He tries to prepare for the moment he sees her again. 

The last time he’d laid eyes on her was the night that threw his whole world into a state of upheaval, the night he’d finally kissed her. The night he’d gone all in. 

The greatest and worst night of his entire life.

The amount of time he’d spent watching her that evening was bordering on pathetic. He knows this, even now, but he’d be foolish to pretend that ship hadn’t sailed years ago. And he’s been trying for months now to stop thinking about about how beautiful she looked, and how the last image of her seared into his brain would forever be that. He still hasn’t been able to get that out of his mind: the way the tint of azure in her dress would change ever so slightly beneath the lights when she’d shift her body in another direction. That tiny sliver of magenta on the inside lining he could spot whenever she’d brought her cocktail to her lips. He couldn’t recall having ever seen her bare shoulders before, either. It felt weirdly illicit, like an unexpected gift. 

He can’t seem to forget the way her hair had looked different; her usual frizzy curls tamed into a gentler, softer style. And her eyes, which were typically a deep mossy green, appeared brighter than seafoam. They reminded him of the teapot he’d given her for Christmas, his last thwarted attempt at honesty.

Perhaps it was the memory of the teapot and what it represented that inspired him, sparked him into action. He still isn’t quite sure. It hadn’t been his plan to confess his feelings that night. The plan was to slink away, transfer to Stamford quietly. To let her marry Roy and try his best to get over it. 

He’s been trying for years to simply “get over it.” 

But there had been an electric charge in the air while they were playing poker that had taken hold of them both, as if neither could tear their eyes away from each other. He’d felt it, and he was pretty sure she’d felt it too. For just one precious moment it was like looking through a window that showed him what they could be like forever, if only one of them had the courage to reach out and open it. To turn the version of Jim and Pam from his dreams into a reality.

That very same electricity had clung to them, following them both outside. And when he found himself alone with her in the parking lot, something had come over him. He knew he couldn’t just leave forever without telling her the truth. He could only gaze at her, standing before him looking more beautiful than he could possibly have imagined, his heart on his pilled sweater sleeve, and before he even knew what was happening his secret had tumbled out of his mouth. 

I’m in love with you. 

It was beyond his control, as if the words had been waiting; dormant but vigilant, ready to strike at any moment. And he could have said them a number of times, a number of ways, but what had come out was absolutely raw. What he lacked in eloquence he made up for with sincerity. There was no stirring oratory, no grand plan. It was straightforward and to the point, no room for any more mixed signals. 

This was not just a crush, and he needed her to know it. This was love, real love, deep and oppressive. He’d laid his soul completely bare.

Part of him had hoped she might reciprocate his feelings, that same part of him that had stayed year after year at Dunder Mifflin in the first place. The other part of him knew deep down she wouldn’t, because he knew her better than either of them would admit, better than Roy could ever pretend to. Rather than heed that second part and disappear from her life without a trace, however, he truly believed that, if nothing else, she deserved to know how much she was loved.

I can love you more than he does, he’d wanted so badly to say. I can love you better than he does. 

I can promise that I already do. 

In his wildest fantasy she would tell him she loved him too — of course she did — and everything he’d been searching for his entire life could finally be his. She’d throw her arms around him, hold him close, and thank him for rescuing her from the life she never actually wanted, the life she’d been pretending to want for years because there had been no other option. 

Yes, she’d tell him. It’s you, it’s always been you. 

But  he’d presented her with that option, and she’d given him a resounding no. Twice. 

The fact that she’d picked Roy over him was no doubt a huge blow to his pride. But that was nothing compared to what had come afterwards: week after week of this lacunal hollow that has thus far refused to let anything – anyone – else inhabit him the way she did. It’s the very same cavernous void he’d felt in his chest as he walked away from her that night, every step leaving him emptier and emptier. And each mile away from Scranton, each day at the new grind in Stamford had only made things worse until he felt absolutely numb. 

He’s been trying to resuscitate his decimated heart, to bring himself back to life for months. While some days are easier than others, most of the time everything feels pointless. He feels pointless; at least, the guy he’d been for the past three years does. So he’s had to distance himself from that guy in any way he can.

Sometimes he feels like a car that won’t start, like his engine needs a jump and only one woman has those particular cables. But Pam is an impossible quest. He can’t think this way anymore, he can’t. Because he’s back in Scranton now, and she’s made it very clear where she stands: not interested. 

She’s sitting at her desk with an impatiently delighted look on her face as he enters the office. He isn’t sure what to expect: for clouds to part, revealing a rainbow and some flying doves? A horrible, terrible awkwardness? Or for everything to feel exactly the same?

The third option is the worst of the three, and it’s unfortunately what he gets. 

“Hi, I’m Jim, I’m new here,” he jokes, but it isn’t actually a joke, because they really are sort of starting all over. 

“Oh my god, it’s really you!” Pam says excitedly, and she runs around her desk to embrace him. The last time he’d seen her they’d been in almost precisely this position, only then he’d been able to walk away from her. Now, he’s back for the foreseeable future, navigating uncharted waters without a compass. 

He can’t help but notice her hair looks the same today as it did on that fateful night. He starts to wonder if this was intentional on her part but quickly stops himself. These are old habits: dissecting every move she makes, deciphering the complexities of their every interaction. Bad habits that he needs to start breaking immediately.

She pulls away and looks up at him. He doesn’t know what to think. He certainly isn’t expecting her to drag him into some dark corner, confess her undying love and admit she made a mistake. He isn’t even hoping for that. If that were the case, she’d have done so months ago.

“Yeah, I was just doing a little joke there, about how we'd never met…”

“I know. I don't care.” 

Her smile is as bright as it’s ever been, and she looks at him as if she’s waiting for him to say something revelatory. He isn’t really sure what to say. He’s said so much already, he has no idea what she could possibly want.

“Awesome, good to be back. The place looks really good,” he says, while looking right at her. 

Shit. He doesn’t mean to flirt, but being around her has an unavoidable effect on his tongue. 

“It's really good to see you,” she says. 

“You, too.”

She can’t stop smiling and for a moment, just a split second, he allows himself to be relieved that at the very least she’s happy to see him. His heart then starts pounding in a very familiar way. Her gaze is so intense that their eyes lock in that same way they used to, that same way they always have. That same way he’d apparently misinterpreted. 

He doesn’t want to let it happen again. 

Looking away from her, he breaks the spell to take off his coat and hang it on the coat rack. When he goes to claim his old desk and realizes it’s been taken, he decides not to fight Ryan over it because change is good.

He takes the one right by reception because it’s empty, but it doesn’t occur to him until he sits down that he’ll never be able to look at Pam from this angle. 

Again, that’s probably a good thing.

Karen gives him a friendly little wave from across the room and he waves back. Pam is practically breathing down his neck, and he tries to ignore how emblematic of his situation this all feels, but he quickly realizes that while he cannot see Pam, he’s close enough to smell her: some soap or shampoo she always used to use. His olfactory memory activates instantly and quite inconveniently.

Stop it, he tells himself. Don’t fall into this trap. Not again.

She’s nice to him throughout the day, more so than usual, even. Pam’s always been nice to him. They were friends, which she’d made abundantly clear. But this feels different. Patronizing, almost, like she’s feeling him out, making sure things are okay between them. Making sure everything can go back to normal. Maintaining the status quo. 

She asks him out for coffee after work and his heart flutters with hope for a moment, as if she’s applied those jumper cables. Zap. She’s never asked him out for coffee before like this, just the two of them, outside of work. In any other circumstance it would feel like a date. 

Is she asking him out on a date? 

She isn’t asking you out on a date, dummy. She doesn’t want you. 

He removes the jumper cables, the car doesn’t start. He pegs her offer as another way to neutralize him and keep him from embarrassing himself all over again. A friendly gesture, that's all. And if that’s the case, the last thing he wants to do is go out for coffee with Pam and be reminded of all the ways he loves her, all the ways she doesn’t love him back.

He spends the day keeping his distance. He doesn’t want her to think he’s still in the exact same place he was the last time he saw her (although despite his months-long efforts to the contrary, he’s not entirely convinced he isn’t). That would just make everything worse. So at the end of the day, his decision to tell her he’s started dating someone else is an olive branch. A sort of “We don’t have to be weird about this, I’m okay, I’m not going to accost you in the parking lot again.” 

“You can do whatever you want,” she replies curtly.

It’s the ambivalence that hurts. It’s like a cold front sweeping through, destroying all of her previous warmth from the day. 

“Okay. Um... good.”

“We’re friends,” she says in a tone so placating he feels his heart sink in the exact same way it did last time. The exact fucking same. “We’ll always be friends.”

She turns to go, and he heads back to his car, wishing he’d said nothing at all. 

Seconds too late, he realizes that accosting her again in the parking lot is exactly what he’s just done. And of all the things he didn’t prepare for on this day, at the top of that list was being rejected a third time.

***

It’s morning, and from the moment he opens his eyes he tries as hard as he can not to think about her.

He rolls over in his bed with a groan. Apparently he’d fallen asleep in his clothes. He was sober when he’d left the party last night, but still has no recollection of how exactly he made it home or what happened after that. 

His bedroom comes into focus and he sees his ceiling fan, his bookshelf, his desk. He knows this is the reality of his life now, that he’s leaving Scranton for good. Pam doesn’t love him, and he’ll probably never even see her again. He needs to start trying to move past this, to start the next chapter of his life without her in it, but he cannot stop the memory of the night before from invading his brain: the way his hands slid around her waist so perfectly, the way she smelled. Different, like she’d worn some kind of special perfume or something. Like she’d known the night would be special. 

He picks up his phone from the nightstand. No missed calls. It’s not like he’d been expecting her to call, not like he’d been hoping she’d change her mind and reverse this hellish situation, but his heart drops anyway. Maybe he’d been hoping after all. 

His clothes still smell like her, and he lays in bed trying to figure out whether he should wash them or burn them or never take them off again. He can’t decide, so he does nothing. He’s been so used to this. His default setting for three long years has been just that: doing nothing. 

At the very least, that changed last night. Alongside his shattered heart, he feels a definite sense of satisfaction at having finally done something. 

Three years, he’d told himself. Three years of waiting around, and for what? He’d spent so much time wishing and hoping for something that felt unattainable, and yet somehow – as their lips finally met – inevitable all at once. 

He can’t get it out of his mind: how it felt to finally kiss her, how it was exactly the way he’d always imagined it would be in all those hours spent watching her at reception. And not just a drunken slip at Chili’s he can barely remember, but a real kiss, a proper kiss.

Most importantly, though, he cannot stop thinking about the way she’d kissed him back.

She’d leaned into the kiss, hesitant at first, but then reached up to gently hold the back of his neck, welcoming it. Everything about her actions had told him, for just a moment, things were going to be okay. Not only okay, but perfect. Relief had actually washed over him as he leaned back to look into her eyes, that despite her prior rebuffal, she actually did have feelings for him too.

It was only a few seconds but they were the most important seconds of his life. Because even as she’d pulled away and told him no, the memory of those seconds persists: those precious seconds when she’d told him yes. 

Those seconds represent hope that there was – is – still somehow a chance for them. And try as he might, he cannot make that hope disappear.

He falls back into his pillow and closes his eyes. In any event, he’s leaving this town. Maybe Stamford will be a good change of pace. Change could be good for him. And while he wants to regret coming clean to her last night, he does take some solace in the fact that at least Pam finally knows his truth. That does make it easier to leave her behind. 

Maybe he can now finally force himself to get over her. To stop thinking about those few seconds. Maybe.

He has to try.

***

She tries to convince herself she made the right decision.

Watching Jim walk away, though, feeling him physically slip away from her, is enough to make her second guess herself almost instantly. 

She’d chosen loyalty to Roy. He’s the responsible choice, the safe one. But maybe that’s the only reason she’d chosen him, because she’s never been willing to take a risk. She’s never been brave. And that’s what Jim was asking of her in that moment: courage she was not ready to give.

She takes a deep breath and looks at the ceiling, reliving the past few minutes. 

Yes, Jim initiated the kiss, but she’d allowed it. She’d lost herself while her lips were pressed against his. She didn’t push him away, she participated. She kissed him back. She can no longer deny to herself she’d already been unfaithful to a certain degree over the past three years, at least emotionally, but tonight that crossed over into downright inappropriate behavior. 

You have to take a chance on something sometime, Pam.

Jim had taken a chance on them, on the possibility the two of them could be something amazing. And the most frustrating part of it all is that she knows they could be amazing. She knows exactly what it would be like to be with Jim because, in their own special way, they’ve actually been together for years. She can justify it to herself as much as she wants, rationalize it by reminding herself she has not cheated, she has not committed an infidelity. She’s done nothing wrong. But the truth is, she does do something wrong every single day and she knows it, because she’s in love with Jim too. She’s known this so intrinsically it’s a part of her, deep in her marrow, so deep she’s never even tried to analyze it. It just… is. 

Maybe that’s what terrifies her the most. Because now she’s let him go, but the love remains. And she isn’t quite sure what to do with her feelings now except push them down even further.

Her tears last as long as she can reasonably stay in the darkened bullpen, crouched on the floor alone against Jim’s desk. She can’t tell Roy about this, she won’t. And if she doesn’t go home soon he will wonder where she is. Regardless of her confusion, she’s made her decision. So she picks herself up off the floor and somehow, some way, gets herself home.

It doesn’t take long for her to realize she’s made a huge mistake, but it does take several days too long for her to attempt to rectify it. She knows this because Jim isn’t at work the next day. He isn’t there Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, either. And every day that passes without seeing his face stirs up an uneasy fear within her that she may never see him again. 

It’s silly, really. Jim isn’t going anywhere. Despite this building panic inside her she can’t adequately explain, she’s always been able to count on his presence. 

By Thursday she can’t take it anymore. Jim’s desk remains empty, and no one is saying anything about his absence, even Michael. That in particular scares her. She heads back to the annex in the hopes of learning more.

“Hey, Toby?”

Toby turns around from his desk. “Oh, hey Pam. What’s up?”

“Not much,” she says casually. “I was just wondering… do you know where Jim is? Is he out sick or something?”

“He’s transferring to the Stamford branch next week, so he decided to use all his vacation days up. I guess he didn’t want to take a vacation right after starting the new job.”

She blinks, confused. “Transferring?” 

“Yeah, he got a promotion.”

She’s so shocked by this development she can’t do anything but stare at Toby blankly, trying to think of what to say. Surely he’s got this wrong.

“Like… permanently?”

“Yeah. He didn’t tell you?” Toby asks. “I thought you guys were friends.”

Pam is sickened, legitimately feels like she might throw up. Jim is transferring. Gone forever. That’s that. And he didn’t even bother saying goodbye. 

“Does... anyone else know?” she asks, when she can locate her voice. She’s genuinely surprised that Michael hasn’t said anything, or even Phyllis or Kelly.

“I don’t think so,” he shakes his head. “I sent Michael a memo about it, but… he doesn’t really read them.”

“I just… I thought Jim was going to Australia in a couple weeks. That’s what he told me.”

Toby shrugs. “When he called me to let me know he wasn’t going to be in this week, he did mention he canceled his trip.”

She nods, not understanding any of this, but trying to pretend she does. 

“When… when exactly did he call you?”

Toby thinks for a second. “It was Friday.” 

Friday. The day after she rejected him.

Worried her knees might actually give out, she gives Toby a tight smile and a quick thanks before she backs out of the annex and into the bathroom. 

Jim is gone for good, but the feelings she’s been trying so hard to repress for years are not: in fact, they feel like they’re beginning to calcify. And there’s nothing she can do about it.

She barely has time to shut the stall door before she collapses onto the toilet seat, her head in her hands, dissolving into quiet sobs.

***

She tries to prepare for the moment she sees him again. 

She spends an hour doing her hair, cramped into the tiny bathroom of her tiny new apartment with a blow dryer and straightener, then trying not to burn herself as she recreates those same soft curls she wore the last time he saw her. She tells herself it’s for luck.

This feels like a do-over. A chance to start over. And even though she’s failed to be brave for a long time, he’s finally coming back. It’s like the universe is giving her a second chance to make things right. Somehow, some way, she’s determined to make her feelings known to him.

Throwing her arms around Jim again feels so good, and when he hugs her it’s as if not a day has passed. She’s so grateful for this tiny bit of equilibrium that she almost forgets several months have indeed actually passed. A lot has changed.

The effects of this change hit her in waves throughout the day.

The first wave hits when he doesn’t sit at his old desk. It’s not his fault, of course, and it doesn’t escape her notice that he still sits as close to her as possible. But he’s facing away from her now, and she’s immediately uncomfortable with this new arrangement. He can’t look up at her to share a quick smirk, his familiar insouciant smile. To roll his eyes at Michael, or grimace at Dwight’s chronic Jim-induced frustration. Knowing this won’t happen anymore creates a rolling, queasy sensation in her stomach.

She notices the next wave in the break room when she sees his sleeves are rolled all the way down. It’s a simple thing, dumb even, but it feels false and stiff, so unlike him. Not the guy she knew. She’s aware he’s gotten some kind of promotion but it doesn’t account for this kind of change. It’s more than a wardrobe adjustment, it’s his very essence. Jim: the laid-back paper salesman who would casually dangle his bare forearms over her desk at reception while doing everything he possibly could to avoid working.

He pulls a bottle of water out of the vending machine rather than his usual grape soda. It’s different, again, and she doesn’t like it. 

I’m evolving, Pam, he says. 

She wants to believe he’s telling her the truth when he says he doesn’t have time to get coffee with her, that he really does have a bunch of unpacking to do, but she knows that isn’t the case. Her apartment could be burning down and it wouldn’t keep her from having a coffee with Jim if he asked; seizing the opportunity to slow down and regroup, to do this right. And this was exactly her plan: to let him know how much she missed him, to see if there’s any way they could start over.

She can only conclude that declining her offer to go out is as simple as it seems. He just doesn’t want to.

When Michael walks into the break room, the heaviest part of the wave crashes down. This is when she knows for sure something is very, very wrong. Their boss’ clear awkwardness at having stumbled upon them having a private moment is the type of occurrence that would generally trigger a shared laugh. 

But Jim will not play. You’re not interrupting anything, he says to Michael, very seriously. And then he walks away.

There’s nothing to interrupt, he may as well have said. Nothing. 

The room now feels as empty as whatever remains of their friendship. It hurts, but maybe she deserves it. She hurt him, after all. Badly. Maybe now he’s punishing her.

She doesn’t want to believe Jim would hurt her on purpose. She tries to square his behavior into effectively steamrolling over any residual awkwardness from the last time they saw each other. After all, even though she can certainly claim some responsibility for what happened (or didn’t happen) during the interim, it was he who initiated the series of events that led them to where they are today. Perhaps he’s just trying to wipe the slate clean, trying to be mindful of her feelings. 

But every time she looks for a sign that he’s still interested, that he might possibly want to rekindle whatever it was they had before – what she’d ignored for so many years – she doesn’t find it. It’s almost as if he’s a different person, a completely different Jim. One who doesn’t even remember what went down between them last May.

Maybe he just needs time, she tells herself. Maybe it’s just difficult, readjusting to being back in Scranton. 

That afternoon in the parking lot, however, is when the wave pulls her completely under, down into its murky depths, dragging her along the ocean floor.

The familiarity with which the new girl rubs Jim’s back is undeniable. It’s so painfully obvious that, in an instant, she runs down the endless list of ways Jim had shown his affection for her over the years and she’d ignored it, or redefined it, or reshaped it into something her conscience could live with. As he and the new girl walk back upstairs together, Jim won’t even look back over his shoulder at her, just like he hadn’t bothered to walk down with her to see the Michael-induced hubbub in the first place. The way he would have before, without question. And now she knows exactly what’s going on. 

He hasn’t been trying to ignore what happened. He didn’t “forget.” 

He just doesn’t want her anymore. 

He’s moved on, he’s with someone else. Someone prettier, someone better. And he’s been setting boundaries – clear boundaries – ones she’s unknowingly been attempting to cross all day. 

The employees herd themselves back upstairs but she doesn’t follow. She stands alone in the exact place where, because of her own cowardice, everything went so fucking wrong. She can still hear the crickets chirping, feel the spring air twinged with warmth and the promise of summer, of hope. She can still hear his soft, earnest declaration of love as if he'd only just uttered it.

There are only ghosts in this parking lot now, the two of them standing alone and locking eyes as she made the biggest mistake of her life without even realizing it.

She runs to the benches on the side of the building and sits down, taking a deep, frigid breath, letting the cold air in to occupy every single crevice within her body. It feels as if she’s still being pulled along the ocean floor, her skin rubbed raw, her lungs full to bursting as she drowns.

Then she cries. There’s no one around so she allows herself this indulgence, feeling the hopelessness wash over her, feeling the consequences of her own actions and how irreversible they are. 

Why had she been so stupid? Some part of her must have naively hoped he would wait around for her, but why did she even entertain that possibility? Of course he didn’t.

Of course he wouldn’t. 

After a minute or so, she collects herself, takes a few more deep breaths, and fixes her eyes straight ahead, past the chain link fence, past the junkyard next door and beyond, until she’s staring into nothingness.

“It’s over,” she says aloud, and weirdly, it helps. It makes her current reality feel more substantial, more fathomable. 

It’s over.

That evening, as Pam walks to her car, nursing her broken heart and prepared to face her tiny apartment alone, Jim stumbles upon her. For the first time in a very long time, she has absolutely no desire to see him.

“I feel like things were kind of weird today,” he says. 

She has to stop herself from scoffing. Of course things were weird. He made them weird. She doesn’t even blame him for it, because she knows the situation was weird before either of them stepped into it, but she’s hit her pain threshold for the day. She just wants to go home.

“I think I should tell you that… I’m sort of seeing someone,” he then says. 

It’s like a slap to the face. She’s very aware he’s seeing someone, he’s been making that clear all day by avoiding her and making things weird and now it feels like he’s bragging about it. 

I’m evolving, Pam. 

He may as well have just said it: I’m evolving past you.

She doesn’t want to be rude, she doesn’t want to shut down, but she doesn’t know any other way. She can’t be brave now. She has no reason to be.

“It’s fine, you can do whatever you want,” she says. 

It’s the wrong thing to say and she knows it as the words leave her mouth. She sounds hurt and rejected. Petulant, even, which is exactly how she feels, but she doesn’t want him to know that. She’d wanted to let down her guard today, she’d wanted badly to let him in, but now she can’t.

And if Jim is so intent on setting boundaries, well, she can set them, too.

“We’re friends,” she assures him. “We’ll always be friends.”

It feels like by simply putting this declaration out into the ether she’s making it true. But maybe it isn’t true. Maybe they won’t be friends. Friendship with Jim isn’t enough anymore, and she knows herself well enough to know that she, too, has evolved: she’s evolved past believing it could be. Just like he did.

She’s never felt so low in her entire life as she does in this moment, and this conversation isn’t helping. She wants it to be over as quickly as possible, not to mention there’s a very real possibility she might start to break down right here in this stupid parking lot again. She can only be relieved the damn cameras are at least nowhere to be seen. So she turns to head back to her car, throwing a disingenuous “good to have you back” over her shoulder.

Nothing about this is good, and she doesn’t have him back. She doesn’t know where her Jim is, but he’s certainly not here anymore.