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Thank you MrsKHalpert for being the best beta and terrible beta could ask for :)

 

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. 

Her name floats around in my skull, bouncing around from corner to corner, the name glowing to reflect the colour of my mood. Her name is never stagnant, it runs through me like a fresh stream, destined to flow onto bigger and deeper thoughts. I try not to go there. Sometimes her name slips out, like when I taste the letters on my tongue, rehearsing the vowel and how it bleeds in and out the consonants. Sometimes her name slips out in the tenderness of self-pleasure, utterly embarrassed afterwards but I know it will happen again. Her name is Pam.

 

Pam sits opposite me in art class. Six feet of a table stained with paint and glue separates us. Art is serious business and needs lots of table space for crafting, I wish that weren’t the case. In any other class, had this seating plan remained the same, our books would overlap, my Nike’s would occasionally brush against her Keds, I’d hear her hum, but this time I’d be close enough to figure out the song in which the tune belonged to. But art is serious business. I would even sit next to Dwight for every single class if it meant Pam sat opposite me, just a bit closer.

 

She was a star student; Mrs Vance often showed her work as an example. Her painting hung up on walls by blue tac reused for the fourth academic year in a row. But whenever she looks at her art, askew on the bright red poster board, it’s as if it is framed in a gallery. As if she is DaVinci’s ghost, watching audiences line up to see his work in the Louvre. 

 

I have this dream. Where the table is shorter or she sits on my right, replacing Dwight. We share a paint palette and I compliment her on her technique. We joke about my painting, and I wish I knew enough about art to know what she would mock of my technique. She would offer to teach me how to draw, and so that night, after school, we bike to my home, my parents are working late that night, or maybe they just won’t show up at all – I don’t tell her this, but we would both know. I slot my iPod into the dock, and I play her a mixtape I secretly made for her, she loves every song, she knows most of them. I’m holding her pencil as we are sat at my desk, our knees touching and bouncing with the music. She hums along to my favourite song, tapping her fingers on the wood of my desk. I mess up, on purpose. She laughs. She wraps her hand around mine, subsequently our hands are both entangled around her pencil. We draw something amazing; I never imagine what we draw, I usually skip over that for the next part. I look at her with a grin, because she taught me how to draw. I use the backs of my fingers on my free hand to lightly stroke her cheek bone, I use my fingertips to push a loose, honey curl off her face. She slides her hand away from the pencil and I, the heat lingers and spreads up my forearm, it chases her touch. She decorates me in goosebumps as she palms my shoulder. She colours me red as my blush creeps up my neck at her touch. My skin dips white under her thumb where she holds my jaw. She draws me in for a kiss. My parents aren’t home, I don’t tell her this, but she knows. The dream continues, and this is usually where her name slips out in the tenderness of self-pleasure.

 

I wake up, still dreaming of Pam. In fact, I’m never not thinking about her. My fingers scratch at the base of my neck, a pillow tucked against my chest. But the fingers are too heavy to be Pam’s and the resistance in front of me too cold for the warmth she radiates. My alarm blares for the fifth time, I check the red flashing lights as I hit snooze again. 7:00. Dammit, I’ve got half an hour until Gym class. 

 

I like sports, I do. I play basketball with my brothers in our garden often, enough to break a few plant pots and leave several dents in the garage door. But at school I’m not basketball Jim. I’m nerdy Jim. Jim who spends every break in the music room. Jim who is mascot for the basketball team because he wasn’t cool enough to get into it. I’m not even a cool, high five you in the hallway school mascot. I’m a sausage, I’m smoked kielbasa – Scranton PAs famous cured meat mascot. I thought it would lead me to befriend the basketball team, they would just have to have me in their team then. But no one gives a damn about me. Not even Pam.

 

Pam dates the basketball captain - Roy. I don’t know what she sees in him. He’s a dick. He pushes freshman into lockers. He smokes cigarettes in the bathroom and stubs them out on the “nerdy” kids taking a piss at the urinal. He brings a gun to school. It’s not a real one, seriously am I the only one who can see that it’s as fake as the swoosh on his shoes? His friends must know, but they all hype him up regardless. He’s an ass. Pam deserves better than him. 

 

I see her at basketball games, he sends her suggestive looks, and I can see her blushing at each glance. But what she doesn’t know is that he sends the same looks to one of the cheerleaders when Pam doesn’t come and watch. Those are the same days he stays late in the changing rooms, one hand cupping Katy’s breast, the other sliding up her thigh, exposed by the short skirt. I don’t know if he does the same with Pam when she does make it, I’m out of the gymnasium quicker than you can say, “Pam, I am so incredibly in love with you. Please come and listen to Iron Maiden with me”. Roy would kick my ass if he knew how many time, I’ve rehearsed speeches and wrote letters, all addressed to Pam exposing Roy’s adultery. Is it adultery if they aren’t married? God, if they get married, I’d shoot myself, with an actual gun not Roy’s spray-painted BB gun.

 

She doesn’t know what she’s missing. I would treat her better than Roy Anderson ever could. We would draw each other in art class, well, I would say I’m going to draw her, but I’d draw Dwight instead. I’d wear her initial on a chain, the cold silver would bounce at every pounding of my heart when she is near. I would hold her hands in the hallway, and we would help freshman find their classes if they are lost. I’d sneak her into mine on a Friday night, not that my parents would mind, but we would be expected to hang out with them and if we didn’t, I’d definitely be spoken to the next day about the protocols of safe sex. I want her to lay her head on my shoulder and use my chest as a canvas as she draws a love heart around my name over and over until she falls asleep. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.

 

It's prom night, Mark and I had arrived together and now I’m walking around in circles outside, the bass slipping out the fire door of the gymnasium. My dad should be here soon. Is twenty minutes soon? I just want to go home. Mark ditched me for his girlfriend he met in music class, which is totally understandable, but he’s my only friend. He said I could join them on the dancefloor, but I’d rather not watch them sucking face for the entire night. I count the steps as I walk lengths of the car park, twenty-seven steps one way, twenty-seven steps back, twenty-eight steps one way, twenty-seven back. Wheels screech on the road just off the entrance of the car park. I stop at the sixteenth retraced step, the smoke from the exhaust mixes with the red glow of the brake lights. A car door slams, heels stabbing concrete walk and halt to a stop. Masculine profanity is hurled into the night. 

 

“I don’t want to go!” She shouts. The profanity continues, although I think it stopped for air, not to listen to her response. “No, I don’t want to! You’d know that if you would ever ask” The profanity rises, wheels screech, both the engine and the insults fled. The footsteps become louder, I turn around, I don’t want anyone to think that I was eavesdropping. 

 

The steps enter the car park, I wait for the door to let the music escape into the night, but the heels continue. “Jim!” She shouts. I turn on my heel. It’s Pam. How does she know who I am? She’s wearing a dress that shimmers despite the dull orange that barely lights the car park.

 

“Uh, hey.” I reply. I don’t mean to shake my head in confusion, but I can’t help it. She continues to walk; I can still hear her heels hitting tarmac, but I swear she just floats over to me. She stops four steps away, looking up into my eyes, but it feels as if she is floating away from me, extracting my soul from mouth, and I am happily submissive. This has to be an incredibly realistic dream. Maybe I’m in a coma, I must’ve collapsed on the dancefloor, my heart must’ve stopped suddenly, and this is the only way of nursing me back to health – dreaming of Pam Beesly. But then she smiles at me, and I know it could never be a dream. My subconscious can never do that smile justice, the sparkle in her eyes never bright enough in my sleep. My Mom was bummed out earlier that it was an overcast day, and the sun wasn’t out for prom photos, but her eyes hold entire galaxies, a thousand suns warm my heart. 

 

“Are you okay?” She says with a slight giggle. There are other three words that I’ve imagined Pam Beesly saying to me, that kill me every time I think of them. But these ones touch me just the same, why does she give a damn about me?

 

“I’m okay,” I lie, “are you okay?”


She shrugs in reply, as if she’s shrugging off an eloquent coat to be placed on the coat rack. No big deal. She relaxes, as if the fabric of her stress has slipped right off her arms, a meer puddle on the floor. “I have two tickets to see Iron Maiden.” Her voice is silk.

 

“Oh, cool.” I nod.

 

“You like Iron Maiden.” It was a statement, not a question.

 

“Uh, I do.” I tilt my head in question. “How do you know?”

 

“You wear that damn shirt all the time.”

 

“I do, huh?” I do, yes. The shirt I wear to try and influence her music taste, I only ever wear it when we have art class that day. I guess it worked. 

 

“You do.” I nod. “Come with me Friday.” She says.

 

“Err..” I hunt for the right words, on one hand ‘yes Pam, please Pam’ but also Roy is going to kick my ass, I can’t let her down, I can’t decide. I’ll just tell her I might be able to do it, maybe I’ll go, maybe I won’t. Then everybody’s happy.

 

She takes three steps towards me. “Don’t say maybe,” she places a finger against my lips, stopping my reply from dripping off my tongue, I swallow the words, a sedative for my nerves. Her finger leaves my lips and explores the skin on my cheek. Four fingertips gather along my cheekbone and take a slow path towards the hair behind my ear. She pulls me in, curling her fingers into the hair at the base of my neck. She meets me halfway but stops, her breath kissing my chin. “Come with me, baby.” I nod without hesitating. My hands find her waist, sliding to the small of her back. She kisses me. I didn’t know what I was missing.




Yellowberry22 is the author of 7 other stories.
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This story is part of the series, Jam's Jams. The next story in the series is A Perfect Night.

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