Pam is sitting on the couch, surrounded by artifacts from a life she doesn't remember living. Lately, she's been feeling as though she's been floating through life, letting it happen as it may, taking no active part in it. It's almost as if she's been dreaming, unable to really participate, not remembering much of the previous day when she wakes up the next morning. Only small moments, insignificant instances seem to make it through the haze that has become her life and carry on day after day in her memory. Sometimes it's a joke she remembers, or a comment. Sometimes just a feeling. She clings to those moments, beacons of light through the darkness of her life.
She's been chalking it up to stress. She's been planning a wedding, one that is fast approaching, and that keeps a person busy. She's had so much going on lately that she hasn't had much time to herself, time enough to even really think. So now it's like she's been living her life in a fog and she can't get out of it. It surrounds her, suffocates her, until she can't stand it.
But, deep down, she knows she's been feeling this way a long time. Since before the wedding planning and the keeping busy and the not thinking. Long before. When she really allows herself to think about it, without pushing away the thoughts she knows she shouldn't have, she realizes it's been going on for years. Since the day she realized what her life was, what it would likely always be.
"Dunder-Mifflin, this is Pam." A hundred times a day.
Friday nights at Poor Richard's with Roy's buddies.
Weekends at the lake during which all she does is watch as Roy and his brother race the waverunners.
Ski trips where she doesn't ski, because she doesn't really like it.
That was the day she realized she was living the life Roy wanted, a life Roy enjoyed. Not the one she wanted for herself, the one she had spent so many hours dreaming up. Not one in which she enjoyed herself very much.
But it's okay, she tells herself. Because she loves Roy and she wants him to be happy. And if Roy is happy she can be happy with him.
Can't she?
But that was what she thought before. Before Jim kissed her. Before she knew there could be another way.
Ever since the kiss, all Pam can think about is the life she wants. The life that will make her happy. Really happy, not just happy for someone else.
A life in which days are spent drawing and nights are spent in a bedroom with a terrace filled with flowers.
She shudders when she thinks of all that it would take to get her to that point. A change in jobs. A change in location. A change in Roy?
No. That wasn't likely to happen. She remembers him once saying that he loved his life, that he wouldn't change a thing.
A change in fiance?
She's afraid of this thought. She dislikes change, likes knowing what to expect. The thought of moving or finding a new job makes her heart pound. The thought of being alone almost makes it stop. Her life is comfortable. Predictable. She knows just how each day is going to be.
Then again, she knows just how each day is going to be.
She tries to remember a time when change didn't scare her so much. A time when she found it exciting, the possibilities of the unknown thrilling her right down to her toes.
Tears begin pricking at her eyes when she realizes that the girl who once found such excitement in new chances and experiences has long ago faded away, has become a woman who just sits by and lets life happen, eager to please everyone but herself.
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Dwight is almost to the bottom of the situation. Pam is not sick and he knows it. This is it. He can feel it. He's about to bust her. He rings her doorbell, feeling slightly giddy. He can just imagine how thrilled Michael will be once he has exposed her for the fraud that she is.
Oh, he thinks Pam is a lovely girl, he really does. But he has a job to do, and it is highly inappropriate and unprofessional to feign illness just to get a three day weekend. He will not have it on his watch. Not when Michael is counting on him.
When Pam answers the door, he is a little taken aback. She looks so...contagious. He thinks he sees her roll her eyes when she finds him on her doorstep, but decides it was more likely the effect of the bright afternoon sun hitting her square in the eyes.
"What do you want, Dwight?"
"Hello, Pam. I'm here to ask you a few additional questions about your absence today. Since you hung up on me when I called, I couldn't be sure you wouldn't do it again. I was forced to come here and interview you in person. May I come in?"
"No."
Dwight is a little startled at her refusal to let him in her house, and the harsh tone with which it was delivered. However, it raises his suspicions even higher, further convincing him she may be hiding a guest in her house.
"Why not? Is there something you don't want me to see? Maybe you have some friends over?"
"No. I just don't want you in my house. I...uh...wouldn't want you to get sick." Sensing it's probably pointless to explain to him that she doesn't want him in her house - or anyone, really - that she just wants to be alone, Pam figures it might be worth a shot to convince him her house is a hotbed for germ activity.
"My germs are everywhere in there."
"I'm a Schrute. Schrutes don't get sick." Dwight begins to gently force his way in when Pam fakes a hacking, phlegmy and somewhat ridiculous sounding cough.
"Why risk it?"
Dwight takes a step back. She does have a point. He remembers catching a cold from Jim a few years back - a solitary incident, a singular malfunction of his perfect immune system - and thinks that the symptoms Pam is displaying match the symptoms of his illness perfectly. The runny nose, the red, watery eyes, the headache. Dwight is not eager to relive that experience. Not when he has to sit two feet from Jim all day. He takes another step back.
"I won't get sick," Dwight insists, a little less sure of himself.
"Look, Dwight, are you almost done? I need to get back to bed."
Dwight, sensing it's pointless to continue to press the matter of going inside, and almost believing he might actually contract an illness from doing so, decides to finish his questioning and leave as soon as possible. No reason to chance it.
"Just a few more questions." Just to be sure.
"Okay. First question. What color is your mucous?"
Startled and slightly disgusted at the question, Pam just looks at him for a second.
"I am not answering that question, Dwight."
"Interesting. Okay. Question. On the phone you claimed to have a headache. What kind of headache do you have?"
Pam is confused and irritated and now actually does have a headache. One she is convinced will leave as soon as Dwight does.
"What? The kind that hurts."
"I know it hurts, Pam. Where does it hurt?"
"In my head."
"Thank you. Now. Are you dehydrated at all? Suffering from the shakes? Upset stomach?"
Wanting to get rid of him now, Pam puts on the most miserable face she can.
"Yes, all of it. In fact, I think I'm going to be sick right now."
Dwight nods his head in approval.
"Okay. Good. Last question. What color did you say your mucous was?"
Pam thinks she has put up with Dwight - nicely - long enough.
"Good bye, Dwight."
She closes the door in his face. She knows she should have expected Dwight to show up at her house, should have been prepared with answers and maybe a few pills or tissues for effect. But who can ever really be fully prepared for Dwight?
Pam is on her way to take a shower, hoping that cleansing her body will help cleanse her mind, when the doorbell rings again. Thinking it's Dwight, back to ask more ridiculous questions, she flings the door open, no longer just irritated but angry, as well.
"I'm not going to tell you about my mucous!"
It's not until the words have left her mouth that Pam realizes it's not Dwight at the door, but Jim.
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When Pam throws the door open and begins to yell, Jim thinks it might have been a worse idea to come here than he'd thought. He'd spent the entire trip over trying to convince himself it wouldn't end in disaster, that he wouldn't let it. He'd tried to prepare himself for the moment when she opened the door, the moment he saw Pam for the first time after what he had said, what he had done. Imagining a hundred different scenarios, he'd thought he was prepared for anything.
When she opened the door, he was prepared to ask her how she was, to ask her if she was okay. He was prepared to beg her to let things go back to normal, to ask her to forget what happened. He was prepared to ask her if it really was Dwight he had just seen drive past him on the street.
He was not, however, prepared for that.
When she realizes it's Jim at the door and not Dwight, Pam feels the warm blush of embarrassment crawl up her neck and over her cheeks. She really never imagined she might say something like that to Jim, especially so out of context. She is conscious for a moment of how she must look to him, with her hair tossed messily in to a scrunchy, wearing her ancient flannel pajamas with Smurfs running across them, day-old make up smeared on tear-stained cheeks, screaming about mucous. She hadn't even brushed her teeth.
But the moment passes and she becomes angry. Not because he's Jim and he's seeing her like this, but because he's Jim and he's the reason she's like this. And she's glad that he can see physical proof of what he's done to her.
"Jim - "
"I'm sorry."
What? She's not sure what she was going to say. Go away? I hate you? Though she's glad he's interrupted her, she is not expecting him to apologize.
He hadn't meant to say it. No where, in any of his imagined scenarios, did he apologize for telling her the truth. But he'd taken one look at her, tear-stained, angry, hurt, and felt sorry that he had done that to her. Because, after all he's seen her go through with Roy, all the times she was hurt or upset because of something Roy did or said, he's always promised himself that he would never be the reason she was upset, never cause hurt or angry tears to run down her cheeks. So he'd felt sorry and he'd said so.
"I'm sorry."
When she responds to his unexpected apology, her voice is tired, full of emotion but strangely devoid of feeling at the same time.
"Sorry for what? Sorry you told me you love me? Sorry you kissed me?"
Though she's angry at him, and wants him to know it, a small part of her thinks that if he answers that he was sorry he told her he loved her, if he was sorry he had kissed her, her heart might break.
"I'm sorry I upset you."
She's not sure why, but this makes her angry. She can tell he's really, genuinely sorry, but she doesn't care. She doesn't want him to apologize. She doesn't want him to make himself feel better by apologizing, by trying to make her feel better.
Not yet. Not until he knows exactly what he's put her through.
"You're sorry you upset me? That's what you call it? Upset? How dare you?"
She's suddenly so angry she's shaking. Usually she avoids confrontation, allowing people to believe everything is fine rather than argue. If someone really crosses the line, she usually just makes a comment, gives a look, and walks away. But this is Jim and she knows avoidance won't work with him. He knows her better than some people she's known her whole life. It's true that they rarely spend time together outside the office, but when you spend all day, every day, ten feet from someone you consider to be your best friend, especially in the kind of environment in which they work, you learn a lot about each other. She knows avoidance won't work. So, very uncharacteristically of her, she decides to tell him how she really feels. After all, he did it to her.
"How dare you? You're sorry you upset me? You have me rethinking my entire life!"
"Pam, I never wanted to do that. I just needed you to know how I felt." He's so mad at himself, so frustrated with how this is going, so sorry that he's done this to her, to Pam, that he thinks he may cry again.
"You needed me to know how you felt? Jim, I was getting married. I was happy."
Something about the word 'happy' triggers a reaction in Jim and he is suddenly not just mad, but really mad. And not at himself. At her. For believing she was satisfied with her life before his confession. For convincing herself that this is the life she wants, when they both know that's not true.
"Happy? You call that happy? Pam, you hate your job. You can't talk to your fiance about your feelings. All I ever hear you complain about is work and Roy. Where is the happy?"
"It's my life, Jim. And it was fine."
"You want to settle for fine? Pam, you deserve so much more."
Exhausted, defeated, all anger suddenly gone, all Pam can do look at him. He's still standing in the doorway, the bright sun casting a shadow on his face as it illuminates him from behind.
And she knows he's right. She hasn't been happy with her life, not for a long time. She thinks she may have been, once, but that's gone now. She doesn't know when things changed, but she knows it was a long time ago. Long enough for her to convince herself that happiness is merely the absence of sorrow.
She leaves him standing there, looking as though he could cry and scream at the same time, heads to the couch, sinking into the well-worn cushions.
Tentatively, Jim follows Pam into the living room. He's not sure if that's what she intended, but he'd come here to fix their friendship and all he's done so far is make things worse. He considers taking a seat next to her on the couch, but opts for an old armchair instead. He thinks it might be safer that way. Unsure of what to do or say, he sits in silence, studying Pam's downcast eyes, searching for a clue as to what she might be thinking.
Staring at the coffee table without really seeing it, Pam knows that Jim has followed her without looking to see if he has. It's always been that way with them. She's always been able to feel his presence in a room, even before she sees or hears him.
All she can think is why? Why did he have to say anything? Why now, when her wedding is just weeks away? Why not sooner?
So she asks him. Emotionless, without looking up.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner? Why wait until last night?"
He considers telling her he hadn't meant to tell her last night, considers telling her about the transfer. The transfer he is no longer sure he will be taking.
Instead, he tells her the truth, that he's tried to, but stopped himself every time. That he's thought about it over and over. That he wrote it in the Christmas card he later stole back and kept tucked in his locked bottom drawer. In the drawer where he keeps everything that reminds him of her.
Like hot sauce packets.
Like little yellow pencils.
Like bronze medals made of yogurt lids and paper clips.
Then he pulls the card out of his back pocket and, finally, gives it to her. She opens it, reads the message written inside, and looks a little sad.
"Why did you have to tell me?"
He knows what she's really asking. Why did you have to change everything? Why did you change our friendship?
And although he knows she knows, although they are the very words that started this mess, he tells her again.
"Because I love you. I just...love you." He shrugs and shakes his head a little as he says this.
"I just needed you to know. Before..." He trails off, not able to finish the sentence, not able to bring up the wedding.
"You're my best friend. You're supposed to tell your best friend everything."
A sad smile crosses Pam's lips. Best friend. Is that still possible? After all this? She's not sure. She hopes so. She hopes that, what ever happens, they can still be Jim and Pam. She knows that she's really going to be needing her best friend.
"Can we still do that? Can we still be us?"
They both know what she means. They know that they are what makes the work day bearable for each other, that their friendship is special, and that they don't want to lose it.
He tells her that they can try. She tells him that she needs time. That she doesn't know what she's going to do. Jim understands this and knows he has to give her all the time she needs. He knows he has to stand by her whatever she decides. He has to because he doesn't know what else to do.
He leaves, both of them a little less worried about their friendship, a little more worried about the future.
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