Jim awoke at 3:30 to his phone making a strange chirping noise. He moved his hand blindly across the table by his bed, knocking down numerous items that didn’t register to him that early. He finally grabbed his phone, and when he flipped it open, the light emitting from the small screen burned his eyes. He was puzzled by the words new text message, and desperately tried to remember their meaning. He closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head and glanced once more at the phone, fully awake and able to understand that he needed to check his inbox.
He didn’t recognize the phone number, but he opened the message anyway, and despite being wide awake he had to read it three times through and even then he didn’t understand it.
Hey, don’t think this is weird or anything, but I was thinking about that time on the roof, and even though we’re not really friends anymore I’m really glad I have that memory. New cell phone number, feel free to call me if you need to get a hold of me. –Pam Beesly
Weird didn’t even begin to describe the sensation of getting a vague text message in the middle of the night from someone he had barely spoken to in three years. Bizarre, maybe, and bordering on ludicrous was more like it. What was her reasoning behind sending it? The first thought that jumped to his mind was that she was getting married and maybe that was her way of saying goodbye. He had seen movies where women did that: contacted their old flames weeks before their weddings to just completely put it behind them, leaving no room for the burning questions, the ones that kept them awake at all hours of the night. Every girl he had dated in the past five years had made him sit through The Notebook at least once, so he knew things like that.
But, he reminded himself, you were never really her flame. He felt a dull ache somewhere deep, deep inside of him—so deep that he almost didn’t recognize it.
But if she was cutting all ties, why that last, cryptic line? Feel free to call me if you need to get a hold of me. Did she really mean it or was she just trying to be polite? After all, they had always been about keeping up pretenses. Pretending that everything was fine between the two of them, when really it hadn’t been in years.
She couldn’t be getting married. Not this early, and especially not after what had happened last time. Besides she wasn’t completely heartless, was she? Wouldn’t she call him, if only to say, “I’m getting married and I thought you should know”?
He wanted to text her back immediately, without a care as to how desperate that was. He wanted to find out what the hell was going on, because people don’t just do things like send a text message in the middle of the night without there being some meaning behind it.
The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself not to write her back. At least not right away. That would just add more awkwardness to the way things had been left between them. What was left between them was what he wanted to know. They hadn’t had a fight…just a falling out. And maybe that was even worse.
Because he had taken the job in Stamford after all. Not really by choice, though, it was just something that happened. The wedding had been called off, and he had gone to her and she had said, “I just need some time.” So he gave her time, months and months. He went to Australia and came back, and she still needed time. And after awhile he got restless so like the idiot he was, he requested the transfer to Stamford, hoping that she would call his bluff. But she didn’t, not when he went to look for an apartment, not when he packed up all his things, not at the good-bye party at work. Not even when he pulled out of his driveway and started on the long trip, all by himself. And he had started thinking that maybe she didn’t need time, maybe she just didn’t need him.
He felt that ache again, sharper than the last time.
When the documentary aired, he was glad to be out of Scranton. There was no way he would have been able to face anyone after that, because the crew had showed everything. Every moment between the two of them, every look, every touch. His confession that night, their kiss, all of it. And the humiliation was almost too much to bear, but being near her would have added to it tenfold. At least in Stamford he could hold his head high and tell his co-workers, “It just didn’t work out between us,” whenever they asked about Pam.
And people were disappointed with the outcome. That Jim and Pam hadn’t ended up together. Even his own mother had called to berate him, demanding to know why he wasn’t down in Scranton begging her to marry him (his father had grumbled about him “putting the moves” on a girl that was spoken for, what the hell was the matter with him? Had he not raised a gentleman?). Explaining to his parents why things had turned out the way they had was harder than telling anyone else. He could skirt around the word “coward” and “loser” with strangers, but his family saw right through him. His brother told him to quit moping, grow a pair and go get her back, and Jim could never find the words to explain that it just wasn’t that easy, for crying out loud.
He laid back down in his bed, trying to put all these thoughts out of his mind. But his eyes kept flying open, his fingers twitching for the phone to read her message just one more time.
He liked that memory too. He had thought that the roof would become “their place”, but that was just the romantic in him, desperately trying to keep alive something that was probably never even there to begin with. He had never even been back to the roof, not once, and there it was, that dull ache again.
He slept wretchedly the rest of the night, tossing and turning, and by the time he woke up in the morning he was determined to get rid of her once and for all.
Getting ready for work was a struggle, but as he walked out the door he pulled up her message, read through it one last time before hitting delete and erasing her forever.
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His first thought upon seeing the light flashing on his phone when he sat down at his desk was that maybe it was her. Maybe she wasn’t saying good-bye, maybe she was just trying to get a hold of him, trying to get him back. And he felt an all too familiar feeling swell up within him as he dialed his voicemail.
“Jim Halpert, this is Greg Phillips. I was just calling to inform you that the studio has given the go on a reunion special. Nothing major, just a follow-up to the show, tie up the loose ends and what not. We’re going to need you down at the Scranton office for about a week, so if you could give me a call back ASAP, that would be great.”
And suddenly, as the dull ache settled permanently in the pit of his stomach, Pam’s message was all too clear.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
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.
