i.

They had a lot of expectations. At least this is what Jim says, when they sit at a table in an empty café and try to offer each other some semblance of an excuse, anything to fend off the loneliness they both feel encroaching. What Pam says is that at least they’d tried. They had tried; there’d been a first date, a second date, a third date and so on. He’d bought her flowers, she’d bought lacey underwear. There’d been ten in all, maybe eleven; Pam isn’t sure.

She’d wanted him so long that he’d become an answer without a question. He was supposed to solve her sadness, her dilemmas, but she’d never taken into account that he was only a person. He couldn’t fix her anymore than she could fix herself. She’d blamed the discontent she’d been feeling for years on Roy, on the Saturday nights when he went out with his friends and came back reeking of beer and a tinge of sadness, on the way he’d gradually begun to treat her like his wife, his possession, without marrying her. Pam had thought that with Jim it would be different. And it was, they’d both made valiant efforts to save each other but she supposes the problem is that they’re not knights: no, they’re both in distress. They’re lonely and they’d thought that together they could shake it, but they’re lonely for something more than what anyone can give them and together that loneliness is only amplified until it threatens to overwhelm them.

She’d spend nights with her face pressed in Jim’s chest but she could never seem to orchestrate her breaths with his. There was an emptiness where she’d expected to be filled. All this time she’d forgotten that Jim was a person; he’d become an abstract concept and she didn’t know how to undo what she’d done.

ii.

            “I had a lot of expectations,” Karen says. They’d gone out for a drink that had quickly become two drinks and then three, and now they are sitting on the carpet in Pam’s bedroom, not drunk enough to be happy and not sober enough to pretend.

            “You can blame me, if you like,” Pam says. “Hate me, it’ll make it better.” She’s feeling charitable; either that or she doesn’t care anymore. About anything. She thought she had a future; she’d seen it spilled out before her like paint on one of her canvasses, an apartment, love, maybe a few kids with messy hair.

            “It doesn’t,” Karen says, and her eyes are empty. Usually Karen hides behind eye make-up and that good-natured grin, but there’s nothing between them now, nothing to let Pam off easily. In a rush, Pam sees the similarities between them, sees that they’re more alike than she’d thought. It’s disappointing that the woman she’d envied and hated and even sometimes belittled, only to herself, resembles her. But somehow she feels safer, safer than she’d felt since the first time Jim had wrapped her in his arms; the second time it had already lost its comfort, for it was no longer imagined, but real and overwhelmingly complex.

            She kisses Karen without even thinking; somehow it seems natural, the only logical conclusion to their conversation. It’s hard, harder than she’d meant, and her teeth tug at Karen’s lower lip. Karen doesn’t hesitate, and she opens her mouth to let Pam in completely, breath coming in short gasps. Pam wants it to mean something but it doesn’t; it’s wet and messy but devoid of any meaning. She pulls away, sucking in air. She’d tried once again to find an answer but it had left her with only dilemmas, more unanswered questions.

            Karen turns away, towards the mirror, pulls out her purse and begins to fix her make-up. She might be disappointed but Pam cannot tell; all she knows is that the loneliness in her own chest threatens to engulf her.