Mid-morning, Pam took a break to grab a soda from the break room. There, she found Karen sitting alone at the only table, nursing a can of Ginger Ale.

"Hey," Pam said, smiling as she turned to put a few quarters in the soda machine.

"Hey," Karen replied with a sigh.

Pam pressed the button for Coke, and turned back to Karen. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a weird couple of days."

"Okay..." Pam hesitated after pulling her can of soda from the machine. She wondered if she should push the issue and be a friend to Karen, if she should try to get her to talk about whatever was bothering her.

Just when she decided it would probably be best to just go back to her desk, Karen spoke up, sounding brighter than when she'd first come in. "Oh, hey! I heard something interesting about you this morning."

Alarms went off in Pam's mind. She'd heard about her and Jim. What was she supposed to say to her? Pam stopped and stared at her for a second before she was able to reply, "Oh... yeah?"

"Yeah. I was chatting with that guy... Darryl from the warehouse this morning on the way in, and he said something about how you and Roy used to be engaged?"

Pam relaxed a bit, but still felt a little awkward. "Oh, yeah. We were." She laughed nervously.

"For how long?" Karen looked curious and a little fascinated.

Pam finally decided to sit down at the table with Karen. "Um, four years." Her voice rose at the end as if it were a question.

"Wow. That's a pretty long time to be engaged."

"Tell me about it. And we'd been dating for almost twice as long before that."

"Wow. Why didn't you say anything about it that day when I mentioned him to you?"

"I-I don't know. I guess I'm still not comfortable with the way we ended things- so close to the wedding. I'm a little embarrassed, I guess."

 Karen seemed to be thinking, and an expression of realization began to dawn across her face. "Um, so, when did you call off the wedding?"

"Beginning of June." Pam opened her soda with a hiss and a crack.

Karen almost looked wounded at her response. "Oh. Wow."

There was silence for a couple of moments when Karen seemed to be studying her soda can, and then she asked Pam, "So, why did you call off the wedding?" Pam was a little surprised at how personal the question was. She and Karen got along, and they'd had fun planning the rival Christmas party together, but she didn't consider them to be close, and was caught off-guard by a question you'd usually only dare to ask a really close friend.

Pam knew she couldn't tell her it was about Jim- that he'd had a role in her decision to break the engagement. She hadn't admitted that to anyone yet. She'd only admitted it to herself recently. So, she gave Karen part of the truth. "Well, a... friend helped me see that I wasn't truly happy. I was settling for what was comfortable and what I'd known for so long, but Roy didn't treat me the way I deserved to be treated, and we just didn't click anymore. We'd changed so much over the time that we'd been together that we just didn't fit."

Karen still seemed a little suspicious, but she was supportive. "Wow. That was really brave."

Pam blushed and spun her soda can on the top of the table. "It didn't feel like it."

"No, I mean it. Most women in that situation would have been too afraid to break out and get what they wanted. They would have settled and been unhappy for the rest of their lives."

Pam smiled. Nobody had actually said that to her in all the months since. She'd felt cowardly and weak for waiting so long to make that decision. "Thanks," she said, quietly.

It was silent for a few more seconds, and Pam was about to get up and go back to her desk when Karen asked, "Hey, can I ask you one more question?"

"Sure."

"Um, I don't know if this is out of line for me to ask you this because I know we're not best friends or anything but... what happened with you and Jim before he came to Stamford?"

Pam's head shot up. "What do you mean?"

 "I just...," she began, and her voice became almost a whisper as she continued. "Someone here mentioned to me that Jim used to have a thing for you... and I asked him about it, and he told me what happened but I don't know if he told me the whole story."

Pam couldn't believe she was being put in the middle of all this. She didn't know what to say. She didn't want to tell Karen the whole story and ruin things for them if Jim had left things out. "Um, Karen, I don't think this is the best idea... I'm sure Jim told you the truth."

Karen sighed. "Pam. I just- I should trust him, but it seemed like he wasn't telling me the whole story. I can't shake the feeling that he's still hung up on you. I mean, what would you do if you found out that a guy you were dating and who you felt you had a future with had had a crush on someone who he still sees every day?"

"I'm sure he's not still hung up on me. I mean, does he act like he is?"

Karen seemed to be considering this.

"Yeah, didn’t think so." Pam sighed and then tried to paste a reassuring smile on her face. Karen smiled back weakly.

"It's all in the past. I mean, yeah, he was in love with me, and I told him I couldn't be with him because I was marrying Roy. And then he moved to Stamford. But now he's with you, and we're just friends. Really." Pam was fighting back tears the whole time. It was enough of an effort that at first, she didn't notice Karen doing the same thing.

"He told you that he loved you? Like, not that he liked you or had a crush on you, but that he loved you?"

Oh shit. Pam just looked down at her hands in her lap.

 "Did he decide to go to Stamford before or after he told you this?" Pam couldn't say anything. She heard the tears in Karen's voice when she continued talking. "And then you called off your wedding three weeks later. Was that a coincidence?"

"Oh, Karen, no-- I--"

"No," Karen said, standing up. "I get it now. I have to go. I'm taking an early lunch. Or something."

"Karen," Pam said weakly, following her out into the office, through the kitchen, and through the front part of the office. Jim wasn't at his desk. Karen grabbed her purse from her desk and her coat from the rack. She turned to look at Pam one last time before leaving, and Pam couldn't say anything.

Pam turned to see a camera in her face, and she headed to the bathroom to be alone. Going through the kitchen door, she almost ran into Jim. "Pam what's--"

"Nothing," she said, trying to get past him, tears in her eyes.

He grabbed her wrist gently. "Come on, what's up?"

She looked up at him then, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, having captured the attention of everyone in the office. "I'm sorry, Jim."

"What-" he shook his head slightly, clearly confused.

"Karen... she--" Pam began, whispering, "she asked me what had happened between me and you. She said you'd already told her but she wasn't sure if you'd told her the whole truth, and I--" Jim pulled her into the kitchen with him, away from prying eyes of their coworkers.

To be continued...