead, she picked up the paper stack and made her rounds, fully aware the longer it took, the angrier Roy would get waiting for her, in turn triggering a domino effect where thinking of that, of him and the evening that awaited her, her own ire multiplied.

Twenty minutes later, the dome light activated by the opening passenger door lit the truck with an artificial luminescence. Through an unnatural haze that filled the cab, she could make out the apparent irritation on Roy’s face, yet he failed to recognize its echoed residency on hers as he groused about waiting while she buckled herself in next to him.

She said nothing in return, clenching her hands and her teeth to keep the vitriol she wanted to hurl at him inside where it festered some more.

But she knew enough not to pick a fight while he was behind the wheel. The memory of his road rage from last week was still fresh in her mind. Provoking an angry Roy while he drove was only going to put them in danger so she held her tongue and they head home without speaking. To each other at least. Roy had a lot to say about what went on in the men’s seminar and Michael’s idiocy, to which she said little, not interested in making small talk that could only upset her more.

It wasn’t just that one incident that had her gripping the door panel again as she thought about it. How many times had she warned him about his aggressive tailgating? That the jerky motion of his hard brakes and rushed acceleration rattled her nerves and even made her sick sometimes. His response was often to tear off faster when the light switched to green.

As they took the turn on Euclid, a bit too fast as usual, in attempt to clear her mind from the nausea-inducing way he was driving, she focused on the streetlamps and the distorted beams they cast, blurred more than normal from the moisture building in her eyes.

Anger and sadness. For her they were impossible to detach, one always giving rise to the other. Just like last night during the fight they had about the earring.

The earring that had been gone for years, but he never noticed.

And when they had the row about the money she allegedly stole.

Money that even had she been the one to take it, was supposed to be not just his, but theirs.

And over the Christmas vacation, when he forgot his promise to watch holiday movies with her and made plans with Kenny instead, unwilling to break them despite having had the ones with her first. His excuse, ‘Pammy, you don’t do that to family.’

Holding back her tears as he walked out the door that time too, incensed and wounded that regardless of the ring she wore he didn’t consider her his family yet.

And almost again today, when he couldn’t see how much the internship meant to her, and told her so with a flat-out no, not even bothering to hear her out.

She managed not to cry when he did. Like so often she held it back until the blended anger and sadness got to be too much and poured out of her later, just as they threatened to again now as she thought about his response.

Her pulse sped up again as in her head she relived telling him about it, pretending she had the power to return to that moment in time and do it over.

Only in this adaptation, she’d push back at the right person, the one she was really mad at.

She closed her eyes, watching the scene unfold behind her lids as if on a movie screen.

‘So what, that it’s not guaranteed to lead to something, it’s still an opportunity.’

The Roy in her film opened his lips to speak but nothing came out. But she still railed back at him.

‘For me to do something I’m interested in. Something that will make me feel important. Something I want to try.’

Still nothing from the abstract Roy.

‘Why can’t you see that? Why don’t you see me?’

She opened her eyes to find he had pulled onto their street, quickly slamming them back down, unsure why but wanting to finish out her fabricated vision before they arrived home. But it wasn’t Roy there when she returned to the scene.

It was Jim and he was screaming at her.

‘Roy doesn’t see you, doesn’t know you, doesn’t love you, not in the way you deserve to be loved.’

She shook her head, trying to clear Jim from it. He’d been on the other side of her anger earlier, undeservedly and regretfully. Though she knew this daydream was no more real than any chance she ever had to take the internship, she wanted to spare him from being her punching bag again.

Even a pretend Jim didn’t deserve what she’d spewed at him. Remembering their confrontation in the breakroom only made her more incensed with the actual Roy.

Not only was he controlling her life, he was affecting her friendship with her best friend. In some ways, that upset her more than losing out on the opportunity and angered her more than letting him treat her the way he did.

And yet her tears were gone.

But by the time they were pulling into the driveway she was fuming. At Roy, at herself, at the life she felt trapped in. But for once she managed to harness her sadness into rage.

Roy didn’t even look at her before he jumped out from the driver’s seat and rushed off to get inside the house. Had he, he might have noticed something was different in her tonight.

She slammed the car door and took her time making her way up to the door, the fury growing with each step, becoming so intense it had no place to go but out.

Despite the cold, she lingered on the stoop after Roy let the screen door close without even waiting for her to reach it.

Grabbing it forcefully after one more deep breath, allowing the frosty air to enter her body and give her strength, she stormed into the house and marched to where Roy had wasted no time planting himself on the couch. With shaking, gloved hands, she pulled the remote out of his hands and clicked off the television.

“What the hell Pammy? What’s with you tonight? Your period coming? Is that why you’re acting like such a bitch?”

That was it. She waited nine and a half years for this. To be called a bitch and ignored and told what to do and what not to do. She was sure this was not the life she had been waiting for, not the life she wanted. Not when he showed her time and again what a selfish, inconsiderate, immature, hotheaded partner he was. Not when today was a clue to the life she saw ahead, but where every time she wanted a little something for herself, he’d steal it away from her.

No longer able to hold in the poison, she roared back at him.

“No, I’m not getting my period. I’m pissed. I want to know why my fiancé doesn’t support me, doesn’t want to see me try something new, something I might be good at and that even if it doesn’t lead anywhere will make me happy. How come it’s always about what is good for Roy with never a thought about me? I’m so sick of it and I am…”

She hesitated, the ice in her lungs having escaped with her words seemed to diminish the force left inside of her.

“I want…”

She tried to harness it again, but it was turning to tears once more and what she managed to get out before they filled up in her eyes was a feeble whisper and not the forceful declaration she had wanted to make.

“… it’s making me unsure if I still want to marry you.”

Aggressively, he shot up from the couch, his face unreadable but his body shaking with an intensity she had seen many times before. He stormed away from her, his arms still flailing wildly. He turned again before he reached the wall, and she couldn’t be sure if he was rounding up to flip around again and hit it or—as he started back her way with his own eyes filled with tears that could be from rage or regret—come back and hug her. She hoped for the latter. She still wasn’t sure if she meant what she said, but his reaction would help her know if she did.

He did neither. 

“This is because of the art thing. Damn it Pam, you’re going to call off our wedding because you can’t draw some pictures for Jan. Stop being so dramatic.”

She tried her best to blink away the wet weakness that so often kept her from standing up for herself.

“No, I mean it, Roy. Ever since we set the date, we’ve been having weird fights and issues. I know planning a wedding is stressful, but we’ve barely started and already you are disinterested. And that would be fine if I thought it was just about planning the wedding. But today, today you showed me how much you don’t even know me, or maybe you do and just don’t care if what I want is not convenient for you.”

Roy’s eyes softened a touch, but while the tears that had been forming in his eyes retreated back to drier ducts, hers streamed down her face. Finally, he reached for her hands and led her to the couch to sit.

“Pam, I care. I love you. You know I do. But it’s like I said when you showed me, this is not a great time. If you are busy doing some art thing weekends, you won’t be able plan the wedding? And then we’d have to delay again and you’d get mad at me, again. I don’t want you to have to wait anymore to be my wife. Cause I know that’s the thing you want more than anything. Come on, you know I’m right.”

He reached up and tenderly wiped a tear from her face, inching his hands down to tickle her sides, like he always did after they fought. And as always, and as much as she tried not to, she began to giggle and before she knew it, they were locked in a lengthy kiss that her body responded to even as her mind doubted what it was feeling.

When it was over, he turned the television back on.

Pam got up and left the room, tears once more welling in her eyes as she twisted her ring furiously.

The ring that even Roy knew was holding her back, yet she still couldn’t bring herself to take off.

»»»»»»»»

She awoke more than once in the night, each time from out of an inconstant dream. Every new vision possessed a temporary intensity that overshadowed the one preceding it, though none were as enduring and tangible as the dream-like second life she’d been living through.  Still, not a bit of what she saw, the hazy dreams nor the lucid yet debatable reality was anymore palpable in her mind than the memories of what tomorrow had been.

But that tomorrow was gone, changed not only when they stopped Packer but by the decision she made. When the new day took shape, it would be up to her to direct what would come. The weight of it filled her subconscious, impairing her much-needed slumber.

The first nighttime interruption came courtesy of a single snore, isolated but loud enough to be heard from way off in the ladies' bathroom, or so she thought until she noticed the cadence of her own breath echoed in time with his, like a chorus in rounds. She opened her eyes briefly to find Michael had taken residence on the chair outside his office. Though he looked rather uncomfortable, curled up like one of those pill bugs that formed themselves to a ball when disturbed, his sleep was deep. Pam was less annoyed than envious. She knew if it wasn’t his snort to wake her, it would be her racing mind.

She watched his rounded chest rise and fall for a beat before a slight smile lurked at the corners of her mouth, and she felt herself slip under again, his presence in its way reducing her unease.

But the awakenings continued, the next one caused from the rapid thump of her own heart shaking her up, leaving her in a state of restless disquiet. What she could remember of the dream was the initial rejoice of freedom. Freedom from shackles opened with her own faculty, by way of a key recovered from under a stack of fantasy football sheets.

But what followed to give rise to a panic that had her heart beating so rapidly she worried it might wake Michael, that part was gone from her thoughts. Yet without even knowing what it was she had dreamed, the mere sense of it rattled her so deeply, it took what felt like an eternity before her she could regulate her heart’s rhythm to a steady, normal pace.

The sleep that followed occurred in spurts and fragments, night visions came on like flickers, in each first a moment of elation in her new, Roy-free life, his departure marked by various camera tricks… a slow zoom that left him way off in the distance, a quick pan to where he was not, a crossfade where the scene stayed the same but he dissolved out of it.

But always what followed was a jump cut to where obstacles waited to block her next move. In the most fantastical, an Immobulus spell was cast upon her by a Slytherin witch.

In another, Michael banished her back to the annex with Kelly and the chatter drove her so insane she even considered cutting off her ear like Van Gogh.

But the worst had to be the clowder of hissing cats that scratched and clawed at her whenever she tried to step past them.

When she next awoke, it was 4:29, the last remnants of possible rest lost with her fragmented dreams, both unrecoverable now that the alarm was about to sound.

And yet something had changed during her restless hours.

No longer was she confident she was making the right decision.

Not about breaking up with Roy.

All that she saw in the night, assured her that it was what she needed to do. Her life would never be her own to lead until she broke free.

No matter how difficult she knew it would be or how anxious she was about actually going through with it, she knew it had to be done. Roy was her past but he was no longer meant to be her future.

But there was something else in her dreams giving her pause.

Most of what she remembered seemed to make little sense, a jumble of mismatched events that had nothing to do with Jim, and yet she couldn’t stop thinking there was something to them. Something that did have to do with him.

But trying to figure out what that was would have to wait. They were on a tight schedule to get ready and out of sight and Michael was still snoring despite the blaring alarm going off on her desk.

Rousing him was easy enough and he wasted no time taking off for the shower downstairs, leaving her to have a quick bite before her turn.

It was hunger, she decided that was causing her lingering anxiety about what she planned to do.

But even after two heaping bowls of oatmeal, she still knew something was not right.

Was it guilt?

For Gabby that’s what she said it had been. Guilt that she had fallen in love with another even while having the devotion of a good man. A man she tried to feel the same for, but in the end could not deny what her heart felt once she met Randall.

For Pam it was not quite the same. When she and Jim first met, yes, she had already promised her heart to Roy. Difference was she knew with all of it that Roy was the one.

Even through the times when it felt broken and stomped on and pulled towards something else, she told herself a little bit of heartache was normal even in the most intense of romances, and it was necessary to make their love story one for eternity.

For her it was Roy, always, or so she tried to convince herself for so long she fooled her own self into believing it.

And yet, way down, buried in depths she hadn’t the courage to reach until now, she knew it wasn’t, not once she met Jim.

From almost the day he stepped into the Dunder Mifflin office, she knew a tiny seed had found its way inside her and though she tried to shield it from sunlight and limit its water so it couldn’t break through to the surface, it somehow still managed to fester and bloom to a flower where she never imagined one could grow.

A multi-petaled thing of beauty she forced herself to believe was just a friendship and nothing more.

But as it turned out she was no different from Gabby in falling for another.

But she was. Because, the other man in Gabby’s life, he could have been good for her. He noticed the things she liked and gave her lots of attention in their time together. He was supportive of her career and hobbies and found ways to show her how much he cared. His only fault, he wasn’t Randall.

Roy gave her none of that, not in years. Maybe not ever.

It only took her own growth to see their relationship for what it really was. And while Roy had been Roy all along, and there were so many reasons over so many times she should have called off the engagement, it wasn’t until she’d knew what Jim felt for her that those reasons mattered enough to impel her to do it.

At least what he felt for her before yesterday. After the way she laid into him, she wasn’t sure he still did.

But that wasn’t the thing that had her stomach in knots.

It wasn’t just the odd dreams either.

Or the thing Michael said last night about waiting a proper amount of time.

Or the look of judgment in Angela’s eyes when yesterday she walked past Pam showing off the art brochure to Jim. When paired with the glower of contempt she also threw their way, it was clear Angela did not approve of the friendship they shared. And while the other Pam may have been too focused on Jim to notice the disapproving look being cast in her direction, the Pam watching the scene from her hiding spot did and knew just what the opinionated blonde was thinking, it was amoral and wrong that she be engaged to another man and carry on with Jim as she did.

She could only imagine the look she would give and what she might have to say learning she’d dumped Roy to be with Jim, taking up with him on the very same day.

Angela’s condescending tone echoed aloud in her head, “what do you expect, it’s Pam. She is the office mattress.”

As much as she wanted not to care about what anyone else would think, she couldn’t help it.

When even Michael seemed to know some sort of waiting period was appropriate and necessary, she knew it would not just be Angela throwing shade about her actions.

It was going to take every ounce of bravery she had to get through with the breakup. Once done, there would be nothing left of her resolve with which to face the scrutiny of her co-workers.

So as much as she knew it was time to stop pretending their friendship wasn’t more than just that, as much as she wanted to tell him she knew and had feelings too, as much as she longed to listen to her heart and quit mucking around, she knew it wasn’t to be.

Not today anyway.

One thing at a time.

First, she had to get out of the entanglement that she’d trapped herself in.

Once she ended it with Roy, she’d as least be free to find out what could blossom with Jim.

If it were meant to be between them, it would happen in its own natural course. When the timing was right and when the office, and mostly Angela, wouldn’t make her feel guilty about moving on so soon.

But despite the major change to her plan, she felt still needed to make things right with her best friend. Apologize for lashing out with her misdirected ire and most importantly share how she knew he was right and how because of what he said, she’d finally come to her senses and had called off her wedding to Roy.

And as much as he might think she was certifiable, and perhaps jeopardize what could be between them… would he still be able to be with a person whose belief in supernatural phenomenon was more in line with Dwight than any sane person’s should be…she wanted to tell him about her experiences in the past two weeks.

Just what and how she planned to share it all was a welcome distraction in the shower, forcing Michael, whom she prayed was upstairs eating his own meal and not lurking outside the room, from her mind.

It was there, as the warm jet of water penetrated over her, she decided it wasn’t enough to leave the coded messages she wrote to herself to explain it all. She needed to have them hand delivered to her by the one person she trusted more than anyone, the one person who she hoped still would feel enough for her to do anything she asked, even if it was believing she had traveled back in time.

That meant her plan would stay largely the same as the one she outlined with Michael, with only one small change. No last-minute prepping with him would be needed, since she hadn’t even shared the final step with him, although she had a small sense he suspected something from the way he kept smiling and winking last night as she committed the order of events to paper. But she hadn’t expressly told Michael where Jim would factor in.

For all intents, they would continue as outlined, except for one last thing.

Today was not the day she would know the feel of his lips on hers. The kiss she’d been dreaming of since her accidental slip at the Dundies, when she brushed hers to his in one too quick to even taste.

Who was she kidding, the one she’d been dreaming of forever, where he would silently reach for her, dip down his head so he could look deep in her eyes before closing his own and with lips as soft as velvet, make her whole body shiver as they collided with hers.

That kiss would have to wait.