It had all started as something that was just for her. A way to find Jim when he was nowhere to be found. Every moment with him seemed to be filled with music. He craved the search of it. He wanted to share it with anyone he knew would understand that a song can change your life. He always shared it with her. But that was before. Before she lied and before she broke his heart. Before he left.

So she found him in little ways. Eating a ham and cheese sandwich with her mixed berries. Eating hot sauce on everything. Collecting mini pencils. Playing her own little pranks. She found him in all those things. She was searching for music now too. Looking for him in words he’s never even heard. With a broken heart every pop song speaks to you. She made herself a play list she could listen to when she need him. Every week new songs would make there way into that list. She had never intended him to know. She never expected him to come back.

When he came back he had come back alone. He hadn’t jumped into the closest bed to forget her. He hadn’t moved on. She took comfort in that . She saw beyond the quiet and the cold. She longed for a way to reach out to him. Then all at once it hit her. She remembered on her first Valentines Day at Dunder Mifflin. She had been five months into her first year. Jim and her had already become them. They had a groove. They were talking about their first real Valentines Day. One that becomes more than a card for everyone in the class and chocolate kisses. Jim told a heartbreaking story. He was fifteen and more in love than he had ever been. She of course had no idea he even existed but he had plans to change all that. He had stayed up two nights making a mix tape for her. Overanalyzing every song choice. When he had proudly presented it to her she turned her back on him and left him with nothing but a swish of her skirt and tears in his eyes. He decided then he didn’t believe in Valentines Day. Hers wasn’t all that great either. Roy had taken her to the movies. They ended up in the back of his car and he had clumsily, painfully taken her virginity. She was sixteen. That when she decided she didn’t believe in Valentines Day either.

Now almost four years later and she’s starting to believe again. Every time she sees his smile. Every time she hears his full bellied laugh, the one he only saves for her. Every time she smells the cologne she gave him two years ago for Christmas. Every time she sees him she believes a little bit more. She’s starting to think that may not be such a bad thing.

It was that believing that sent her scurrying to Jim’s desk the minute she saw him head for the break room. It was that believing that made her think she could afford to put herself out there for once. It was that believing that led to Jim finding a slim jewel case propped up on his keyboard. And it was that believing that gave her the courage to write that she was always his on the cover and surround it with tiny pink hearts. This time it was her proudly presenting something this personal. She could only hope she would get more than a swish of a skirt and a broken heart.

He sat staring at the slim jewel case as if at any moment it would self-destruction. He knew what her small gesture meant. It meant the beginning of something huge. Something he knew would start as soon as he heard the first song. Something he wasn’t quite sure he was ready for. So here he sat weighing the pros and cons. Working up the courage to let her in again. Thankfully however none of his courage was needed. She had plenty of that for the both of them. In the background he hears his phone ring and she suddenly leaves him with no choice.

~~~~~~

Pam wasn’t quite sure where she had gotten the idea to call him but something told her that this was one of those times they actually needed to realize something together. They had a notorious history of realizing things far too early or much too late. But she also had a more self-serving purpose. She wanted to experience this with him. Music was something he loved. Something he felt. She had taken the first step and taken a chance. She wanted the music to say all the things she wasn’t quite ready to say. She wanted his reaction. She wanted to know if he’d connect the right lyrics to her. She wanted to hear his small gasps as they did connect. Because of course he would get it. He was Jim. She was sharing a part of herself with him. She wanted the intimacy he had offered her long ago and tonight she’d know for sure if he still wanted her too. She held her breath until his voice rang in her ears. At the sound of him he gave her no choice but to be brave.

~~~~~~

She was quiet and still not breathing.

"Pam?"

"Jim, I know this won’t make much sense but I thought maybe..."

"Maybe?"

"Well maybe we could listen to it together. You haven’t started yet have you?"

"Well no. I guess we could if you wanted."

"Please Jim, it would mean a lot to me."

"Kay I’ll get it ready."

Silence weighed heavily on them. Not even breath was between them. All they had was hope and the sense that this could be the beginning of everything. With Pam in her little cubby hole of an apartment and Jim in an apartment with so much room even with him in it it felt empty a single note sounded. And together they let out the breath they had both been holding since May. It was now or never.

They kind of liked the idea of now.

I am not a pretty girl. that is not what I do

At the first line he wanted to scream at the purely incorrect assumptions. He knew that these songs were a reflection of how she was feeling at different phases of what he could only describe as growth. To him she was more than pretty. She was exquisite. She was perfect. She was everything that he could ever want. But he knew enough to stay silent until she broke the hope filled silence between them.

She saw it in his face every time Roy was unkind or unthinking. It was written all over him. The slight furrow of his brow. The down turn of his usually smiling lips. The pity in his eyes. The pleading she always found in him. His shoulders hunched and stiff at the same time. He thought she hadn’t know. What he seemed to forget was the way the smallest nuance of him was well documented in her mind. When you love someone you notice those things. She saw every one of his falling faces, all of his heartbreaking stares, all of those things he so valiantly tried to hide. She was fairly certain he loved her, really truly loved her. But there was a part of her that couldn’t help but worry that love was mixed ever so slightly with a misplaced hero complex. She didn’t need to be saved. She just needed to be loved. She hoped that was something he was capable of.

Pammy was someone who never really existed. Like the clay she was finally experimenting with she had been molded. She was made to fit. But every once in a while she would show Roy how badly the little vase he had made her into was breaking. Every time she raised her voice she was getting her period. Every time she disagreed she was confused. Every time she spoke her mind she was ignored. Without Roy there to keep up the repairs she had managed to break herself down and start again. Built herself from scratch. Leaving the cracks slightly visible. After all she wasn’t nearly done yet. Jim hadn’t seen this side of her. The side that would stand in her small apartment screaming at the top of her lungs in frustration. The side that she allowed no one to see. The side she was most honest in. Pammy was long dead and she will not be missed.

Jim could see the change in her. She was strong and open. She was proud and resilient. He’d seen all these things in glimmers before. Now they were what made her so great. Made him love her even more. He couldn’t imagine what she had gone through to get there. How many people she had to defy. How many people she had to disappoint. Breaking free of what they all wanted for her. In this moment, listen to this gravelly voice of strength, he understood. No matter how hard Stamford had been. No matter how hurt and frightened he was. What she went through was worse. He understood the heavy bags under her eyes for the first few weeks of him being back. He understood the fingernails bitten to the quick. He understood the barely stiffed yawns. She was suffering and she was rebuilding. He saw in that instant that she had endured more ugliness than he ever had. He pictured the raising of Roy’s voice when she told him it was over. The flinch as it reached unexpected volumes and increasingly vile insults. He saw the phone calls to three hundred of her nearest and dearest. He saw the one she couldn’t make. He saw. He understood. He forgave.

She had been mad for longer than she could count. She’d been lonely for longer. She realized that every once in a while it was okay for her to feel that way. It was okay for her to feel indignant. She could rage against her under-appreciation. She could refuse the giving of herself. She could demand something in return. She had spent a life cleaning up after people. Cooking dinners of food she hated. Choking back the leftovers to save money. She was tired and lonely. She was in love with a man that meant a life of joy. Maybe he could take care of her in a way no one else had tried. Maybe he could run her a bath sometimes. Maybe he could be happy watching Legally Blonde to cheer her up. Maybe he was the one. Maybe she could quit fighting for every moment of happiness. Maybe she could finally rest.

A part of him always wanted to be her savior. He wanted to be the one that liberated her from a life of scraping by. The knight in shining armor he never got to be. She saved herself. She had taken a leap. Knowing there was no net to catch her. A small part of him was grateful that he wasn’t around to see her fall. He would have swooped in and saved her. Protected her from them. Turning himself into what he never wanted to be. Becoming another man she felt beholden to. He could live with himself if he’d allowed that to happen. Now she was ready. His sweet, strong, wonderful Pam was ready. She was whole now.

She loved him more than she thought she could. At every corner she was held back. Terrified that they would enter this as less than equals. She needed him to understand that if they went into this it could only be with nothing standing in the way. No significant other. No lies. No misconstrued feelings. They had to be equals. Or they couldn’t be anything at all.

~~~~

Silence filled the air again. He could hear her breathing.

"Pam?"

"Yeah, Jim."

" You’re not pretty."

She gasped into the phone and smiled. He understood. Of course he did. He was Jim.

The silence was broken. Track two filled the room.

She can’t tell me that all of the love songs have been written,’cause she’s never been in love with you before.

When she still wore another mans’ ring on her finger she had confessed her love. She had told her mother about the soft spoken paper salesman that made all bullshit with Roy mean nothing. Made ten years completely irrelevant. She had finally voiced her love for everything that was him. His hands. His smile. The easy way he carried himself. Despite what most thought she saw Jim as a man. People often assumed that what Jim and her had was grade school. They thought she saw him as a precocious six year old. The shy little boy that could talk himself out of every situation with a coy smile and charm. She did see all those things in him but she saw something that had fascinated her even more. She saw the muscles in his forearms that would jump as he typed. She saw the small vein in his neck that would pulse as he leaned over her desk. She fought the urge to imagine what it would feel like against her lips, what he would taste like. When Roy’s poker games ran long she would allow herself such imaginings. She would imagine him above her. Taking time that no other man had taken. Bringing her somewhere that she had never been with another person. She could almost she his hands on her, in her. With hamstrung thighs and sweat gently starting at her brow, she let herself imagine. She let herself dream.

Your skin smells lovely like sandalwood. Your hair falls soft like animals.

When she sat on his bed she truly smelled him for the first time. Thumbing through his yearbook. Him sitting as close as he could. His head bent forward slightly, whispering soft stories of remembrance. She was hit with the soft scent of him. It wasn’t sweet. It was musky and altogether man. It was then she realized that before anything that’s what he was. A man in the purest sense of the word. The vein that had haunted her so many mornings in the office was pulsing with a vengeance just then. Hope made her believe it had something to do with her. Driven by the scent of him and the privacy of his room, she lowered her mouth ever so slightly to his neck. Her lips had almost found him when his hair gently brushed her cheek. She pulled back as if she’d been burned. Sprinting from the room leaving Jim with no explanation and a look of confusion. The softness of his hair had reminded her that he was Jim. He deserved more than she could offer him right then. He deserved unreserved love. He deserved someone that was only his. He deserved someone with a bare ring finger. He deserved better than her.

I’m tryin’ to keep cool, but everyone likes you.

When she transferred a call to him from a woman with a voice she didn’t recognize, her heart broke. Every time he would decline her offer for drinks after work because he had a date, her heart broke. Every time he would kiss another woman in front of her, her heart would break. She knew that Jim was desirable to more than just her. She knew that she was only desirable to Roy. Every time she remembered that, her heart broke. Her heart had been broken so many times, in so many different ways that when she broke his in only one she had a horrible feeling if it not being fair. She had only done it once and she still wasn’t forgiven. He had done it so many times and she forgave him every single one.

I want to kiss the back of your neck, The top of your spine where your hair hits, And gnaw on your fingertips and fall asleep, I’ll talk you to sleep.

When she slept in her empty bed long after she had left Roy, she let herself imagine him in every way. She imagined a long Saturday night that had started with movie watching and couch cuddling and ended with her wrapped around him in a most delicious way. She imagined whispering " I love you’s" into his sleeping chest. Hearing his heart beat and knowing it beat for her. She heard him saying it back to her on Sunday morning. She imagined herself as deserving of him finally. She imagined that he would take one look at her and know she was ready. He would take her there in her apartment hard and fast against the front door at first, then slower later that same night. She imagined he would love her still.

Your skin smells lovely like sandalwood. Your hair falls soft like animals, And nothing else matters to me.

When Jim heard the first line, his breath caught in his throat. He imagined it meant what he hoped it did. He relished in the thought that she had began think of him the way he had always thought of her. He thought of her kissing him in places he’d never been kissed. He thought of her with her pink lips wrapped around his finger. He thought of her grazing them with her teeth. He thought of taking her hard. He thought of taking her soft. He thought of taking his time with her. He thought of her loving him.

Your hand, So hot, Burns a hole in My hand. I wanted to show you

When she would feel the soft brush of skin on skin, she was stricken. She was dumbfounded. She knew that love was in the touching. She saw him stiffen every time it would happen. She waited for the day when could hold his hand in public and proudly say that, yes she was with him. He would leave his mark on her. He would ruin her for all other men. She wanted to show him that was more than okay with her.

~~~~

Silence filled the air again. She could hear him breathing.

"Jim, did I show you?"

A choked, yes, was all she got. It was more than enough. She smiled.

The silence was broken. Track three filled the room.