Her hands trembled on the steering wheel for reasons she didn't want to face. All these years she'd longed for a close girlfriend - a female partner in crime, someone who would understand why she felt as she did, why she often reacted the way that she did, because all too often, she herself couldn 't make sense of her actions.
Jim had been the best friend a girl could ask for up until the part when he'd said the words that stole the breath from her throat: "I'm in love with you."
"I can't," she'd said. I can't, even though she'd gone on to prove - albeit too late - that in fact, she could find the strength to break away from Roy, take steps toward establishing her own independence. And by the time Jim had been transferred back, she knew with every fiber of her being that she could.
Only now she really couldn't, because she wasn't sure he'd even let her - regardless of the fact that he'd mercifully caved at the end of the day, joining in her prank. He kept her at arm's length these days - ostensibly because of his promotion, but Pam knew better than to fall for that one. What she didn't know was whether to read his reticience as evidence that he wasn't fully over her yet, or whether to interpret it as a sign of his commitment to Karen.
Getting to know Karen - with the knowledge that Karen had the one thing that she herself most wanted - made her miss Katy. Because there was nothing vapid about Karen, no glaring character flaw to indicate that she and Jim would never last.
Pam had watched them as they'd exchanged gifts, both of them laughing because they'd gotten each other the same DVD: Bridget Jones' Diary 2. The intimacy of the private joke didn't slip past Pam unnoticed, and as she watched Jim sweep her into a hug - God, he gives the best hugs, arms all the way around you - she'd found herself thinking that it'd have been easier to see him give Karen a piece of jewelry than to share a private joke like that with her - to bond the way that they always had.
She hadn't been able to sleep that night, and finally at around one thirty, she gave up and padded to her kitchen, opening the cabinet to take out a box of chamomile tea. As she reached for the teapot, it struck her suddenly, the possibility that maybe he was too afraid to face it - their past, all that they never talked about and had never talked about.
Strange that the same man who had saved hot sauce packets and Boggle timers - clinging to even the tiniest memories and reminding her of them later - seemed to be doing his damnedest to forget.
Pam fell asleep that night wondering whether or not it was her right to try to remind him, or whether she should recede into the background, let Karen have the chance to make him happy, really happy.
