Regretful she didn’t head for the stairs when the first of her co-workers showed up, she sat uncomfortably in the corner of the annex, another hiding spot she couldn’t imagine how Randall managed to squeeze himself into.

She was half his size and it was still a tight fit for her in the small bay between the filing cabinets and the leftover partitions stacked precariously against the walls. The bag that was squished in there with her took up all the extra space that was left.

But now that Kelly and Toby had arrived to their respective desks she would have to wait until they both vacated before she could slip out the back door for the stairs.

It wasn’t long before Kelly departed for the kitchen, but Toby stayed behind, muttering to himself as he stared at the image of a beach on his computer’s screen saver.

It seemed forever before Toby got up again. She hesitated only a second before setting to slip out and make her exodus but just as she inched out her toe, Kelly walked back in, yammering loquaciously about some romcom she was waiting for in her Netflix queue.  She wasn’t alone. The audience for her stream of chatter was none other than Pam's own twin.

It was no longer jarring to see the person she once was. She’d become quite used to it. Today, as she looked past her garrulous co-worker to the current hostage of that prattle, she viewed a prisoner. But not of Kelly. She knew plenty of means of extricating herself from that situation as did the Pam that was with her now.

But looking at her, she saw a woman who had stumbled into a slab of wet concrete, the substance having long since hardened around her.

Before these past two weeks, she couldn't see all the cracks in the cement or how they might lead to her escape. The other Pam, it seemed still didn’t.

As she stared at the captive she was about to set free, she could clearly make out the suppressed sadness that she knew was always there, but she tried never to see. She had no mirror with her in the hiding spot but she knew she looked different from that girl. She wore an altered expression. There was still some of that same fear that emanated off the face of her replica, but on her it was mingled with anticipation, certitude and hope.

It wasn’t the only thing different she was wearing today.

She dipped her head to look again at the shirt she chose from the three she had packed, then shook it gently side to side when she discovered she guessed wrong.

She knew she might not get it exactly right, but there was a small chance the one duplicate button-down would show up back at her home and it would be what the other Pam would have on today.

But at least with the bands lining her blouse, mixed in their colors, it should have been close enough to any of the many other striped shirts left in her closet. The kind she often wore.

But today, the woman next to Kelly had on solid blue.

»»»»»»»»

The entirely wrong shirt was the first hitch. But it wasn’t so problematic to stop her from continuing on as intended. It could always be explained away by spilled coffee or a messy lunch, that is if anyone would even notice she’d changed.

She could still continue with the flight plan. Her plane wasn’t grounded.

The other Pam only stayed a few minutes with Kelly, using one of her many methods to escape. Though safer now that she was gone, Kelly had settled into her space making it harder to slip by her. Even if she had tried while her co-worker seemed preoccupied with online shopping, by the time she worked herself up to take the chance, Toby had returned and it would be impossible to get past him undetected.

She was stuck in the annex until lunch and by then it might be too late. The delay could affect everything.

Her luck changed when Ryan called into the space announcing Michael had summoned all to a conference room meeting. Kelly, at hearing his voice, rushed up and out in a flash. Toby took his time but as soon as he was gone too, so was she.

Even with a protracted timeline, there was plenty of runway left to achieve liftoff.

But because of the time she wasn’t sure what to do next. She had planned to head back to the secret room, eat a second breakfast and drop off the bag with all her stuff but hadn’t thought she’d be stuck upstairs so long. Not only was it almost lunch, but she’d given Michael a schedule and she wanted to keep to it as best she could knowing he was the wildcard in it all.

So far, new Michael was doing better than she expected. He'd done all he was asked and had even offered an insight she hadn’t thought when they dropped the second set of Sebring keys in her drawer. Upon his mention of the very likely possibility of an almost empty tank, she pulled out what was left of her cash to leave with the time-traveling key.  That, after he turned out his wallet to reveal the only paper remaining in it was the printed slip with the old lottery numbers. 

After that the other Michael took off, on time and long before his other self or anyone else showed up. It was then she too should have made herself scarce, but she was detained when she went to double check that he’d taken the DVD out of the machine when he left with the Blockbuster cases in hand.

Remarkably, since it was Michael who’d collected them, the tray was empty. But just as she unplugged the device and wheeled the cart back once more to the exact spot in the unused annex nook they had retrieved it from last night, she thought she heard someone in the kitchen. Hoping it was just Randall, she hid below the window and peeked in and saw something she wished she hadn’t. She always knew there was something going on between them, but seeing Dwight and Angela making out was not only a sting to her eyes from the sight of them pawing at each other with way too much outside lip licking action, but her ears from the loud sucking noises that reverberated through the glass.  

Mostly though it was a prick to her heart knowing theirs would be the only kiss to happen at Dunder Mifflin today.  

Inching back from the door while trying not to gag, she turned for the stairs, forgetting the bag she’d been smart enough to grab when she went to check for the movie but careless enough to leave in her path.

The noise of her tripping over it wasn’t even loud and if Dwight had not been correct to boast of supersonic hearing she may have made it to the stairwell. But this was the one trait he possessed where he hadn’t been exaggerating.

She had just enough time to grab the bag before she dashed further into the annex to tuck herself away in a hiding space just as Dwight threw open the door to check on what caused the racket.

She breathed a sigh of relief when he turned back to the door and yelled in to Angela.

“It’s okay Monkey. Nobody’s here. Probably just vermin. But I ought to lay some traps.”

To Pam’s further solace, Angela must have called him back because he went through the kitchen door, insisting that an office cat would be no more effective than his spring-loaded contraptions.

She didn’t move though, in the very likely case as it was Dwight, he’d only have to go as far as his desk to get said traps and would be back through to set them down immediately.

It wasn’t Dwight who next stepped from the kitchen next but Toby. And during the time she spent trying to think up a believable reason why she’d been loitering in the hidden corner, Kelly showed up too.

««««««««

After her escape, late at it was, she started for the secret room anyway thinking she could drop the bag there, get in a superfast bite, and still grab Roy before his break when she realized she didn’t even know when Roy took lunch most days. It was not often he came up to eat with her since the warehouse guys regularly chipped in for group meals that one of them picked up while on the way back from the morning deliveries. If she wanted to see him for lunch it needed to be planned ahead. She had a feeling with what she knew of yesterday, she had not suggested they dine together today.

It was what she had banked on, but now she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have eaten early or would even be in the warehouse at this hour. He could have delivery runs of his own to go out on. It was one reason why she wanted to get a head start. As well as to take some time to herself…while not squished up in a corner, praying not to be seen...to gather her thoughts, pump her courage and cage her heart. This time to keep it protected from emotions she knew could derail everything.

Once standing with Roy she could allow no feelings of doubt or regret to slip in. No matter the love she still might have for him, those sentiments needed to stay on the outside. Nothing in that might prevent her from severing the knot that kept her bound all these years.

Tight as it had gotten, the truss formed so slow around her that she barely felt the pain of the constriction, however she knew it would hurt like hell when all at once she tore free from it.   

But she couldn’t wait any longer. She would have to face that pain without a bouncer at her heart's door and with an empty stomach that churned with the acid of what she was about to do.

She’d no choice but bring her bag with her to the warehouse and worried if he’d notice it right away and know from the bag and her face that something was wrong and try to smooth things over before she even spoke a word.

Not likely, she just as soon realized as she started the walk to her destiny. He would only get defensive, that is if he even noticed the bag or her distress, which she was quite sure he wouldn’t. What had taken too long to get to her, to fire her into action, was that he never noticed anything about her anymore. Not her art, not her earrings, not her clothes. Missing money, that he noticed, but nothing having anything else to do with her.   

Just in case, she stopped to pull out an old cardigan from the bag she carried and wrapped it around herself to hide the color of the shirt she had on.

»»»»»»»»

Roy was laughing by the lockers, sharing a peek at some magazine with Lonny and Frank when she came up behind him.

“Hey babe, whatcha doing down here? You know I can’t do lunch. Plans with the guys.”

She hadn’t fully looked up at him and already the pain was searing. But so too was her anger and she tried to make herself focus on that instead. Anger that she hadn’t even asked yet and he was turning her down, preferring to eat with the warehouse crew over her.

As suspected, he didn’t notice the bag. Nor did he look up at her long enough to see the distress in her expression or the way her hands were trembling. Frank must have as he quickly shut whatever it was they’d been looking at, stuffing it back in his locker and nudging Lonny as surreptitiously as he could. Lonny took the briefest of glances at her and backed off, leaving Pam alone with Roy when he left with Frank for the shelves at the other end of the warehouse.

She did her best to swallow the bile creeping up her esophagus and tried to speak.

“Um Roy…I ah…um…”

Resolute as she was when she woke up that morning, now that she was here ready to return his ring and change her life, the words were not coming easy. No matter what else she knew or wanted now it would never completely erase what she once felt for the man whose heart she was about to break. Even with doubts it was ever truly love, hurting someone she once thought she did was not something she ever imagined she would be doing and was much harder than she thought it would be.

“You know Pam, I’m kinda busy here. Can we talk about whatever it is later?”

Shaking hands tightened into fists and she clenched tighter around the strap of the bag, wanting to feel its rough edge on her palm in an effort to pull the pain from her heart and transpose it to her hand where it couldn’t interfere with what she needed to do.    

Finding her voice, she answered him, her inflection still timid, but her resolve hardened as he blew her off again, because the magazine was so damned important.

“No Roy, we need to talk now. Is there somewhere more private we can go?”

Each word came out a little stronger than the last, the final few forceful enough that he pointed her to where they could speak alone.

Out by the loading bay, the new warehouse guy was having a cigarette which he threw to the ground as he saw Pam and Roy approach. The compassionate look he flashed to them as he went inside told her he knew what was about to happen, even if Roy still did not.

It was cold out by the truck, but Pam used the temperature as an excuse to pull her cardigan tighter around her to hide the shirt beneath, but more in hopes it would serve as her armor as she began.

“Roy, I’m really sorry and I know this is a shitty place to do this, but I... don’t ….I…can’t…”

She hadn’t been able to look directly at him yet, her eyes instead were still focused on her own hands and the ring that when he gave it to her years ago had her choked up as well, but with a very different emotion.

“You can’t what?”

His voice cracked too when he responded, like he knew what her next words would be.

“Roy, I don’t want to marry you anymore.”  

Pam finally looked up to his face expecting shock, anger, sadness, or some mix of the three, but what she thought she heard in his tone a moment ago was gone from it. What she saw in him was the same annoyed look she often was greeted with when she was late coming down at the end of the work day, or when she refused to go with him to some sporting event he bought tickets for, knowing full she wouldn’t and he’d have to...or get to... go with Kenny.

“Damn it, Pam, this again.  What are you playing at? You pulled this shit last night and we discussed why the art thing doesn’t make sense now. We decided that it wasn’t the right time for something that was probably a waste of time anyway.” 

Last night?

Once more, in having no knowledge of what happened after Jim left her crying in the breakroom, she could only wonder what she herself had done or at least tried to do when she and Roy arrived home. The thoughts spinning in her head about last night’s events took her by such surprise it left her tongue-tied.

While speech still evaded, she instead felt her nose get hot.

After the heat traveled across the bridge of her face, her eyes welled up again.

All she was aware of, vis à vis their discussion of the internship, was the lone conversation she watched happen yesterday. The one where she couldn’t make out a single word when she observed it from her hiding spot, but still heard loud and clear him shooting down her dreams in the Dunder Mifflin bullpen. 

To realize that her other self found the pluck to bring it up again, fought for what she wanted and, even if only temporarily, had the presence of mind to want to break free, it made her feel almost proud.

With that pride, the heat dissipated from her sinuses. The tears dried.

What had happened last night? What was it that gave her the courage to bring up the internship again and could she have been so mad she actually tried to break her engagement?

It seems she was, only she supposed she hadn’t been so fueled up to stay strong enough to go through with it, but she, the Pam that had been reliving the last two weeks with a very different set of eyes, that Pam had enough. 

“You mean you decided,” she spoke with a raised voice that caused a few heads to turn back to the open garage door they stood just outside of.

Roy grabbed her arm and forcefully pulled her out from the sight of his co-workers. She allowed herself to be led farther away but assertively jerked from his grip as they walked.

She didn’t need to be there last night to know he told her what she thought and somehow, she went along.  In no timeline or scenario would she say doing something artistic for herself was a waste of time.  

“Waste of time,” she yelled louder now. “What would be a waste of time? Me doing something I’m good at and that I enjoy? Me making something more of my talents? Me doing something for myself? Why is it that my boss and my boss’s boss and my co-workers have more faith in what I can do artistically and professionally than my own fiancé?” 

“You say co-workers, but you mean Jim don’t you? This is him putting ideas in your head. This is his influence. Isn’t it, Pammy? Him and his big mouth.”

Anger exploded on Roy’s face but for once Pam wasn’t afraid. If anything, Roy’s rage which normally had her cowering and shrinking into herself, today just had her more convinced she was doing the right thing.

“He needs to learn to mind his own business and stay out of ours. Where does he get off? It’s easy for him to him to tell you to take an internship that may or may not lead somewhere but will take you away on the weekends. He’s not the one whose life will get disrupted. He’s not the one who’s going to miss you while you’re gone.”

“Miss me, miss me? How can you miss me?”

The rise of her voice even shocked herself as did the heat pulsating through her body, the cold, winter air no longer noticeable.

“You’re hardly around on the weekends yourself and when you are you’re drunk or hungover or Kenny’s over or you are busy watching your stupid games. We never do anything together except have sex. When was the last time we went out to a nice dinner, or a museum or even just watch an old movie together on the couch?”

“We just took a trip, what that’s not enough for you?”

“Yeah, once a year we go on a ski trip, and only after your Eagles are out of the playoffs. A ski trip! A damned ski trip!”

Had there had still been remaining snow leftover from the last storm, the steam of her anger would have turned it to a puddle under the feet she stomped in a rage.

“Roy, I don’t even like to ski, but you don’t seem to think about that. And what else do we do there, not plan our wedding, no, because God forbid it cut into your skiing or happy hour. You think you’d miss me but it’s the idea of me you’d miss. And the maid service and body in your bed. Cause that seems to be all I am to you.”

“You don’t like to ski? Since when?”

That’s all he heard in her diatribe? That she didn’t like to ski. But what else should she expect, he hadn’t heard her in years. And it was her own fault because she let him drown out her voice, little by little until she could scarcely hear herself. But no more. She was done being silenced.

“Pammy, if it’s that important, then go take the internship. Go draw your pictures for Jan. But don’t blame me when we have to postpone the wedding again. And when you find yourself in over your head.”

Years ago, he stopped seeing her, stopped hearing her. She had become a ghost but not because of any time travel that happened in the last two weeks.

Roy had turned her to a shadow of who she once was.

She was once a girl with dreams of more, more than just having a terrace with flowers.

More than being just a receptionist and a wife.

More than a person who found her happiness in small doses, here and there, helping Jim play pranks on Dwight,

…or making paper doves that lit him up and brought out that 1000-watt smile of his.

…or singing karaoke with Kelly and Meredith as Jim looked on with that same toothy grin that made her sing louder even than Kelly.

…or showing off the sketches she would draw in her notebook in between games of Sudoku and Free Cell that had Jim gushing over the beauty she could create with just a pencil and looseleaf. 

…or enjoying a rooftop dinner of office-made, grilled-cheese sandwiches and swaying to a song that ever since hadn’t stopped playing in her head. Whether or not it was a date, it was the most romantic evening she’d had in a long time.

Where over the years together, Roy had slowly stolen her soul, Jim was the one who kept her from altogether disappearing. And she was ready to come back to life with the person that made her feel alive, feel seen, feel real again.

Roy seemed to be waiting for her to speak, that in allowing her to take the internship, she would have gotten what she wanted and stopped with the ultimatum he seemed to think this was. When she didn’t say anything, his trembling began.

It started with his legs, tiny tremors she noticed through his work pants that as they inched up his body seemed to increase in magnitude. But they hadn’t yet reached his face which still remained stoic and stained with its own heated ire.

Ironically, it wasn’t the loudness of her voice or aggression in her body that made Roy see her at last. It was in the next moment when she stopped yelling and spoke calmly and softly but with a firmness that turned the fury on his face to fear.

“Roy, it’s not about the internship, not anymore. It’s about us and how we’ve grown apart. I’m not happy. I haven’t been for some time. And I deserve to be happy and appreciated and supported.”

There was only one time she ever saw Roy cry, at his grandmother’s funeral a few years back. His cheeks burned red like they just had in his anger, but it was his bright blue eyes that became even bluer as tears crystallized inside them.

They seemed almost incandescent now. The layer of saline that filled up in them galvanized their color, turning them to a glowing azure, the shade of a crystal blue ocean, the depths of which she was finally rising up from.

“Please Pammy, don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you need me to. I’ll be a better boyfriend, I mean, fiancé... I just don’t want to be without you.”

Desperately he grabbed for her hands and she allowed it. They were cold, even more than hers.

“It’s too late, Roy. I’m sorry.”

She released his grasp on her hands and made one last twist of her ring before she pulled it from her finger and handed it back to him, turning away before the tear she saw slip from his eye could draw out a river from her own.