"Pam?"

She snaps her head up and peeks over her desk to see Michael staring down at her. She blinks, takes a deep breath, and plasters a wide – very fake – smile on her face.

"Yes?" she asks in a small voice.

"You going to get that?" he questions discreetly.

It takes her almost a full six seconds to realize that her phone has been ringing for a whole minute. Straightening her back, she pulls her hand almost violently towards her phone as she tries to snatch at her receiver. She fumbles, drops the phone with a loud "clunk", and hears the echo of the dial-tone drifting around her.

"I – uh – sorry, Michael," she says as she hangs up the phone.

Pam can feel his eyes on her. She knows what he is thinking. Looking up, she sees that he is watching her carefully. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, he shrugs and drums his fingers across her desk.

"They’ll call back. No big deal." And with that, he turns around and walks back to his office.

Michael’s been acting weird for himself. He’s been acting. . .well. . .normal. At least towards her. The rest of the office has to deal his irregular and daft personality. However, when he’s around her, he behaves. Which is extraordinary . . .At least to Pam, anyway.

It’s been this way for three months.

He’s been acting like this ever since he got the call one morning from Jan, informing him about Pam’s delicate and serious "situation." Now looking back on it, Pam wishes that she had never reported to Toby about her incident. All three of them know. She just can’t believe that Michael has been able to keep his big trap shut for this long. Remembering Jim’s crush towards her, Michael couldn’t keep the secret for a day. As for he and Jan’s relationship, that got out as soon as he got back from Jamaica. So how is it that he can permanently sew his mouth shut for Pam?

Because this was serious.

She remembers the day she came back to work. She had told everyone that she had come down with the flu. Pam can still hear his voice as he called her into his office. When she closes her eyes, she sees his body language as he stands next to his desk. She can recall her first thought as she gazed at him.

Pam closes her eyes and remembers...

***

She blames herself.

It wasn’t like it had happened in a darkened alley, or as she woke up from a deep sleep. Hell, she had invited the guy inside her home. Stupidity is one of the main emotions she feels when she thinks back on it. Sure, she feels the text-book definitions of grief: shame, guilt, fear, and sadness. But stupidity is a big one. Pam knew something was wrong when she had first spoken with him. Warning bells had gone off inside of her head, however, she had ignored them, and had paid a huge price.

Rape victim.

She’s looked the words up on the internet. Read articles in magazines, and even look them up in the dictionary.

2. Rape: any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.

1. Victim: a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency.

It’s still hard to believe that the words apply to her now.

She’s watched "Law and Order" before. Rape victims were always seen as small, weak, and pitiful. That isn’t her. It’s not who she is. She’s still the same Pam she’s always been. She is Pam. Pam, who enjoys sketching. Pam, who is always up for a good humored prank. Pam, who moved out all on her own, who has changed her life. Now’s she’s Fancy New Beesly. She’s the same.

Sure, she hasn’t really felt the desire to paint since her attack. Yeah, it’s been months since she’s pulled a fun prank. Even when Karen asked for her help in pranking Andy by replacing his "Drew" name plate with his old one; only to pretend that the new one had never existed, she had declined, claiming that she didn’t really feel up to it.

Come on, it isn’t a big deal that she hasn’t decorated or painted the walls of her new apartment like she planned. Why does it matter that she feels better about sleeping on the couch, away from her bedroom? She hasn’t been in her bedroom since it happened. Her bed is just uncomfortable, that’s all.

Suddenly, she’s very aware that she’s zoned out again and that she’s look at the back of Jim’s neck. He still doesn’t know. She hopes it stays that way. They haven’t really talked since Roy almost smashed Jim’s face into the ground. He’s still polite to her, which is nice. But she’s not sure he even cares about her anymore. Jim hasn’t acted like he has for about five months now. So, she really doesn’t feel the need to tell him that on a night she was planning on going home to watch a cheesy chick-flick while making spaghetti-o’s , was the same night that she was raped and almost murdered by a complete stranger.

It seems odd, in the ironic, slap-in-the-face kind of way that since her incident, it’s been easier to let him go. Pam isn’t really sure if she deserves Jim now. Not that she deserved him much before. Who would want a woman who has been violated? She’s what her highschool teacher would call "damaged goods." Even if Jim dumped Karen, and came rushing to Pam’s doorstep proclaiming that he loved her, she wouldn’t jump into his arms like she would have only a few months ago.

If they became couple now, Pam’s certain that he would get tired of all her hang-ups now that she’s carrying around "baggage." No man wants a woman with emotional baggage. He’d probably realize soon that she is unstable and weak. He’d get tired of her night terrors and long showers (scrubbing her skin raw has become a tradition every evening). Pam is positive that the sex with Jim would lead to tears and disappointment with flashbacks of her terrible experience. She knows that Jim would leave, and then she’d be a rape victim who was dumped by the only man she ever really loved.

He’s better off with Karen. He’s better off with woman who doesn’t have problems like hers. Ever since that concept entered her mind, it been easier to watch Jim laugh with Karen. And she’s okay with it. It’s better this way.

Just then, she notices Jim glaring at her, his eyebrows raised in question. Quickly, she darts her eyes back down to her keyboard.

It’s all her fault.

***

When she looks back on it, she remebers that she hadn’t heard the stairwell door open or close.

"Hey, Pam."

Pam looks up to find Jan standing next to her desk. Pam shakes her head, amazed that she didn’t even hear her come in.

"Hi, Jan," she tries her best to sound bright, but it just comes out tired. "What can I do for you?"

"Actually," Jan begins, "I would like to talk to you."

Pam can’t help but be surprised by this, however, she tries not to make it noticeable.

"Oh, okay."

"Can I speak with you? Maybe in the conference room?"

Pam nods and stands up, following Jan into the conference room. She thinks she hears Dwight stand up, and her suspicions are correct when she hears Jan say sharply; "This doesn’t concern you, Dwight."

Pam shuts the door behind her, and tries to pretend that her co-workers aren’t staring at Jan as she shuts the blinds in the conference room. The room seems colder than Pam remembers, and the chairs don’t feel as cushy. An odd sensation overtakes her, giving her a sense of deja vu like she is in a job interview.

Pam sets at the end of the table with her back facing the door. Jan sits on the far right, she folds her hands in front of her and sets down a file with Pam’s name written across it. Jan smiles timidly and laces her fingers together.

"So," she starts, "how are you, Pam?"

"Good."

Jan raises her eyebrows.

"Good!" she seems happy to hear that.

"Good," Pam repeats. There’s a beat of silence that makes her insides come alive. "Am I in trouble?"

Now it’s Jan who looks surprised.

"What? No! No, no, no. Not at all. I just wanted to see how you were doing. I wanted to know if Michael has been. . .doing anything inappropriate," she chuckles and Pam shrugs her shoulders.

"Everything’s normal. Michael’s been. . Michael," Pam mutters quickly.

That is far from the truth. Michael’s been downright formal towards her. Jan’s head is tilted up, gazing down at her with squinting eyes. Pam has seen that look before. It’s the same look Jan get’s when Michael has done something particularly stupid or offensive. It’s the look Jan gets when she knows something is wrong.

"Pam." Jan says this very quietly, and Pam can feel the long stream of tears beginning to push behind her eyes. "Pam, Toby says you’ve been much more quiet lately."

"I’ve been tired," she shoots back defensively. Jan nods.

"You’ve been having trouble sleeping?" Jan states with steadiness in her tone.

Pam doesn’t have the heart or the energy to tell Jan, that she hasn’t been sleeping at night. Between the fear and the nightmares, it’s hard to get a good night sleep. It’s hard not to remember. It’s just hard.

She doesn’t even think to make a "That’s what she said" joke.

"Yeah, but I’m fine."

The two are very quiet. The air is so thick, Pam is afraid is will crash all around them. After what seems like an hour, Jan scoots forward a bit. This act makes Pam even more uncomfortable.

"Pam," Why the hell does she keep saying my name like that? "I think we both know why I’m here."

Pam is now openly avoiding her gaze.

"Toby says that you’ve been withdrawn. That you’re not participating or interacting with your co-workers much. He says that you sneak in when you first come into the office, and that you slip out when it’s time to leave."

"Toby said that?" she whispers.

"Yes. Both he and Michael are very worried about you. After someone who experiences a traumatic event, such as yourself, they often become very depressed and introverted," Jan is speaking with the tone that her mother has used when Pam calls upset and in tears.

"I’ve always been introverted," Pam points out. Jan smiles.

"More than usual."

This annoys Pam, as Jan acts as though she knows her better than anyone. Jan doesn’t really even know the first thing about her. The only one person really ever understood her, won’t even look at her anymore.

"Pam, you’ve experienced something horrible. Something that I can’t even imagine having to go through." Jan’s words are bringing tears to her eyes. "Tell me, who else knows of your incident?"

Pam looks up at the ceiling, pretending to think long and hard, as if she’s counting the people who know about her rape.

"Well, there’s you, Michael, Toby, my parents, and my sister."

"So, no one else in the office knows?"

"I hope not."

Jan nods again, this time, however, she’s grabbing her briefcase and pulling a long, thin slip of paper out of it. It takes Pam a moment to realize it’s a pamphlet, and for an insane moment, she wonders if Jan is going to offer her another internship in graphic design.

"This is a pamphlet about people who have been victimized. You might want to look at it."

As she talks, Pam realizes that this isn’t a friend coming to a friend in need. Corporate is probably making Jan do this. After all, Dunder-Miflin loves to take care of their damaged employees. Pam tries to contain a bitter laugh, but it get stuck in her throat.

"Here is a number to a good therapist. I highly recommend you visit with them. He could really help you, Pam. They specialize in –"

Jan stops abruptly, and Pam follows her gaze to the door. She now realizes that the door is slightly open, and Michael’s large nose is peeking out through the crack. Pam hadn’t even heard him open it, and apparently, neither had Jan.

"Michael!"

In one swift motion, Jan strides to the door and slams it, not even bother to look and see if his nose got caught in the jamb.

"Ouch!"

In utter horror, Pam realizes that this "confidential" meeting hasn’t been confidential at all, and that the entire office has mostly likely heard Jan’s monologue about victims and therapists.

"I’m sorry about that, Pam," Jan sighs, clearly frustrated.

"I need to go," Pam stands up and leaves. "I’ll think about it, Jan," she says as she avoids her office mates eyes on her. She doesn’t have to look up to know that Jim is staring at her as well.

Later, as everyone is leaving -and after Jan as had a long talk with Michael - Jim stops by her desk for the first time in ages. Pam pretends to be very interested in her Solitaire game which has been going on for about a half-hour now.

"Goodnight, Pam," he says softly.

"‘Night," she replies in an equally soft voice.

When he doesn’t leave, she switches off her computer quickly and grabs her jacket. Only for a moment does she feel Jim’s fingers brush her elbow before she practically sprits for the door.

"I have to go. Bye, Jim."

And then she’s gone. Leaving Jim standing alone in the office.

*** 

"Hey, what’s wrong? You look . . . out of it."

Jim’s body jerks slightly at the sound of Karen’s voice. They are both seated in his living room, a glass of wine in Karen’s hand, while Jim’s fingers are loosely gripping a bottle of beer. Suddenly, he feels Karen’s warm palm on his back, bringing him back to reality. His eyes are still a bit unfocused, so he brings his fingers to the corners of his eyes and pinches. It doesn’t help get rid of the blurriness.

"Nothing. I – I’m just tired, I guess," he responds. "It’s been a weird day."

"How so?" Karen asks as she tilts her head mildly to her right shoulder. "Are you talking about when Dwight went around asking all of us girls what all of our different PMS symptoms were? Because, if you think that’s weird, you don’t know Dunder-Miflin as well as I thought."

"No," Jim can’t help but snicker weakly at Karen’s comment.

He looks at her, meeting her eyes. She has a soft smile planted on her lips, and Jim wonders why that when he stares at her, he still feels as though his heart weighs the same as concrete. Resting his hand on his palm, Jim shifts his body toward his girlfriend.

"I’m not sure," he starts, "it’s just that– Hey, do you remember when Jan came in today?"

"Jan came in today?"

Jim sighs. "You weren’t there?"

"No, I went with Phyllis to visit another client. Why? What did Jan want?" Karen inquires. With a start, Jim realizes that Karen is usually the person who asks all the questions in their relationship.

"Oh, it was just something about Michael. I think he has replaced her birth-control with tic-tacs," Jim covers. Karen raises one of her finely shaped eyebrows.

"And that seems odd? Honestly Jim, your dense behavior is what is weirding me out, today."

Jim almost smiles at that, but it looked more like a wince.

***

***

He still has Pam’s number in his cell phone. He’s not sure why, he just never had the heart to remove it. He’s grateful that Karen has never asked to make a call on his phone. Now, he sits, with his finger hoovering over the "send" button with her number displayed on the screen. Karen left about an hour ago, claiming that he had looked sick. So here he is, waiting to make the call.

This can be done. He can be a friend and check up on her. It’s only 9:30. She’s still probably up. He can do this.

Jim chickens out and turns off his cell.

***

It’s only when she wakes up, the pillows of her couch soaking wet, that Pam feels that the warm wetness on her cheeks are just as real as the dream that had woken her up.

Chapter Four:

When she steps into the stairwell, she sees him.

She’s found that the stairwell has become an excellent place to evade Michael’s abrasive and offensive behavior. It didn’t take long for her to discover her little hideout after she had moved from Stamford. Her nook, as she likes to call it, is sometimes the only thing that keeps her sane when she’s having to listen to Michael go on and on about how he feels impressed to connect the parallels between Kelly’s dead sister and paper finance.

Today, however, she’s not in here to escape. She’s here to investigate.

One of the oddest things had happened only ten minutes before. Sure, since coming to work here, strange happenings in the office have become not so strange anymore. But it was different this time. She had been working at her desk, only to look up and find that Jim’s seat was empty. A half-hour later, she heard the office door open as she watched her boyfriend enter the office. The sight before her was one of the scariest things she’d ever seen.

He stood, his body jittering and his shoulder moving back and forth as though he were controlling his arms from moving violently. The flush from his face matched Kelly’s maroon skirt as his eyes dashed wildly around the room. Sweat was dripping from his face as if he just came back from a basket ball tournament. She tried not to notice how he stared at Pam’s desk for what seemed like an eternity.

But by far the scariest thing about him was the way his eyes scorched and blazed with emotion that she had never seen before.

His voice was shallow as thought it was squeezing itself from his throat. It took her almost a full minute to realize he was asking about Pam. She moved out of her seat, asking him what was wrong. His only response was to call out for her, and she tried to ignore how he seemed to want to get a glimpse of Pam than to acknowledge her.

Without answering any of this fellow employee’s questions, he turned and dashed out of the building, leaving everyone astonished.

Now, she finds her self in the stairwell, looking for her crazed boyfriend. Peering over the rail, she spies him.

His back is hunched, which makes the curves of his shoulder blades protrude noticeably through his blue shirt. It takes her a moment for her to realize that his head is bowed as he hides his face in his hands. She is just about to say: "Hey, Halpert!" but stops when she notices that his whole body is shaking.

Stepping closer, her pants swish together and the sound echos throughout the stairwell. As it does, his body stiffens. She is just about to ask him what’s going on when he makes an odd sound deep in his throat. All the times she has known him, she has never heard that noise come from him before. It’s short and strangled and watery and it comes out of him as he clamps a shaking hand over his slicked mouth. He tries to glance behind him, but he doesn’t make it very far before he swings his head back to look at the floor.

When she comes to him, she realizes with horror what that terrible sound was.

A sob.

His terrible voice makes her stomach drop, and she’s afraid to press forward. Her blood feels like crackling glaciers flowing through her veins. For an instant, she not even sure it’s really her boyfriend crumbling before her.

"Jim?" she says tentatively.

It’s then that she notices that there is something clutched fiercely in his right hand. His large fingers are wrapped around a dark object as he presses the same curled fist to his eyes. When no words are uttered, he turns away from her as more silent fits of air escape him. He’s shaking again, and she only gets to look at him for an instant to see that his face is red and wet.

A tightening sensation in her throat makes her stop.

"Jim?" her voice is a bit louder this time with a tinge of desperation.

Or maybe it’s fear.

"– I. . .I didn’t –" he breaks off again. But this time, he brings both of his hands to cover his eyes.

As he does so, the small black object that hid in his palm drops to the floor with a flat clatter, the plastic of the item skittering noisily over the concrete of the stairs. Karen watches the item, and wonders briefly if it is Jim’s iPod. Her attention is brought back to Jim furiously wiping his eyes.

"I have to go," he says abruptly.

He sounds a bit congested. She reaches out for him, but before she has time to follow him, he is already out the door leading to the main entrance. Questions swirl inside of her head. She wants to chase after him, to hold him and make everything okay again. However, as much as she wants to do this, he knows that Jim would only push her away. One of the biggest road blocks in their relationship is the simple fact that he cannot open up to her. He’s done it before, and she suspects that he will do it again. The heavy sense of hopelessness roots Karen to the spot, making her just want to disappear from all of this. To pack up her stuff and drive far away from Scranton where she doesn’t have to deal with the heartache of her futile relationship with Jim.

Instead her eyes then fall to the black gadget that Jim had dropped. Moving toward it, she picks up the item and studies it.

With emotions mixed with confusion and fear, she tucks the black cell phone into her jacket.

***

"It sounds much better than calling your fellow group members ‘rape victims.’"

The dam broke.

She had done her hair for him the day he had returned from Stamford. At the time, he was thought she was just trying new things, but now. . .it seemed like. . maybe. . .

Pushing his fists into his eye sockets, he tried to stop the pressure from building up behind his eyes. He had seen Pam’s face in his field of vison when Karen had handed him that stick of gum. He had relished the moment, if only for a moment. He knew he had made her frown when he declined her offer for coffee. He had seen how heartbroken she had been when he didn’t take her Christmas Present, and how she beamed when he finally accepted.

And when he had watched her as he danced with Karen, he realized that he was slightly hurting her. Jim almost felt guilty about it, that is, until he watched her leave hand-in-hand with Roy. As she had tried resolutely to apologize him for Roy attacking him, he turned his back coldly, trying hard to block out the image of her smiling face in an oversized sombrero.

Finally, the day she had come to him, just needing a friend, he had pushed away. He had been – was – a complete bastard.

That’s when it hit him. No. She had come to him. . .presumably after her rape, and he didn’t even. . . .

Those wonderful images of her smiling and laughing were suddenly replaced with new ones. Her, in a dark alley, back of a car, in a parking lot, hurting. A man hoovering over her slapping her, groping her, making her cry. His dirty, rough fingers touching her beautiful naked skin. He could feel her tears as they rolled down her checks. He could imagine the fear in those vibrant eyes. Her sobs echoing as his hands throttled her. Inside of his own mind, he was sure he could hear her screams of pain ringing in his ears.

He was going to vomit.

Now, he, himself, had hurt her, beating on the last of her emotional strength. The way she had looked at him in the break room, she must feel alone. All alone.

She really was raped.

And that was when it happened. He couldn’t stop it. When the large tears leaked from his eyes, he couldn’t stop them. His chest hurt, and he leaned forward, the sound of his choked sobs bouncing off the cylinder walls.

***

Pam lies in the reclined driver’s seat of her parked car. She stares at her apartment building, envisioning how her attacker got into her building in the first place. She wonders if he followed her home, or if he had been stalking her for weeks before making his move. Or did he simply pick her randomly one night?

She doesn’t like to think about these things. She likes to dream about a faraway place, where the air is clean, and there’s no one around for miles and miles. A place where she doesn’t have to be afraid or pretend that everything is okay. She hopes to find that place someday. She dreams of sticking her feet into a cool brook, where she can wash away the stains of her life, her tears, as well as her pain. More than anything, she wants a life that is her own again. Her own and no one else’s. Not even Jim’s.

But then she wakes up, and remembers that they are only dreams, and her life is nothing like the deserted heaven she desires. Instead, she wakes up every morning in an actual shit hole.

She’s been told over and over again that she has nothing to feel ashamed of. That this wasn’t her fault. But it’s more than that. She somehow feels . . . inhuman. Like she’s different from all the rest of society, like’s she’s less than.

Her only comfort is that at least Jim doesn’t know just how less than she is.

Chapter Five:

Karen stares at the letters 14D and fiddles with the cell phone in her pocket. Honestly, she’s only been here once. Right after she had moved to Scranton, she had accidently slipped an important report in one of Pam’s faxes. Upon finding that Pam had taken the paperwork home, Karen had gotten her address from HR. She remembers getting lost on that frantic rainy night merely eight months ago, and how she had mistakenly knocked on the wrong apartment door to find a Japanese family staring blankly back at her.

That had been embarrassing.

And before, since Pam’s building didn’t have intercoms – it was rather old – there was a security guard standing next to her door. Karen swears that he hadn’t been there last time she came to visit, but he still made her check in all her things, and had told her to log her name in. He had even checked her damn purse for "safety" reasons. He had then informed her that the building would be installing an intercom system in a couple of weeks due to a few bad incidents.

So now, here she is, nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other, praying that Pam will answer her door and that they both will have a very brief exchange.

Just as Karen's turning her back to walk away, she hears a light scraping from inside Pam’s apartment. The clicks of Pam’s locks turn slowly as though she deliberately wants whoever’s knocking her door to get tired of waiting and leave. Karen stays put and, eventually, she sees Pam’s misty, red eyes peeping pack at her through the open slit of the entryway.

"Hello?"

Karen realizes that she’s out of Pam’s line of sight, and steps quickly in front of her apartment. To her surprise, Pam jerks back violently at Karen’s quick movements.

"Sorry! Pam, I – I didn’t mean to scare you."

The chain on her door is still latched, and soon, Pam’s sight is directed at her, the redness of her eyes making her irises a brilliant emerald. There’s something in her stare that catches Karen off guard for a moment, and it takes a quick second for her to realize that it’s apprehension in her piercing gaze shining blatantly back at her.

"Hey." Her exhausted tone matches her face, and Karen suddenly can’t remember the last time she has properly looked at Pam. "What’s up?"

Since she’s lost herself so much in studying Pam’s appearance, it takes her a minute to fully concentrate on Pam’s question.

"Oh, hey. Nothing much," Karen replies. "Um, I think you left your phone at work."

She pulls out the black cell that Jim had dropped earlier in the stairwell. Pam closes her door momentarily, and immediately Karen can hear her fumbling with the chain. Within seconds, Pam is pulling the door open a little wider. An odd sensation drifts through Karen’s body as she stares at the receptionist’s attire. She’s never seen her in anything besides an ugly blouse, a dishwater gray cardigan, an old-lady frumpy skirt, and a terrible pair of shoes that would look more appropriate on a nun. Now, however, she’s merely dressed in black sweats and a white t-shirt. Of course, nothing exciting, but there’s just something so stripped about what she’s wearing that it makes Pam startlingly much more . . .human.

At least to Karen, anyway.

"Oh," Pam soughs. Her eyes fall to her cell, and she reaches out faintly to grab it. "I didn’t realize I’d lost it. Thanks."

"You. . .didn’t realize you’d lost your own phone?" Karen asks confused. If it were her, she’d be scrambling around her desk, purse, car, and apartment, frantically searching for her lost cell/lifeline.

Pam shakes her head.

"I don’t really like talking on the phone."

Karen smiles at her comment. Her grin is meant to loosen Pam up, as well as to help put her at ease, but once she does it, it just seems to make things more awkward.

"Oh, right. ‘Cause you’re probably sick of answering phones all day," Pam’s smile is just as weak as Karen’s chuckle.

Usually, Karen is rather sensitive when it comes to friendly interactions. It’s gotten her where she is today, as it’s helped her read her boss, her colleagues, and it has assisted her in making really fantastic judgments calls with her clients. However, standing outside Pam’s apartment, she’s been completely oblivious to Pam’s lifeless stare. She’s too wrapped up in thinking about Jim, about what this little cell has to do with Jim crying all alone in a deserted stairwell during work.

"Well, thanks again, Karen," Pam says quietly and she begins to retreat back into her apartment.

"Wait!" Karen pleads quickly. Pam stops and looks at her with bewildered eyes. "Can I ask you a question?"

Pam shrugs.

"Sure."

Karen hesitates. She hates bringing him up, especially with Pam. Nonetheless, she can’t ignore the fact that he’s the real reason she’s even standing in Pam’s hallway to begin with.

"Have you heard from Jim?" she asks quickly.

Pam’s response is not what she’s expecting.

"No."

Her voice is so emotionless that Karen’s curious composer falters. She’s not used to Pam being so blunt as well as so incredibly honest. Normally, when the two of them talk, Karen is always under the impression that there’s so much more on Pam’s mind than on her lips.

"Really?" Karen hurtles on. "Because he seemed really. . .upset after work today. He didn’t say anything to you?"

Pam presses her lips together tightly as her eyes drift upward to the wall behind Karen. With her eyebrows raised, she slightly shakes her head. There is something so strained in her posture, something so hallow that Karen can’t understand why Jim would be so upset with a Pam who’s behaving like a shadow.

"Okay," Karen steps away from Pam’s door, "Well, I’ll see you later then."

Pam’s head bobs up and down as she quietly moves into the abyss that is her apartment, shutting the door and blocking Karen out for good.

It’s only until she’s halfway home that she realizes that Pam never asked how Karen had found her phone in the first place.

***

Someone’s knocking at her door again.

For years, everyone at work has acted as though she were simply a ghost, and in the last few months, as though she had never been born.

So. . .why the hell. . .was she so. . . damn popular tonight?

As she moves toward the door, her earlier conversation with Karen echoes inside of her mind. Her words are so clear, it’s as if she’s speaking through her door, and she briefly wonders for a moment if Karen has left at all.

The soft knocking occurs again, and she fights the urge to scream. Before, Karen’s harsh rapping had merely surprised, but somehow, this gentle tapping makes her insides boil like lava. Maybe. . .just maybe, she can pretend she isn’t home, and they’ll go away.

"Pam?"

Just as she hears that familiar voice, she immediately wants to run back to her couch and envelope herself in her comforter. Perhaps it’s because his voice is muffled by the door, but he sounds different. His tone is huskier, even a little strained. She knows he’s standing out there waiting for her, but she’s frozen to the spot. It’s as though her legs have now become apart of the wooden floor that’s supporting her.

She has no idea what to do. What should she do? Should she answer the door? Or should she pretend she isn’t home? Should she scream bloody murder so that the security guard will come and rush him away?

No.

He knocks again.

Shit. With all those months of never talking to him, she’s forgotten just how damn persistent this man could be sometimes. Pam imagines him standing out there, shifting uncomfortably as he takes in her apartment building. She wonders if he’s noticed that terrible little dent in the wall beside her door, or how her peephole is larger than all the other apartments on her floor. There’s a good chance he is observing these things, because that’s what he does best. He’s always noticed things that other’s haven’t. Hell, he noticed her once, didn’t he? Well, the old Jim did. Perhaps the new Jim isn’t even aware that it’s taken almost a full six minutes for her to answer her door.

Timidly, she moves forward and stands on her toes as she squints through her peephole. Even with the new-and-improved wider rage of her new spyhole, he is still much too tall for her to see him properly. Right now, all she can see is the corner of his muscular jaw (he really is too damn thin) as well as the lobe of his adorable ear sticking shyly behind his rowdy brown hair. She feels as though she’s moving through water as she unlocks her door and unhinges her chain.

When she sees Jim, she almost for a moment believes she’s mistaken him for the wrong person. His appearance isn’t something she’s ever seen before. To her, he looks as though he is mere seconds away from death. His eyes are bloodshot, and his face is blotchy. The stubble on his chin goes well with the bags under his eyes, and yes, he is still way too damn thin. Pam wonders ruefully for a moment if Karen has been keeping him up too late at night. The jealousy in her heart doesn’t last long, because she then remembers who she, herself, is and why she will never deserve Jim Halpert.

His eyes fall on her the moment she appears in the entryway. She can see the way his eyes open widely as he gazes at her, taking her in completely. Despite all that has happened to her, Pam momentarily feels self-conscious under the watch of his green eyes. It clearly takes him a minute to register that it’s really her, and then he seems to sway in his spot, as if he wants to run away.

But then he smiles. It’s sad, and it’s honest, and it breaks her heart because she’s still in love with him.

"Hey," he whispers.

Even through his hushed voice, Pam detects something hoarse in his tone. It sounds almost as if he’s been shouting all day and now can barely speak. His eyes are glazed over, and she wonders briefly if he’s actually drunk.

"Hi, Jim," she greets quietly.

She watches as he opens his mouth to say more, and then closes it. He’s staring at her intently and purposefully. In fact, he’s staring at her so hard that for a second she wondered if he can see through her shirt. However, she then discovers that he’s sight is not targeting her chest, but at her face. Without warning, Pam’s self-conscious again, much like she was with Karen before, and she averts her eyes to the floor.

Pam waits. She waits, and waits, and waits. After all, she’s become pretty good at waiting. She’s so good, in fact, that she’s positive that it’s almost easier to wait than to actually take the initiative and do something. She wants to do something, she feels like she has to do something. Pam has been feeling that way for a long time now, ever since her rape. The part of her that’s still normal wants to get out, wants to take her life back and move on from her recent past. It’s the part of her makes her able to swing her legs off the couch in the morning, get dressed, and drive to work. It the part that keeps her from going insane every time the phone rings, or every time she repeats: "Dunder-Miflin, this is Pam." Strangely, it’s the single part of her that helps her not burst into tears when she watches Jim and Karen sweetly holding hands in the break room. And she truly believe it’s the only part that keeps her from drowning in her wreck that she calls her life.

But then there’s the other part. The traumatized part. It’s the side of her that wants to make sense of her rape, and to understand the seriousness of it all. But all it manages to do is remind her of her terrible incident. When all she really wants to do is heal so that she can move forward and forget, those broken memories come out like knives, cutting open her wounds so that they can never really mend. This is the part that holds her back, that makes her shut off from her friends and family. It’s what keeps her from going back to those group meetings and from opening up to the idea of seeing a therapist. The worst of it is that those two different side of herself naturalize each other, making her feel like she’s lost in some sort of limbo.

As they stand there, she regards Jim again hoping that he can still read her mind like he used to.

Since he doesn’t leave, she knows that he can’t.

"Pam," he sighs. To her, it doesn’t sound desperate, or exasperated. It sounds sweet and wonderful, and it’s almost how he used to say her name when they would conspire against Dwight.

"So," she begins, "what brings you here?"

He steps closer to her unsurely, yet captiously. His large hands are shoved predictably in the pockets of his jeans, and his eyes seem to be studying her bare feet for a moment, but then he looks up. Jim’s gaze meets hers, and she can see the moisture in his eyes. As he looks at her, she’s almost certain that he can see her emotions as if she’s radiating some sort of aura.

Jim stares at her for a long time, much longer than she would like. A moment later, she can see that the moisture in his eyes has become wetter, then he blinks quickly and looks away.

"I – I wanted to see you." He’s not whispering anymore, but his voice is still so soft. Pam feels a tingling sensation in her chest, but the tingling soon turns to bitterness.

"Why?" He steps back when the words leave her mouth. "I mean, I haven’t really talked to you in months, Jim. What do you need?"

He seems flustered now, not how she pictured he’s react to her question at all. Jim brings a hand out of his pocket to run over his sloshed mouth.

"I. . .I actually wanted to apologize," he starts. When she doesn’t say anything, he continues. "For today. When we were talking in the break room, I – I was an ass."

"How were you an ass?" She’s painfully trying to remember what he’s referring to when they were in the break room.

She sees him look down again, and he mumbles something she can’t quite hear. As he brings his head up, she notices how his mouth trembles.

"I just acted like. . .a jerk, ya know?"

Pam raises her shoulder, and tilts her neck to the side. Giving a tight-lipped smile, she shakes her head. She remembers how he seemed annoyed with her, how he clearly wanted her to leave him alone. Sadly, however, him acting like that didn’t seem unusual to her now, not for new Big City Jim.

"And it wasn’t just today," he persists, "I’ve been. . .well, I haven’t been the greatest friend."

"I don’t know what you mean," she lies. In the back of her mind, Pam doesn’t like that fact that she’s become a professional at lying.

Jim laughs at her comment. It’s a hallow laugh that leaves her feeling cold.

"I think you do."

"Look, Jim, it’s fine. We’re friends, and we haven’t seen each other in – "

"It’s not fine," he interrupts. His eyes are much brighter than they were a moment ago.

Just hearing him say that brings tears to her eyes, and now she’s the one who can’t meet his intense stare. She just so, so, so tired of pretending that everything is fine. That’s she’s okay, and that her rape never even happened.

"Pam," he’s whispering again, "I am so sorry."

She can tell he means it. That he really is sorry for their lack of friendship. But there’s something else. Something else that he’s apologizing for. And she doesn’t allow herself to believe that what she suspects he’s so sorrowful about is the same thing she can’t seem to forget.

"S’okay, I guess," she mumbles and he nods.

"I also have something else to ask you," he steps closer to her again, and Pam can feel her chest tighten in panic.

"Sure."

"A few months ago, you came to me. . .with a problem. You said you wanted to tell me something, and I – I never got to hear what it was you had to say. I’m all ears now." He sounds so serious that Pam almost can’t take it.

She doesn’t instantly know what it is that he’s talking about. Thinking back, she can vaguely remember her coming to him about a month after her attack. Looking back on it, it seems so juvenile. Her important message that she needed to share with him then now seems so lame and she’s knows she a fool to ever approach him in the first place.

"I remember," she sighs.

There’s something in Jim’s eyes that she’s never seen before. Perhaps it’s anticipation, as he reminds her of a tiger ready to pounce at any moment.

"What did you want to tell me?"

She closes her eyes, and thinks back to that day when she had walked to his desk, and had asked to speak with him. Not giving it a second thought, she answers him with the honest truth.

"I wanted to say thank you."

Pam can tell that her answer is not what he was expecting. Jim’s mouth opens a little, and then he steps away from her.

Shaking his head as though to clear his mind, he gaps at her. "For what?"

Pam shrugs and smiles. The tears are coming back, and she hates herself for it.

"For. . .everything."

He stares at her as if to say: Why? And so she hurtles on.

"A lot has happened to me in the last year, and. . .and I’m just glad that I knew you." She uses the past tense because she’s made peace with the fact that she doesn’t know him anymore. "Even during my darkest moments, I still have happy memories of us. And that’s enough sometimes."

She doesn’t care to elaborate on her true meaning. No, she’d rather die than do that. "So, thank you."

Pam knows that she’s said enough because when she looks up, his eyes are much more red than they were before. It’s only for a moment, but she manages to think to herself: He is a good man. With that thought in her mind, she steps back into the blackness of her apartment.

"Can I come in?" he asks just as she’s getting ready to shut the door. That strained sound is back in his tone again, and as much as old Pam would have giggled at the thought of inviting Jim into her apartment, the damaged Pam recoils inwardly at the idea of having another man inside of her home.

"Actually, Jim, I’m kinda tired," Pam protests.

Now Jim is frowning which makes guilt seep into her skin, and it suddenly feels like "that" night all over again.

"Pam," he utters as though he can read her mind, "It’s me, Jim."

Shuddering, she opens the door for him.

"Okay, come in."

***

It’s only 9:45 and Jim can’t believe how dark her apartment is.

"Let me get the lights," he hears her say, and he picks up her movements as she gropes for her light switch.

Suddenly, the blackness is gone, and her home is basked in dim light. Taking it upon himself to look around, he notices how clean her apartment is compared to Karen’s. Not that Karen’s flat is messy. . . but this. . . .is ridiculously clean. O.C.D. clean. His eyes shift over to her to her living room, and he’s surprised when he sees Pam’s bedroom pillows and a comforter sprawled untidily over her couch.

"You sleep on your couch?" he asks stupidly.

"Yeah, it hurts to sleep in my bed," she replies automatically. To him, it sounds as though she has rehearsed that line over and over again in her mind.

"Cool," is all he can think to say. He has no way of telling her that he knows about her rape. That he wants to comfort her and hold her and tell her that everything will be okay. But instead, all he says is: "Awesome. Cool."

"I’m going to go wash my face," she says as she walks towards her bathroom. "It’ll just be a sec. Make yourself at home."

She disappears into her bathroom and he stands idiotically in the middle of her apartment. He couldn’t help but note how sickly she had looked standing their in her black sweats and white tee. Her hair that was pulled back into a messy ponytail made her face look much gaunter. Wandering over to her couch he looks for any signs of the old Pam that he loves so much.

Walking around her flat, he doesn’t see any artwork in her home, nor does he find splotches of paint on any part of her floor. Jim can’t find any books, which makes him completely sad because he knows just how much Pam loved to read. All he finds is dust, dust, and a bottle of sleeping pills that sits coldly on her counter.

The lump in his throat that he had finally gotten rid of in the car ride over returns. He is not going to cry. Not in front of her. She needs a man, dammit. Not some pussy who bawls his eyes out in his car for hours before getting up enough courage to talk to the woman he loves. Pam needs someone strong, she needs a friend. She needs him.

And he needs a drink.

Maybe Pam has a few beers in her house.

Drifting over to her fridge, he opens the refrigerator door and is sickened when he sees that she has absolutely no food whatsoever inside of it.

The lump isn’t going away, it’s only getting bigger, and his eyes are now starting to sting.

Jim slams the fridge and goes over to a wall with a few family pictures on it. He had always fantasized that his first visit to her apartment would be joyous. That he would make fun of her for only having one kitchen, and that she’d make some pasta, and perhaps they’d drink the wine that he had brought over. Maybe he’d show her some new songs that reminded him of her on his iPod, and then he would ask her to dance, and she’s giddily oblige. From their they would gently sway in each other’s arms, and she’d make some sort of wise-ass remark about how swaying was dancing, and then he’d kiss her all over while leading her to the bedroom where he’d make love to her in her Fancy New bed.

Never did he ever imagine that his first trip to her new home would be to apologize for being a bastard and to confront her about her rape.

He can tell from the huge gaps between the photographs that there are a few pictures missing from her wall. Jim sees one of a little boy who he assumes is her nephew. He’s holding a fishing pole, his two front teeth are missing, and he’s squinting from the bright sun. Another is of a girl who looks a little like Pam, and Jim’s sure it’s her older sister who he’s never met. He recognizes Pam’s mom instantly as the photo shows her blowing out candles that are shaped like a big "4" and "0" on a birthday cake. There’s a faded wedding picture of a much younger Mrs. Beesly and what appears to be Pam’s father. The final picture he sees is the one that shocks him a little. It’s of Michael and Meredith taking shots from the Christmas party two years before.

As he studies each picture, he notices that they all have one thing in common. Pam isn’t in any of them. The frames on her wall are all scattered, and he isn’t stupid. He sees that those large spaces between each photo were probably full of snapshots of her smiling, blushing, clapping and just being Pam.

It hits him then just how much he misses that Pam, and it frightens him to think that he may never see that Pam again.

He abruptly turns away from the pictures. Not that he can really see them anyway, with his is eyes becoming so blurred with wetness. The lump in his throat is now so big, he’s afraid that he might not be able to even talk to Pam, and his nose is starting to run.

On the way over here, he kept thinking, kept imagining how it happened. Where was she raped? What did the guy look like? Was it date rape? He had to force himself to not think those things because his stomach had started to hurt, and he was afraid he would crash his car if he didn’t get a grip.

Now, he finds himself outside of her bedroom. There’s something about this room that makes him want to turn around and leave, but he doesn’t . Instead he find that his hand seems to have a mind of their own. His fingers find the knob and he slowly turns it until the door opens.

The room is dark, but extremely warm in the hot August night. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about her bedroom. Her bed is bare, but that’s understandable since she’s sleeping on the couch. Turning his head, Jim sees why her room is incredibly sweltering.

The glass pane of her bedroom window is missing. This strikes him as odd, but what he sees next makes his heart stop.

Below the windowsill is a row of dead flowers.

As hard as he tries, the images come again. This time, of the two of them in her bed. He can see the sheets tangled around her sweaty, bruised body. Jim can envision Him, on top of her. . .

Jim wipes his eyes frantically as the tears come.

He can’t breathe through his nose, so he opens his mouth and ends up drooling down his chin. Without a second thought, he wipes is already wet hands over his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve.

"Jim? What are you doing?" Pam delicately questions.

Spinning around, he comes face to face with his best friend. He can’t hide his tear-stained face, or his red nose and damp eyes. He parts his lips to say something, but that damn lump is now this size of his fist and all that comes out is a horrible strangled sound. He looks at Pam through his tears and he can see that she looks absolutely terrified.

Not able to do anything else, Jim stands there and silently cries for a few minutes. He feels like such a wuss, but just knowing what Pam went through makes his insides implode. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, he moves towards Pam and stands as close as he can without touching her, no matter how much his hands ache to.

"Pam," it comes out more like a sigh, "is there anything else you want to tell me?"

She’s crying, but not as bad as him. Shaking her head, she begins to step back. The longing to touch her breaks, and he reaches out for her. For only a moment does her feel her soft skin beneath his fingers before she shrinks and wrenches away from him wildly.

"I need you to go, Jim," she hushes. Sniffling, she opens her door. "Just, please, please, please go."

She literally begging him, and he moves to leave.

When her door shuts behind him, he stands outside like a lost child, not knowing what to do. He wants to knock again, to tell her that he’s not going anywhere until she talks to him. Not until she tells him what happened.

He even opens his mouth to speak to her, but he stops.

Jim heart breaks as he listens to Pam’s soft sobs through the door.

To Be Continued.   .   .

Chapter Six:

She’s as tired as hell, which makes her want to sort of throw her phone against the wall so she can watch it split into tiny bits in the darkness of her room. But then she remembers, and she barely has time to register the fact that her hands are flailing wildly towards her phone. Instead, she accidently knocks it off of it’s charger, and sends it crashing into to the side of her dresser. Quickly, she scrambles to snatch it up.

"Hello?" she mutters drowsily, yet anxiously into the receiver. The noise that meets her is the scratchy sound of static, yet, she can almost make out a male voice.

"Hel — is — Bees — " The static is getting worse, and so is her curiosity.

"Hello? Hello? I’m sorry I can’t. . . "

"Is – Beesley?"

"Yes that’s me," she replies quickly, "I’m sorry, I can’t hear you."

There’s a long pause, but slowly, the static dies and then she can hear the stranger’s voice much more clearly. When he speaks, she wonder’s briefly if the static is still there, but she realizes that his tone is simply husky, if not a little worn.

"Hi, can you hear me?" he asks. He is speaking loudly, but there’s something about his voice that tells her he’d rather be addressing her in hushed tones

"Yes."

"I’m sorry, I was in a tunnel. I didn’t think. . ."

"How can I help you?" she questions, now a little annoyed that some strange man has the audacity to call her in the middle of the night.

He’s quiet, which makes her all the more irritated, but then he speaks, and her heart stops beating.

"I’m. . .I’m calling about Pam." He sounds so timid that she wonders if he’s about to tell her something awful, and she panics.

"Is she okay?" she interjects so loudly that she’s sure she has woken her husband.

He doesn’t answer right away. There’s just that small buzzing sound that she normally wouldn’t notice. Yet now, to her, it seems to go on forever, getting louder and louder until she’s certain her brain will explode from it’s high frequency. Finally, she gets an response.

"No."

He sounds far off, as though his mind has completely shut down. . .like he’s half asleep. A light breeze whips through the open window, and she can smell the fresh sent of rain before it starts to fall.

"Who is this?" she asks, her voice trembling as she thinks about her daughter.

"Jim. This is Jim Halpert." His voice breaks and all those horrible scenario of Pam’s attack flash behind her eyes.

It’s only the soft rumble of thunder that snaps her from her nightmare.

***

He sits in the comfy booth and watches as the rain splatters against the window in the dark. Every time he spots a pair of headlight, he wonders if that’s her, and even though three women have walked into the diner, he can’t help himself from perking his head up as he tries to determined if she’s the one he’s looking for. He knows he has already seen her, but that was just once, and aside from the older pictures in Pam’s apartment (she looked very young in all of them, he can’t really remember what she looks like.

To be honest, Jim is actually quite surprised that she agreed to meet him here. After all, Pam’s mom lives all the way in Syracuse and it’s a two hour drive from there on Interstate 81. If she decided to drive to Scranton to see him, she’d be there by 2 AM and wouldn’t be home around 4 or 5. So they agreed to both drive and met halfway at Chum’s Diner.

So here he is, at one o’clock in the morning, sitting in some low, truck-stop diner, looking for the one person who might give him more answers. His encounter with Pam feels like it happened years ago. However, all it takes is the remembrance of her ghostly broken face to make his heart crumble into a million pieces all over again.

Jim still can’t believe how badly things went. Not that he had expected them to go well, but Pam had just been so cut off. Like she had detached herself from him, her friends, her family, even her own personality.

After she had thrown him out, Jim listened to her cry gently through the door, making him want to break the damn thing down. He stayed for almost a whole hour, softly knocking and pleading with his own damaged voice for her to open up the door. Finally, her sobs faded and the only noise that lingered was light, cold rapping of his knuckles against her door.

Eventually the security guard found Jim and told him to get the hell out, or he’d call the police.

The door of the diner opens, making little jingle sounds and Jim directs his gaze to the middle-aged women with the red puffy eyes from lack of sleep. Her eyes met his, and only for a moment does he feel as though it’s his best friend staring back at him. That feeling quickly passes as she makes her way over to him.

"Are you Jim?" she inquires.

He nods and stands up so fast that he almost knocks his coffee onto the floor. It spills over a little and scalds his lap.

"Ow! Shit!" he bends over to wipe his pants and at the same time greet Mrs. Beesley. "Yes, sorry. That’s – that me. Thanks for coming."

As he sits back down, he can tell just by looking at her that she would normally smile warmly at his greeting. But now, she merely grimaces and takes a seat across from him.

They are both silent for a few moments.

"How’s Pam?" Mrs. Beesley asks timidly with a hint of apprehension.

He stares at her for an instant and is suddenly struck with the realization that she probably only knows a little bit more than he does about Pam’s situation. By the flare in her eyes, Jim can tell that Mrs. Beesley is practically aching for any news about her daughter. A abrupt desire to slap himself in the head overwhelms him, and he feels so foolish as to think that Pam’s mom would have any more information than he does, because, at that moment, he remember from Pam’s messages that she has been avoiding her own mother.

Just as Jim opens his mouth to answer, he’s startled at his inability to speak. It’s as if the power in his own voice box has gone out. He sits there with his mouth forming silent words and watches as Mrs. Beesley bites her lip with worry. Her action, her facial expression, her eyes bring back an overpowering familiarity of past friendships, and then without warning, Mrs. Beesley’s face is quickly becoming a hazy, wet blur.

A warm flush flashes throughout his body, and he looks down at his napkin. There’s a terrible pain in his throat and he immediately wishes that he hadn’t bothered to call Pam’s mom at all. He knows that he already looks like a complete mess, but the very idea that he will again lose all control makes him want the mountains to crumble and cover him completely.

"Jim?" he hears her voice, and at that moment she sounds so much like her. His Pam. Not the stranger that he had confronted only a few hours before.

He blinks, and his eyelids push two plump, hot tears from his eyes. He watches as they quickly fall and land on his napkin. Jim stares as his tears are absorbed in the paper cloth and turn into wet marks. As he closes his eyes, he can feel more wetness leak from his lids and warmly slip down his cheeks. Holding his breath, he prays that some miracle will occur so that he can escape.

That’s when he feels her comforting hand over his.

Opening his eyes, the light hits his moist irises making everything look much more clear. He can see Mrs. Beesley’s face better as little droplets of water cling to his lashes. And when she gives his hand a soft squeeze, his lips tremble as he quietly begins to cry.

"I didn’t know," is all he’s able to get out before he’s breaking down completely.

Jim can feel the diner’s owner watching him. Hell, he can practically smell they guy’s curiosity. He’s feels so embarrassed for crying like this, his shame is made even worse when he takes in the fact that he’s losing it in front of a women he’s never really met before. But then Mrs. Beesley is talking, her tone strangely calm.

"She didn’t exactly go around telling people."

He nods, making an excoriating painful effort to gulp away that swelling, hot sensation in his throat. When he finds that he can’t breathe through his nose, Jim opens his mouth and takes sharp gasps of air.

"Yeah, but. . ." he heaves, "I should’ve. . .I mean. . .I was her – "

He’s not making any sense, but he feels like he should talk. He has that drowning feeling to make Mrs. Beesley understand. The need to explain himself to somebody. . .anybody who might listen. However, a big wave of tears come again, and he just. . .Can’t.

"Hey," her voice is soft again and he looks up to find that her expression has changed drastically since she first walked into the diner. Her eyes are gentle, and there’s a small smile on her lips. "We have all night."

For a moment, he’s not really sure what she’s talking about. Then out of nowhere, he understands. Not caring what the owner, or Pam’s mom thinks, he releases her hand and covers his face with this palms.

And then he lets it all go. . .

***

Later, after Jim has composed himself and after Mrs. Beesley orders a small coffee, they begin talking.

"When did you find out?"

"Today." It comes out raspy, but after the emotional breakdown he’s just had, he knows she’s more than understanding.

"I should’ve guessed," she blows on her coffee before taking a sip.

His eyes feel swollen and scratchy as he looks at her. He can taste salt on his upper lip, and he’s sure his face looks as if he’s been stung by a hundred bees. But none of that matters right now.

"When. . .When did it happen?" he isn’t sure why he asks the question, even so, he feels like he owes it to Pam to understand.

Mrs. Beesley sighs, and for the first time since their meeting does she look her age."About three months ago," her voice shakes a little as she stares at her steaming mug. "Back in May."

Jim’s somewhat surprised by her answer, and at the same time, he’s not. He’s not surprised in the sense that it was around that time that Pam had started to act different. However, he completely stunned that she’s had to carry the memory of her rape around for that long.

"H-how?" he hushes. For some reason he can’t explain, he gulps down his coffee, which has now turned cold and bitter.

Her eyes flicker between him and her coffee for a moment, and then she’s frowning deeply.

"I don’t know all the details," she starts. "I’m not sure I really want to know them, but I got a call early one morning from the police. They told me that Pam wanted to see me. That she had an. . . accident." She runs a hand over her mouth and Jim shudders, suddenly feeling sick.

Then Mrs. Beesley laughs. It’s hard, and hallow, and Jim isn’t sure he wants to hear her laugh like that again. "Odd, isn’t it? I mean, what happened to her was hardly an ‘accident.’ I don’t know why everyone keeps calling it that."

Jim isn’t really sure what to say, so he keeps his mouth shut and lets her continue.

"My husband and I rushed to Scranton as fast as we could. And when we got there, she was in the hospital. I didn’t even get to talk to her, the police were the ones who told me what happened. And when I finally saw her, she was just. . . just lying there watching some terrible paid programming with this. . .hallow expression."

The imagine of Pam lying in a cold hospital bed, hurt and broken makes his chest hurt, and he’s fights the strong desire to tell Mrs. Beesley to stop talking.

"I mean, she didn’t look too bad – her lip had a big scab on it, and she had a large bandage on her neck – but she didn’t look like my daughter." Mrs. Beesley’s voice has become a little shorter and Jim drags his eyes away from his mug to stare at her.

"But then she saw me, and – she started to cry. All I remember is that her lip split open and blood started to run down her chin, and all I could think to do was frantically searched her room for a damn tissue." Her last word cracks, and Jim can now see fresh tears in her own eyes.

When he looks at her, a quick, flashing feeling of anger overtakes him, and he’s a bit shocked that this emotion hasn’t hit him already. Turning his eyes to the window, he watches as the rain falls faster and faster onto the black pavement. A ragged desire to smash his hand through the glass of the window swells inside of him, and then he’s struck with the realization that his jaw hurts like hell because he’s been grinding his teeth while listening to Pam’s mom.

"Anyway," Mrs. Beesley continues and swallows her tears, "We took her home with us that night. She stayed for two weeks before she insisted that she was better and wanted to go back to work. I thought she wasn’t being honest with me. However, I wanted to believe her, ya know? But then she wouldn’t call me. She used to call me every other night. She stopped answering her phone, and the only way I could get her to talk to me was to drive down there and practically break down her door. Her father and I convinced her to go to a support group, and she told me she was going. Now that I’ve seen you," she tries to look kindly at him, "I can see that’s a lie."

"That’s how I found out," he mutters. She raises her eyebrows at him, so he hurtles on. "I. . .I found out that she was in a support group. I didn’t know what for, so I called the head of the group. She told me."

They look at each other for some time when a loud crack of thunder makes Mrs. Beesley jump, and a sharp blaze of lighting streaks throughout the diner.

"What happened tonight?" her question makes him want to laugh. What didn’t happen tonight?

So he tells her the abridged version of what happened, leaving out the parts of him being a terrible friend, and when he’s finished, Mrs. Beesley looks like she wants to hop in her car and drive to Pam’s apartment herself.

"I wished she had told you earlier," she says as she listens to the end of Jim‘s story. "I think you really could have helped her."

Jim shakes his head. "I don’t know – "

"I’m not surprised that she didn’t tell you, though," she adds, cutting Jim off.

And then everything is so quiet. The only sound is the rain splattering dramatically outside. Finally, she breaks the silence.

"She loves you, you know."

Jim opens his mouth, but, for the billionth time that night, words fail him.

"She loves you. She’s in love with you. I knew that before she got raped. When you left, she sobbed over the phone. And when she called off her wedding, she only spoke of Roy a few times. But somehow, the conversation always came back to you, and she would plead and ask me for advice on how to reconnect with you. When you left, she assumed it was because you hated her for turning you down. And then you came back, and she. . .stopped talking about you all the time. She mentioned that you had a girlfriend, but later when Roy attacked you, she told me that you two were ‘officially’ not friends anymore, and that she didn’t think you would ever forgive her."

As she finishes, Jim’s head is spinning and he is dazed that a woman that he as never met before could know such intimate details about his life. She seems to read his mind, and leans back in her chair.

"That’s why I’m not shocked that she hid her attack from you. You’re the person she cares about the most. Your opinion means everything to her. And she’s so ashamed and embarrassed that I think she’d literally rather die than have you find out about her worst moment."

"But it’s not her fault!" Jim exclaims loudly. "I would never. . .She’s completely innocent. How could she ever feel like she was to blame?"

Mrs. Beesley is shaking her head again. "You don’t understand, Jim. The night I took her home, I had her settle in her old bedroom. She grabbed my hand and asked me to stay, and when I did, she began to sob again," the memory seems to hit Pam’s mother hard, and she’s struggling to finish. "And you know what she kept saying all throughout the night?"

Jim doesn’t bother to ask, shake is head or do anything. He just waits, afraid of what the answer might be.

"She kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ like it was her fault. Like she was to blame."

But she isn’t to blame! He wants to scream. Her rapist is to blame. It’s his fault. He’s the reason that Pam is hurting. He’s the reason that Pam is merely a shell of the person she used to be. It’s his fault not hers. Maybe it’s even my fault. He should be suffering, not her.

Anger and sadness attack him again, and he can’t help but ask: "Did they ever catch him?"

Mrs. Beesley’s face turns grim and she wipes her dainty hand across her cheeks.

"No, and I don’t think they ever will."

And just like that, Jim Halpert learns what it truly means to hate.

***

That’s the only thought that enters her mind.

She has no idea what to do. How did he find out? How will she be able to face him tomorrow? He had cried, true. But he had only cried because he had felt sorry for her. Pam lies on her couch and wonders why in the hell she had agreed to let him into her apartment in the first place. Good things never came from inviting men into her apartment.

But it was Jim. He’s. . .he’s my friend. A small whimpering voice echoes in her mind.

But then there’s another voice. It’s seething and high and it always seems to drown out the soft, gentle, timid voice.

Tears glide down her cheeks and settle onto her pillow. Pam turns on her back and wonders why is it so easy to believe the second voice?

***

She stands in the middle of the break room making her morning tea the next day before everyone arrives. Pam’s certain that she should earn a gold medal for even showing up today. There’s no explanation as to how she was able to drag herself from her sofa this morning and drive herself to work. She’s aware that there’s a good chance that she’ll run into Jim later, and she’s also sure that if he knows, there’s a possibility that others’ know, too.

But for now, she’s going to make tea and sit in the quiet break room and enjoy her morning.

For once.

As usual, Dwight comes in first, then Stanley, then Angela. One by one they all filter into the office, and Pam seats herself behind her desk, hoping that five o’clock will somehow bend the rules of time and arrive sooner than usual.

Instead, Pam busies herself with mindless work, answers phones, and makes more copies in that one morning that she’s probably made all year. She’s been so engrossed in her work that she doesn’t hear the elevator open.

"Jim?" she hears Karen jump from her seat as her footsteps quickly pad across the carpet. "Where have you been? You look like hell."

"Hi, Karen." He sounds exhausted.

Pam can hear the rustle of clothing and Karen hushed whispering: "Why didn’t you call me last night?"

Jim lowers his voice, too.

"I know, something came up. . . "

"I was worried."

"Look," Jim’s voice jumps loudly, but then he drops it again, "I’m sorry, okay. But I’ve had more important things to do."

Karen exhales through her nose and Pam can tell that she’s stepping away.

"This isn’t over," she sighs as she turns around and heads back to her desk.

"Is it ever?" Jim mutters miserably.

He then goes to move to his desk, and Pam can feel him watching her. Bending over her faxes, she tries to hide behind her monitor. The creaking of his chair tells her that he’s sitting down, and for a moment she can breathe again. That is, until she hears Dwight speak.

"What are you doing?" Dwight snaps.

"I’m sitting down," Jim replies calmly.

"I can see that, but why aren’t you sitting at your desk?"

"This is my desk, Dwight. It’s always been my desk."

Just as Pam peeks out from behind her monitor does she see that Jim, is in fact, sitting at his desk. His old disk. Where he has a sky clear view of her. His green, puffy eyes lock with hers, and her stomach drops rapidly.

Karen wasn’t lying. He looks terrible. His hair is sticking up on end, and his eyes are droopier than usual. However, Pam would bet a million dollars that he still looks a thousand times better than she does.

Averting her eyes back to her faxed, she makes a resolution to not move from her desk for the rest of the day. By the time lunch time occurs, her hand is throbbing from writing and she places her pen down and shakes out her hand. She sees Jim get up and head to the break room for lunch, but she stays put.

The rest of her day is spent on fixing Michael’s horrible memos to corporate, apologizing profusely to a rather mean client, and listening to Kelly’s rambling about the new fashion fall lineup and Carson Daily.

"I hate Carson. I mean, he’s such an annoying little prick. He thinks he’s all that, but I remember back in his TRL days, he used to be such a nice guy. Then BOOM! He starts dating Tara Reed and grows an ego as huge as his – "

"You know, I’m kinda tired, Kelly," Pam interrupts, trying to stop her from continuing her rather vulgar monologue about celebrities. "I think I just really need to put all my energy into getting this done."

She holds up a copy of Glamour magazine and randomly flips to a page that has the title of "10 Sex & Love Thrills Every Woman Should Have."

"Oh, totally!" Kelly squeals before leaving her alone.

As four thirty hits, Pam begins to wrap up all of the busy work she used to distract herself with. Only a half-hour before Pam can go home and hide in her apartment like she always does. For a fleeting moment, she wonders when she began to look forward to things that normally made her feel lonely.

Just as she sticks one of Michael’s faxes into a folder, she’s disrupted by a loud ding from her computer. As her eyes move across the computer screen, a cold sweat breaks out all over her body. She has one new message in her inbox.

From Jim.

To Be Continued.

Chapter Seven: 

Actions speak louder than words.

It’s a cliché that Pam is greatly familiar with, nonetheless, clichés do hold a some wisdom. How else would they have lasted?

Her father used to tell her the difference between a louse and a good man. In his words: "A louse says, while a good man does." She used to think that Roy was a man of action. He supported her, he drove her to work, he helped put food on the table. However, over time, it became more and more apparent that Roy was all talk.

Roy was all talk. He just wasn’t very good at it.

But Jim. . . .he is a man of action. A man who does, not a man who says. And Jim tells her more than Roy ever did without ever moving his lips.

***

She never opens his e-mail. Never reads his words. Never hears his message. It’s easier to pretend that way. To pretend that he really doesn’t know about her rape, that his intrusion on her home was just a dream. Everything is so much more simple when he doesn’t send her little messages during work. Jim’s e-mail goes unread.

It’s still there, though. She hasn’t deleted it yet. It still sits there, every day, in dark bold print on her inbox page. A little "new" sign over the link every time she logs onto her computer. She hasn’t deleted it yet because she wants to believe that someday she’ll be brave and actually open his message. That she’ll be strong enough to taken in his words and maybe. . .just maybe. . . she’ll even be able to heal a little bit because of him.

But not yet.

Jim had sent her that e-mail a week ago. Since then, Pam’s completely shut down. Before, Pam had thought that she couldn’t get any worse. She had really believed that rock bottom was her new bed at night. Even so, after last Friday, she’s proven herself wrong. . .again.

Pam knows that she’s on the verge of a melt down, that her mind is totally frying and that the last full pieces of her heart are finally crumbling into dust. Her beginnings of a psychotic break isn’t what most people would expect. There’s no crying in the corner, no sobbing or screaming fits. She doesn’t skip work or stop answering phones. She doesn’t sit out in her car for hours or sleep for days. No, it’s nothing like that.

She just. . .doesn’t talk as much.

It’s not that she can’t talk, or that she won’t talk, she just doesn’t have the energy anymore to have long conversations, and she doesn’t have the patience for small talk. She still answers the phone; "Dunder-Miflin This is Pam" and she still says hello to Michael in the morning, but she’s just so, so, so, tired of hearing her own voice. Sometimes, she can’t help it. Sometimes at night she wakes herself up with these terrible, pitiful noises, like a cross between a sob and a moan.

But she doesn’t really talk to people. She doesn’t talk when the security officer wishes her a good morning. She doesn’t talk when the cashier asks if that’s all for her. She doesn’t say anything when Kelly demands to know how she’s lost so much weight. She doesn’t speak to Karen about why she was crying after work one day. She stops telling Andy that he’s gross, or Creed that he’s creepy. And she doesn’t say goodbye to Jim as she leaves.

For the most part, no one seems to notice.

Michael finally approaches her and tells her that he’s been getting complaints from clients. He tells her that they’re having a difficult time reaching anyone form Scranton. Pam only shrugs and Michael’s face softens when she at last meets his eyes.

"I think you should take the rest of the day off," he says quietly. "And Monday, too. I’ll have Andy answer the phones. Just take care of yourself."

Pam doesn’t have the heart to argue as she grabs her stuff and begins to make her way for the elevator. She can feel his eyes one her. His eyes have been following her all fucking week, and she’s sick of it. Once she’s inside of the lift, she leans her head on the wall and closes her eyes. The elevator begins to move, and she feels like she’s falling.

When the elevator lurches to a stop, she shuffles her heavy feet out to the parking lot. The sun is still going strong these days, but Pam never really feels its warmth. She misses that. Pam has finally realized all of the things she misses, all the things she used to enjoy without this tremendous burden of hers. There was a time when Pam would love a clear, clean, beautiful summer day like this. There was a time when she used to be relaxed about the nonexistent traffic that helped her cruise home without the worry or anxiety of a car wreck. There was a time when a simple smile from Jim would light up her entire week, and she’d go home with a huge grin on her face.

There was a time, but that time has passed, and Pam wonders if she’ll ever be able to care about things – small things – the way she once did.

She’s just opening her car door when she hears someone’s window roll down.

"Hey, Pam!" It’s Karen. Her voice is thick and watery, and it actually stops Pam in her tracks.

Turning around, she sees that Karen is sitting inside of her car. It’s a little hard to tell, but her eyes look red and there’s dark mascara smudges under her eyes.

"What’s wrong?" Pam’s voice is a little gravelly from lack of use, but she can’t help but feel worried for Karen.

At her question, Karen’s face crumbles, and Pam watches as she turns miserably away and clutches her steering wheel.

"It’s. . .nothing. I – " She stops when she see notices that Pam is walking closer. Hunching down and gazing at her through the passenger-side window, Pam squints and tries to read the expression on Karen’s face.

"You look like you’ve been crying," she observes bluntly. Pam knows that look, she’s seen it in her own mirror too many times.

"Yeah, well. . . ." Karen chuckles then and wipes her cheeks.

"Is it Jim?" Pam asks. She inwardly chides her stupid inquiry because she has no idea why she keeps doing this to herself .

"I need to ask you a question," Karen says quickly.

Pam fights the urge to close her eyes and groan. Shit. This is why I don’t like to talk.

Instead she says: "Okay."

Karen then takes a deep breath as if she’s gathering up all of her courage. Seeing that Karen might be a little afraid makes Pam feel slightly better and less worried about what’s about to come out of her mouth. Shifting in her seat so that she can get a better look at Pam, Karen speaks: "What’s wrong with Jim?"

"What?" Pam can’t help her voice from jumping a bit, but she wasn’t expecting that.

"What’s wrong with him? I know about you two. . .he tells you everything. . .everything he won’t tell me. What’s wrong with him?"

"Karen," she begins as she steps away from the car, "I don’t think it’s my – "

"Don’t give me that!" Karen snaps. "I know he must’ve said something!"

"Have you seen me speak to Jim all week?" Pam can’t help but notice the anger that floods her voice. It scares her and makes her feel more alive than she has in months. "Have you even seen me look at Jim? In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t talk anymore."

Pam is surprised that she wants to go on and tell Karen about all of the crap she’s had to put up with last few weeks, months, years. But something makes her stop. Something makes the words get caught deep, deep down inside of her. It’s the look in Karen’s eyes, it’s the fear and confusion and hurt that makes Pam keep her mouth shut.

"Jim dumped me," Karen tries to make her voice strong, but it breaks and then she begins to cry.

"Oh," is the only things Pam is able to utter. No, she is not up for this today. "I’m sorry."

Karen nods a few times before straining to speak again. " He didn’t tell me why. He’s just been acting so miserable. I wanted him to tell me what was wrong and we had a big fight, and he just said. . . he said that he couldn’t deal with this, with us, and ended it."

Pam is so stunned by Karen’s story that she doesn’t speak. She has no idea what to tell Karen. Yes, Pam might know why Jim has been down, but she’s sure it isn’t because of her, she hopes it’s not because of her.

"You don’t know. . .why he did this?" Karen questions after a moment.

"Karen, I don’t know what goes on inside of Jim’s head. Not anymore." When Karen doesn’t look away from Pam, she shrugs. "I’m. . .really sorry."

"Yeah," Karen sniffs, "me, too." Brushing a few stray hairs out of her eyes, Karen starts her car. "Tell Michael that I’m sick, and that I’m taking the rest of the day off." Pam nods at Karen’s request. "I need to get out of here," she says before she peals out of the parking lot.

Walking back to her car, Pam opens the door, flops into her seat, and exhales long and slow. Closing her eyes, she tilts her head back and tries to forget about that awkward conversation between her and Karen. She’s not sure she can take another interaction with one more of her coworkers. She’ll go insane if she has to talk to another person.

Opening her eyes, she looks out of her car to see who is knocking on her window.

It’s Jim.

She merely stares at him through the glass before he raises his knuckles and knocks again. Pam shakes her head, tying to tell him that she won’t deal with him again. That she’s too tired to play therapist right now. That she too busy dealing with her own demons to worry about him.

"I want to see you," he shouts a little through her window. When she doesn’t say anything, he adds, "please."

Pam knows that she can’t avoid him forever, she just wants it to end. Gazing into Jim’s face, she realizes that it’s just beginning. She moves out of her car slowly, taking her time, hoping that he’ll get impatient and leave. When she’s finally out of the car, she expects Jim to go into one of those long speeches that her mother gives her. That she needs help, that she isn’t broken, and that she’ll always have someone there for her, blah, blah, blah.

Instead, Jim asks: "Did you read my e-mail?"

Sighing, Pam rests her back against her car door, and folds her arms. "No, I didn’t read your e-mail."

Anticipating that he’ll scold her, she gazes at him with worried eyes. The last thing she wants right now is to feel like a child who has done something wrong. But when Jim looks down and nods, the look on his face makes her feel worse. The two of them are very quiet for a moment, then, Jim’s eyes meet hers.

Suddenly, there’s a abrupt fire in her chest, and it travels up her throat and down to her knees. It makes her eyes burn and her mouth tremble. It makes her lungs unable to breathe and her skin sweat. And for the first time in months. . .she wants to be held.

He doesn’t say anything.

His eyes mirror something that she’s used to seeing every day in her own reflection. He moves nearer to her and she wishes so hard that didn’t feel immediate fear by his closeness. Jim shoves his hand into his pocket and rests his other arm on the hood of her car. Gripping her sides tighter, Pam knows that he’s on the verge of saying something.

He doesn’t say anything.

There’s a stinging in her throat as if words are bubbling their way up to her lips and she unexpectedly wants to tell him how scared she is right now, how alone she feels. Her desire to let him know how badly she wants to forget her terrible past is so overpowering, that she forgets to breathe in the warm, sweet air around her. She needs him to know why she never called him, why she didn’t tell him, why she still loves him.

He doesn’t say anything.

Neither does she.

What he does is something that she never would have expected. Leaning forward, he pulls his hand from his pocket and holds it over her open palm. Her heart beats fast, and she has no idea what he is planning on doing next. She feels the slight burn of his skin for only a moment before something cold and hard is pressed into her hand. Tilting her face toward his, their eyes lock again and she bites her lip to keep a small sob from escaping.

And then he gives her a tiny, sad smile. There’s no judgment or pity in his expression, just warmth and longing and it takes Pam a moment to realize that the handle of her car is digging into her back. His hand falls from hers and she knows that he is finished with her – for now. Shyly, he turns away from her and heads back inside.

Frozen to the hot black pavement, Pam holds the mental object that Jim had given to her tightly in her fist. Opening her hand, she peers into her palm and sees a shiny, silver key glittering against her pale skin. Confused, she looks back toward the main entrance, but Jim is gone, and so is her understanding of him.

Placing the key into her purse, she pauses before she gets back into her car, and then it hits her. She knows, she understands.

He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t have to.

***

Later, as she lies on her couch, she fingers the key and stares up at the ceiling. Seeing him like that today. . . she misses him. She misses him and he less than five feet away from her at work. He is one of many things in her life that she wants. She wants her sense of security, her freedom, her happiness. Him.

But she’s so scared. Pam scared of being hurt again. Many nights, Pam wonders when the pain will stop, when she’ll get out of bed and actually greet the day. And then she wonders if she’s too far past getting better now, if she’s so far gone that she’ll never be the Pam she once was. That scares her more than anything.

She wants her life back, she wants not to be surrounded by this bewildering fog.

Holding up the key, she stares at it and thinks that it’s strange how a big hunk of metal can do so many things. She thinks she’d like to open the door this key belongs to. She thinks she’d like to find out more about his motives in giving her this present. She thinks she’d like to talk to Jim again, that she’d like to hear what he has to say.

And then the idea hits her, completely out of nowhere, it strikes her and she goes incredibly still. There’s an explosion in her heart and she remembers what possibility feels like.

Right before she drifts off to sleep, she thinks that maybe she doesn’t have to do this alone.

***

The next morning, Pam is awoken by something warm against her skin, and as she opens her eyes, she sees a small sliver of sunlight slipping through her curtains and scattering over her flesh.

And for the first in what seems like forever, Pam feels the sunlight. She feels it.

***

Almost a week later, at his desk, his phone rings.

"Jim Halpert," he greets into the receiver.

"Hello? Jim? This is Becky," the familiar voice says on the other end.

Jim thinks he might just piss his pants.

"Ye- yes! Yes? May I help you?" Jim’s not sure if she knows that it was him who had called about Pam almost two weeks ago.

"So you’re not going by Scott now, eh?" she laughs and Jim wonders how long it would take him to sprint to the bathroom.

"No. . .no. Listen, I’m sorry about that." He’s groveling now, and he wishes that he had had the energy to do this with Karen days ago when they had broken up.

"Well, it doesn’t really matter now," Becky says. There’s a smile in her voice, and that helps put Jim at ease.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure?" And how did you get this number? Or my real name?

"I just wanted to say thank you," she replies happily.

"Thank you?" he asks, confused.

"Yeah, I don’t know what you did, but it’s working. Keep it up."

"I would if I knew what it was that you were talking about," Jim chuckles, tying to keep up with Becky.

"Pam called me, about three nights ago, and she’s been calling me ever since."

They’re quiet. . . Jim struggles to find his voice and when he does, he can’t help the hope and excitement that echos in his tone.

"She – she did?" For some reason now he’s whispering, and gripping his phone tightly to his ear.

"Yeah!" Jim’s sure that Becky is beaming on the other end. "She hasn’t come back to a meeting yet, but she’s expressing interest. Real interest. Before, she seemed to be there only because she was being forced, like her heart wasn’t really in it. But now, she’s asking questions about times and meeting places. It’s great!"

Jim can barely breathe: "That is great."

"Well, thank you," Becky says again.

"For what? I mean, how did you get this number? Or find out who I was?"

"When I asked Pam why she was interested in talking to me, all she said was: "Jim, a friend, talked me into it." She gave me your number, and well, I recognized it from when a guy named Scott called and asked me about Pam. Didn’t take me long to put two and two together."

"You’re very smart," Jim’s voice is far off, dazed and. . .happy.

"Likewise."

***

It’s 2:20 AM on a Friday night (or a Saturday morning) and Jim’s deep in sleep when he hears someone knocking at his front door. Jim’s too damn tired to care, so he pretends to be sleeping, and just as he begins to drift off again, he hears his front door open.

Creeping downstairs with his baseball bat, Jim scans his livingroom for an intruder when he sees a woman in the of the entrance of his house.

"Jim?" the woman hushes and Jim drops his bat in surprise.

Flicking on his light, he almost tumbles downstairs towards Pam who’s standing nervously in his livingroom. She looks exhausted and apprehensive, likes she’s afraid he’ll yell at her, or throw her out. She looks confused, and he is a little confused, but they gawk at each other for a moment until Pam turns the color of his old car, and starts toward the front door.

"This was a bad idea. I’m sorry I woke you." She’s already dashing for the door.

"Pam! Wait!" he shouts. She stops, turns around, and fiddles with the key he had given her days ago.

"I should’ve called you," she whispers. " I should’ve asked you before I just came over."

He wants to tell her that he doesn’t mind, not one bit. But instead, his eyes are still fixed on the key in her hand.

"I’m glad you decided to use the copy I gave you. I’m glad you figured out what door it belongs to," he says, his stare shifting over to his own front door.

She looks uncomfortable, like she’s just made a huge last minute decision and his now regretting it. Pam’s eyes are red, her hands are shaking, her cheeks swollen with tears, and Jim wonders if the reason she came to him is because she’s getting better, or because she’s getting worse. Either way, he sees a small white slip of paper in her hands.

"What’s that?" he questions, pointing at the small piece of paper.

"Directions to your house," she answers.

"So, you finally opened my e-mail?"

Her eyes meet his and she looks beautiful. He dares not to hope that she’ll take him up on his offer, because he wants her out of that house. Her mother had told him where she had been raped, and he wants her gone, far away from her apartment as possible. Jim needs to take care of her, to show her that he still loves her. It wasn’t enough to tell her that he loved her, he needs to do it. Because Jim is a man of action, not a man of words.

Then, Pam shuts his front door and he knows that she is going to stay.

"Yeah, I finally opened it," she says in a small voice.

Chapter Eight: 

The first night, he had stared up at his ceiling, eyes wide, not believing that she was actually in his house, downstairs, sleeping on his sofa. He had offered her his bed, but not before she had turned away, shaking her head and telling him that she didn’t want to sleep in a bed tonight. That his couch would do just fine. Jim didn’t ask any questions because he didn’t think he actually wanted to know more about her incident. . .not right then, anyway.

He didn’t sleep for the remainder of the night. Just staring, staring, staring into space. . .and wondering. . .

The next day, she had left to go back to her apartment, and by the time Jim had realized that she was gone, he had nearly cried. He remembers rushing out his door and tripping down his porch, his eyes darting wildly in his skull, trying to find her. How he scared the shit out of a little old lady by running a red light and almost smashing into her car. How he’d driven with white-hot craze into the parking lot of her building in time to see her slowly climbing out of her vehicle, her eyes sad, red, and tired.

He remembers a lot about that Saturday morning.

The second night, Jim still couldn’t sleep, and had snuck down into the kitchen to take something that would knock him out. As quietly as he could, he passed Pam sleeping on the couch. Looking down, he suddenly noticed that she wasn’t asleep, but wide awake, and watching him closely.

On the third night, he was awoken by the sound of her moving around downstairs. At first, he almost got up to check and see what she was doing. But he didn’t want to scare her, or make her feel embarrassed. After all, they had gone to work earlier that day, and he knew that she needed time just to wind down from spending an entire day at the office. Pam should have her own time to do what she wanted without feeling watched.

After about a half hour of her restless movements, Jim was very curious to see what she was up to. Closing his eyes, he wondered what it would be like to go down and talk to her like nothing had happened. Like the entire last year was nothing more than a dream. A terrible, terrible nightmare that he would wake up from. He wanted to go down there, and joke around with her. He wanted to see her smile and hear her laugh. He needed it.

Sometimes, he would think about the old Pam. He would think about all the time he had wasted, and how he had taken the old Pam for granted. How he had shunned her and had hurt her. How prideful and discourteous he had been towards her. Knowing what he knew now, he would have given anything to go back to the day she asked to have coffee with him just so he could talk to her. Really talk. . .like they used to, to be how they once were.

Maybe he should’ve gone further back, to the time when she had text him. What would have happened if he had answered? What would have happened if he had never transferred to Stamford? She still probably would have called off the wedding. Maybe she would have gone to talk to him, maybe she would’ve have felt so weird about calling him because he would’ve been right there, only a few blocks away, waiting for her. Maybe they would have really gotten a chance to talk about what had happened on Casino Night. Maybe she would have cried, kissed him, told him she loved him. Maybe they would have. . .

Jim had missed her so much while he was in Stamford. And he had missed her so much when he came back to Scranton. He missed her more even now. Why did things have to turn out this way?

This was all his fault. Her rape was all his fault. He should’ve never left her. He should’ve been there for her. He should’ve fucking. . .gone out with her for coffee. Out of all the doors of opportunity that were opened, he had picked the only one that had been closed.

All of the could've, would've, should've, all the missed chances and bad decisions, all of the misunderstandings were enough to make him sick and his head started to hurt. Jim thought about everything she had been through, and he felt his face flush with emotion. But not the good kind of emotion. The bad kind. The kind that made him bury his face in his pillow at night to muffle is quiet sobs. The kind that made him want to take a knife, and rip his own heart out so that he wouldn’t have to feel pain like this ever again.

For some reason, he had only let a few tears slip out of his eyes that night. He had gripped his sheets, and clenched his jaw, and forced himself not to bawl. He had tried so hard not to cry that his body shook and his skin began to sweat. He had gasped in his bed trying not to sob, not to lose control. He did it until his teeth ached and his head pounded from gritting his teeth together so hard. Finally, he had dropped onto his bed and let a few tears out. Only a few. . .but it was enough.

And then he heard it. . .

The sound of his refrigerator opening.

The sound of cereal hitting one of his glass bowls.

And then he heard the best sound in the world.

So, she had finally found her appetite? He hadn’t seen her eat anything in weeks. Of course, she must’ve eaten sometimes, she was still alive after all. But she was in his house, eating his food, rummaging through his fridge.

Jim turned over in the dark and smiled.

***

Now, three weeks later, he watches her on Sunday morning as she sits at his table, reading the paper. They still don’t talk much, and he’s trying to be patient, but she does need to take care of certain things.

"So," he starts, "maybe you should move in. . ."

Pam just about drops her paper and stares at him.

"I mean – " he sputters, "You still are paying rent to live in your old apartment, Pam. You should just move out, and stay here until you find somewhere better to live."

"Jim. . ."

"Look, there’s no point paying rent to a place you haven’t seen in weeks."

For some reason, he thought it would have taken more to convince her, but she seems thoughtful for a moment before she nods and turns back to her paper. He’s not sure if that was a yes, or a no, but it’s more of a direct answer than he’s gotten from her in a very long time. So he’s happy to take what he can get.

Standing up to put his dishes away in the sink, he’s just about to ask her if she wants to go back to her place and pick up some things when she beats him to it.

"I have a meeting tomorrow night," she says, somewhat nervously.

"A meeting?" he stares at her confused. "Is Michael making you take notes or something?"

"Um. . .no, not really. . ." Pam now looks very embarrassed and is staring at some spilt sugar on the table.

It takes him a moment, but he finally gets it.

"What? You have a meeting? Tomorrow?! That’s. . .that’s great, Pam!" He’s smiling so wide he’s sure his lips will split. She’s taking a long time, but at least she’s going somewhere. Baby steps. . .

"Uh, yeah," she looks up and her face his turning red as she speaks. "And I don’t really want to go by myself."

His patience is paying off, even if it’s only in small doses.

***

The Scranton Support for Sexual Assault Survivors (or SSSAS) is a much larger group than Jim thought it would be. He had no idea how many women had been victims of terrible crimes. He always had an idea that support groups took place in someone’s house, with a bunch of scared looking, roughed up women clinging to each other, crying, standing up and talking about how angry they were with men.

Instead, they meet at the local middle school every Wednesday night when the gym is free from school plays, games, etc. They serve free doughnuts and juice, sometimes hot chocolate, and carrots and dip for the girls that are "watching their figure." The women, much to his surprise, are very friendly, and fresh looking and talk, make jokes, and seem to be good friends. There are only a few who act like Pam.

There are only a few who sit quietly and stare off into space, looking nervous and afraid to speak. For what Jim can see, they seem to be new, and not used to talking about their experience.

Jim and Pam sit next to each other. The other women smile widely at Pam and wave at the both of them. The other girls, who look like they’re made of stone, stare worriedly at Jim as she sits in the cheap metal, foldout chairs.

And for the first time, Jim actually gets to meet Becky.

She’s not how he had pictured her at all. For some reason, he had pictured her as a blond, and a little large around the waist. Jim had also assumed that she was in her early or mid thirties. But he was surprised at the image of the woman who stood before him.

Tonight, he’s learned that Becky, for one, has long brown hair. She’s not in any way fat, but she is also not a stick. She wears thick, black, Tina Fey type glasses, and looks like she’s in her mid twenties.

"Alright, ladies," Becky begins as she stands up after the girls have all settled down. "I’d like to get started. First, we have a few visitors tonight. Mary and Cynthia." Everyone looks at the two women who Jim assumed were afraid of him. "And we’d like to welcome back Pam!" she says brightly.

Pam shyly waves back and stares down at her lap.

"So," Becky continues, "Who’s your friend?" She nods in Jim’s direction and Jim feels a little awkward being the only man in a group full of women.

"I’m Jim. I’m Pam’s collogue and friend," Jim smiles at the women, most of them grin back, and he feels a little less tense.

"So, you’re the famous Jim, eh?" Becky laughs. "Well, it’s nice to finally meet you."

The meeting is one of the most curious things he’s ever experienced. Once, he had gone to an AA meeting with one of his college buddies who had a drinking problem. That had been uncomfortable, and slightly boring. Nothing like this.

First, they all go around in a circle and share their rape experiences. Some give a brief summary of their experience while others go into great detail. The brief stories make Jim shudder, and the vivid one make him want to throw up. He had always thought of disturbing things in the same way he though of the little girl from The Ring crawling out of a well. He’d never thought about what terrible things happened all the time in his own city.

The light atmosphere that had been there when everyone was first showing up disappears when Becky tells her story of getting gang raped in a van. It’s short, and she shares it as if she’s telling them the what time it is. Another woman named Shannon seems to try hard not to cry when she talks about how she was drug into the bushes by a strange man while she was jogging one morning.

And then there’s a woman named Josephine, who says that she was raped by her older step-brother when she was fifteen, and how no one believed her, and how she had to live with him for years after that. It’s after her story that Jim begins to taste the bile in the back of his throat. It’s right after her that Jim realizes that he’s going to have to hear about Pam’s experience. That she is going to stand up, and tell everyone what had happened to her. He hadn’t thought about that when he’d agreed to come with her.

He didn’t think he was ready to hear it yet.

The women sit in the circle, and Pam’s turn is coming. Jim can feel his stomach come alive, and he wants to get up and go to the bathroom, hoping that he’ll "accidently" miss Pam’s turn. However, he trashes that thought when he thinks about why he’s here, sitting with these people in the first place. Jim is here for her. She needs him, and he’ll stay, no matter how hard it is to hear.

The girl right next to Pam is talking, and his palms begin to sweat, and all too soon, Pam is up.

A hot flash goes through him as she stands up and he watches her expression. She looks terrified and vulnerable. She won’t look at Jim, she can’t, but he can’t take his eyes off of her. Linking her fingers together for a moment, she drops them and wipes her damp hands on her jeans.

"Hi, I’m Pam, and I was raped."

There is a thick silence that fills the room, and Jim wonders hopefully if that’s all she’s going to say. Pam seems to almost sit down when she catches Becky’s eye, and she stands straight again.

"I let a man into my apartment one night. He’d – he’d said that he’d help me carry my groceries to my door," at her words, that terrible heavy disturbing feeling returns, only a thousand times greater, and when she speaks again, her voice quakes. "Once he was inside, he pulled a knife on me."

Jim’s breathe escapes him, and he closes his eyes, trying not to imagine the scene in his head. He fails.

"He raped me for a few hours," she finishes quickly and sits down.

Everyone is staring at her with the same expression as before, but Jim isn’t really paying any attention.

Jim can’t breathe. A few hours. . .that would mean it happened more than once? She’s been raped repeatedly. His eyes burn and his mouth is pressed together very tightly. It then strikes him that coming here was a very bad idea. He tries to sneak a glance at Pam but her head is down, and she is staring at the floor, away from him.

***

Pam sits in her chair, praying that Jim might have gone temporality def when she told them her story. She knew. . .she knew that she could never be able to tell him how it happened. How would she bring it up? So, she decided that this would be the best place for him to know the details. However, as soon as it was her turn, she regretted it. She had just told her worst secret, her most embarrassing, shameful moment, and Jim knew. Pam was exposed, and right now she wants to crawl under her seat and die.

As she sits, she expects Jim to stand up, introduce himself, and sit back down. He’ll want to talk about it later tonight. He’ll think that she’s knocked down some barriers, and that she’ll bawl and cry and tell him everything. She’s opened Pandora’s Box, only this time, the consequence is worse.

"Jim?" Becky says softly.

Suddenly, Pam realizes that Jim hasn’t said anything. That he hasn’t moved, hasn’t breathed. He sits incredibly quiet and still. There’s pressure behind her eyes, and she is going to start crying soon if something doesn’t happen.

"Jim? Are you okay?" Becky asks with worry.

She can’t look at him, she won’t look at him. Instead she squeezes her eyes shut while she holds her breathe.

Finally, she hears him stand up. What she hears next shakes her to her very soul.

"Hi," he whispers.

His voice is hushed but it shakes gently and Pam bites her lips so that her attention will be drawn elsewhere.

"I’m Jim. I’m here because Pam asked me to be here," his tone his stronger but his voice is still soft, throaty, and barely above a whisper, and she braves a glance at the other women in the circle to see that they’re all gazing at Jim with tears in their eyes.

Shit, she doesn’t want to see the look on Jim’s face if they’re all staring at him like that.

"Pam’s my best friend, even if I’m not hers. But. . .she’s so special to me, and I’m here to support her. . ." his voice cracks a little and he sits back down.

At his words, something explodes deep in her chest, and she covers her face. She’s not sure what it is that she’s experiencing right now. It’s not bad, but it’s not wonderful either. Whatever it is, she doesn’t try to figure it out. Now she listens to the rest of the women speak.

After they’re done telling their stories, the talk about their feelings. Pam skips out on that part. She merely sits and lets everyone else talk. Jim follows her example and remains silent for the remainder of the meeting. Finally, an hour and a half later, Becky stands up and ends the meeting.

Chatter bursts throughout the room and all the woman rise from their seats to get their refreshments, patting each other in the back and wiping their eyes with their tissues. Pam stays in her seat, and when she looks up, she sees that Jim is gone. Searching for him at the refreshment table, she wonders if he went to get her a snack. But he’s not there.

"Hey, Pam," says an unfamiliar voice. Looking over, she sees Shannon, she’s holding out a cup of hot chocolate and a doughnut on a napkin for Pam. "I got you this."

"Oh, thank you," Pam says as she takes the snack from Shannon.

Shannon uses this as an opportunity and sits down in Jim’s seat.

"It’s nice to see you again," Shannon says, smiling gently. "I wish I had had a friend to come with me when I was new. It was nice of him to come."

"I’m kinda wishing he hadn’t," Pam says as she blows on her hot chocolate. Shannon laughs a little.

"He seems to care a lot about you."

Pam looks down at her drink.

"I know."

***

Jim stands outside of the school, breathing in the warm, night air. He needs to clear his head because he just wants to get away from all that. He knows that he shouldn’t have left Pam in there all by herself, but he figured it was better than for her to witness him cry.

His cheeks are only slightly damp, but he wipes at them and tries to forget how embarrassed he was crumbling like that in front of a bunch of strange women. Almost none of them cried, and yet he, as a man, got all choked up.

Staring up at the stars in the sky, he wonders if their relationship will ever be the same again.

He jumps when the door behind him opens.

"Hey Jim." It’s Becky.

"Hey," he sniffs a little, hoping that he won’t sound too congested, hoping that she won’t figure out that he’s been having a little pussy moment.

"So," she says standing next to him, "how was your first meeting?"

He scoffs at her question and chuckles bitterly.

"I don’t know what I was expecting when I came here, but I wasn’t expecting. . .that." His voice is a little hoarse because this throat is still tight.

"To be honest, I was a little worried when I saw that you were here," she admits as she pulls a cigarette out of her purse, and lights up. "Do you mind?" she asks politely, and he shakes his head.

"You were worried about me being here?" he asks, a little surprised. Becky takes a deep drag out of her cigarette and exhales slowly. Jim watches the blue smoke fade as the breeze lightly whips around them.

"Yeah. Believe it or not, most men don’t like hearing this stuff. Especially about their loved ones."

They’re quiet for a bit. Jim deeply lost in though, and Becky relaxes as the nicotine from her cigarette courses through her body.

"It’s just. . ." Jim interjects suddenly, "I – I feel so helpless."

He’s hoping that she’ll give him a little insight on what’s happening to Pam. To him. To them. Becky stares at him thoughtfully for a few moments. He can tell that she’s thinking of an answer, of some words of wisdom.

"Are you in love with her?" she questions instead.

Jim a little taken aback by her bluntness, but after getting over his shock, he only nods and looks down at his feet.

"Yes. But. . .we’re not. . .I mean she and I have never. . .It’s complicated."

"Well I think you made your feeling pretty obvious tonight. Just looking at you made all those women burst into tears." He can hear a faint teasing in her tone, and he smiles softly.

"Except for Pam," he mumbles, sticking his hands into his pockets.

"I think she’s numbing herself from emotion, Jim. She’s ashamed." Becky takes another drag and leans against the pillar that’s on her right.

"She wasn’t always like that, you know," Jim says defensibly.

"I know."

"I mean, yeah, she was shy, she was a little quiet. But. . .but she was so funny. When she smiled, she’d light up a room, as cliche as that sounds. And she had the best laugh, it’s like, when you’d hear it, it would actually pump the blood through your veins."

He stops talking because his throat is getting tighter and tighter as he thinks back on his old memories of Pam.

"And. . ." his voice is breaking, but he can’t stop the words from falling, "she made me feel alive. I once told my boss that she was warm, but that the only word I can find that completely describes her. Warm. She was nice to everyone, even to those who hurt her. She forgives. She forgave her fiancé when he forgot her birthday, and she forgave Angela when she said something mean to her, and she forgave me when I fucked up and got her to break off her engagement and then I ditched her."

He covers him mouth with his hand because his lips are trembling. When Becky speaks, her voice is light and he can tell that she is smiling.

"Wow, your relationship was complicated."

Despite himself, he laughs a little at her comment. When she speaks again, her tone is much more quiet and thoughtful.

"She still is all of those things, Jim." He can feel her eyes on him as she watches him. "She’s still the same person. She just – doesn’t know how to deal with her rape."

"I don’t know what to do. She won’t talk to me. I don’t know if I can help her." He feels so defeated, like this is it. Like he’s going to feel this way for the rest of his life. It’s a thought that almost sends him over the edge.

"Jim," now she sounds a little sterner, and her hand reaches out and touches his arm. "I’m going to tell you something." Turning his head aside, he stares at her and is shocked to see how young she looks up close. Wanting to hear what she has to say, he give her his full attention.

"You can be there for Pam. You can help her, support her. You can tell her that she’s the most special person in the world. You can tell her that her rape wasn’t her fault, and that she has nothing to be ashamed of. You can take care of her, love her, show her how much she means to you. You can take her as far away from Scranton as you’d like. You can keep her safe. You can shower her with all of the love and affection that’s in your heart. . .But, Jim – you can’t make her get better."

Her words hit him hard, and he can’t stop the small tear that rolls down his cheek as he stares into her face.

"Pam can only get better if she wants to get better," Becky says as if to make him understand. "In the end, it’s up to her. You can only do so much." When he doesn’t answer, she tugs on his arm. "And believe it or not, Jim, she’s not your responsibility."

At that his silence breaks.

"Yeah. . .yeah she kinda is." As he says that he turns away from her and shifts his gaze back to the stars. "I owe her that much."

Stamping her cigarette out in a nearby ashtray, Becky takes a deep breathe of clean air. "I admire you, Jim. You must really love her. Sometimes, even for the most patient men, it’s too much."

"How do you do it?" he asks out of the blue. Now that his not as likely to cry, he turns back to Becky.

"Do what?" she asks shrugging.

"How do you get out of bed, everyday, and live? How can you still look at men, and not – hate them?"

After what he had heard in the meeting tonight, Jim was so sick with his own gender. They were a disgrace, an embarrassment to him. Now that he really thought about it, who where the ones that mostly did the raping and the killing? Who were the ones that were arrested for kiddy pornography or sexual harassment? Who were the ones who mostly beat their spouses and abused their children? For the majority, it was men.

Becky seems surprised by his question. Folding her arms across her chest, she smiles and looks up at him.

"I can live because I gave myself something to live for. And I don’t hate men because not all men are like that. There are good men out there. There are men who restore my faith in humanity. Men like you." Turning around, she starts to head back into the building. "I turned twenty-four this year, and I’m not going to waste my years living in a hell I created for myself."

"You’re only twenty-four?" he asks aghast.

"I was raped when I was sixteen. But I got through it, and Pam will get through it, too. Jim," there was finality in her tone, "It does get easier. You just have to have patience."

And with that, she turns and heads back into the building, leaving him alone with his fears and doubts.

***

Later, that night, as they drive back to his house, Pam leans against the passenger-side door. Her head resting on the window as her eyes drift shut and her breathing calmly slowing. After all the emotions she had gone through tonight, she had been left exhausted.

Jim drives in silence, trying not to wake her. It was a rough night, for both of them, and he’s eager to get back home and get some sleep.

"Jim?" He can barely hear her over the hum of the car.

"Hmm?" he asks keeping his eyes on the road. It takes her a minute to speak, but when she does, he smiles all the way home.

"Thank you."

Maybe Becky was right after all.

To Be Continued. . .

Chapter Nine: 

She has her first sex dream about him about a month after she moves in.

Sure, she’s had sex dreams about him before. And she had them a lot after she and Roy had broken up. But this is the first sex dream she’s had since her . . .

To be honest, it’s not filled with panting and moaning, or soft whispers of love. Hell, there’s no raw, animal lust, no drunken, obsessive desire, no flinging clothes in all different directions, or even a moment of heartfelt pleasure. She didn’t even feel – a sensation while having the dream.

Actually, the sex with him isn’t really what sticks out in her mind as she remembers her dream. Like all dreams, it was clear the moment she had woken up, but the images faded quickly away as the hours and days ticked on. There is one reason why Pam never, ever tells people her dreams is because they’re. . .kind weird. Very weird. It’s ironically strange to her if she has lucid dreams, and it rarely ever happens that she wakes up and wonders what’s real, and what's not.

The only time she has those kind of dreams is when she’s having a nightmare. A nightmare of dark rooms and harsh skin. A nightmare of dangerous tones and sweaty, suffocating heat. A nightmare of thin blades pushed against soft flesh. And it’s only after those nightmares that she wakes up, and begs God to give her one of her normal, abstract, artistic dreams.

But as she thinks back on her sex dream about Jim, she remembers how they were in a dark cave. The cave was cool and soothing, and she was lying on a cold, rocky floor. And Pam recalls that she wasn’t focused on Jim, but on a large stream that flowed by them. The river’s current was slow as hot lights glowed underneath the water, flashing vibrant colors along the cave walls. She remembers how the current had easily swirled, making the stream glitter like some sort of celestial rainbow. And she had felt so calm, so safe as she watched the colors whirl around them. . .

That was when she had woken up, but the peaceful feeling was still there. And as she closed her eyes, she could still see the lights.

Yes, her dreams were very different.

***

Jim has had many, many dreams about her.

He’s not really sure when they first started, it was more like she had slowly slipped into his subconscious from the moment he had met her. At first, there were dreams about work, dreams where she’d be behind her desk, in the background, answering phones. But then she started cropping up in the most unexpected places. In one dream, she had been a taxi driver, or his next-door neighbor. And once, he had a dream that he was ten, and adult Pam had been his babysitter.

But then, there were dreams about laughing, and smiles, and soft touches. There was a dream where he would find out that Pam had dumped Roy and that she wanted to ask Jim out. He had woken up from that one so incredibly happy, and then unbelievably depressed when he realized that it wasn’t real.

It wasn’t long after that, that his dreams about Pam started to become sexual. But not always. Sometimes, he dreamt that they were married, or that they were about to go visit her mom and dad. More than often, they were filled with mundane events, such as swimming in a lake, or driving to work in the same car.

And as always, his dreams that were so yearningly sweet would turn violently bitter as he opened his eyes to face reality.

Because the problem was that. . .his dreams were too damn real. More than once, he had reminded his friends about something funny they had done, which would earn him a good confused glare and then they’d reply: "Dude, I never did that, I think you were having a dream."

It was a curse. However, on the day he had learned of Pam’s incident, it had been the only time he had hoped it was all just a nightmare.

***

She moves into the spare bedroom once she officially moves out of her old apartment. It’s about that time that he begins to notice that the rings around her eyes become darker, and she seems to zone out more than she normally does. Jim suspects that she’s not sleeping, and once or twice, he had gotten up early in the morning to find her asleep on his couch again.

He’s not really sure what to make of her moving in with him. Somehow, he had always pictured that if he and Pam were to ever move in together, they wouldn’t be simply roommates, and it would be a much happier occasion. Sometimes, he thinks about how life hasn’t turned out the way he’d thought it would. Not at all. When he was younger, Jim used to worry about what his job would be, or how much he’d make. If he was really in the mood for a headache, he wonder if he’d be a good father, or if he’d die alone.

It’s almost seems funny that the real problems in his life are the things that had never crossed his troubled mind.

He did not see that one coming.

Although, not everything is so bad. Even though he had a messy breakup with Karen, she’d moved away to some other branch – he can’t even remember the name – so now he doesn’t have to plan "avoiding Karen" routes during work. So, at least he doesn’t have to deal with that. And because he’s been so focused on Pam, Dwight doesn’t bother nearly as much as he once did.

Nonetheless, he would go through Dwight’s annoying behavior, awkward hours with Karen, and spend the rest of his life in the worst possible pain if it meant that Pam could forget her rape, even if it were only for a day. He’s trying to be positive – really, he is, but lately it’s been getting harder rather than easier.

So, when life hands you lemons, do you rub the lemons in your eyes until the citric acid burns away the emotional pain?

It doesn’t help that Pam hardly ever talks. Yeah – she talks. . .but she doesn’t really talk. She never goes beyond the: "So, what do you want for dinner?" ; "No, thank you" and "Goodnight, Jim" conversations. At first it had made him worried, then annoyed. . .

And finally one night, he had gotten pissed.

He doesn’t remember how long he sat there, wishing he could take back that weak moment. What he does remember is making his way up the stairs to her room and tapping on her bedroom door. He remembers telling her that dinner was ready, and he defiantly remembers that she had whispered something back to him, even though he couldn’t make out what it was.

What he remembers most, though, is how she hadn’t come downstairs for the rest of the night.

How he didn’t get a wink of sleep.

How he’d thought about her, hoping his selfishness hadn’t set her back in her recent progress.

What he didn’t realize until that night, was that she was getting better. It just wasn’t as quickly as he had hoped. For some reason, he’d thought that once she started going back to her support group, her progress would pick up. Sure, he knew that she wouldn’t just snap out of it anytime soon, but he. . .he needed her back. He needed his Pam back. And he had just screwed everything up.

Jim knew that he couldn’t fix her, but he had to at least try to make it easier for her. So, he had pulled himself out of bed, sat at his desk, and scribbled a quick note.

When he was finished, he had posted the note on her door.

The next day, he’d thought that she hadn’t found it because her silence that morning exceeded her quietness from the day before. However, as they drove home, he had stopped at a red light and that’s when he heard her mutter: "Let’s make spaghetti tonight."

And even though she had ended up only eating a little bit, it had been the best spaghetti he ever made.

***

She finds him sprawled out on the couch one night. The TV’s still on with Conan doing his opening bit, and he’s fast asleep. The room is dark, and the television is low as it hums about the room, its light flashing blue shades across Jim’s skin. His long legs droop over the arm of his sofa, and his face is pressed into one of those stiff, uncomfy couch pillows. His bangs dangle into his eyes as his cheeks are squished causing his lips to pucker.

Carefully as not to wake him, Pam sits on the floor with her back resting against the coffee table and watches him.

He’s so adorable.

And she loves him.

She wishes she could tell him, but she’s all ready worried that she’s being a burden on him. She’s not blind. She knows she’s not easy to live with in her condition. It’s hard to believe that there was a time when the two used to sit together and laugh, make jokes, tell each other their dreams and fears, their exciting news, and their heartbreaks.

Pam’s still not sure if he loves her. She’s told herself that he only feels guilty, and that’s why he’s been so good to her lately. She doesn’t blame him for getting angry or frustrated with her. After all, she deserves a lot more, especially since she’s been so unthankful for his hospitality.

He’s been through his share of heartache. Her incident caused him to break up with Karen. So, that’s kinda her fault. And he’s taken up rooming with a damaged, broken woman. Plus, there’s the whole breaking-his-heart-and-then-not-bothering-to-call-him-after-not-marrying-Roy thing. She should probably apologize properly for that.

And then it hits her. She doesn’t know how to talk to him anymore. Jim was always her best friend, the one who she told her deepest secrets to, the one who listened and made her feel like she actually had something to say. The words used to just roll off of her tongue and he took in everything she said. He made her feel like she had a life worth living for.

But now, she feels like she’s wasting his life. She worries that she going to take away his time and energy, and then he’ll resent her more than he had before this whole mess started. He deserves someone better, someone – anyone – who isn’t her. Someone who’s worth the fight, who makes him feel needed, not unwanted.

But she does want him. . .she just doesn’t know how to tell him.

That’s when she notices the wetness on her cheeks and she realizes that she’s been crying. Conan’s audience laughs softly in the background, and Pam wipes her hand across her cheeks. Biting her lip, she tries not to sob because she doesn’t want to wake him. So instead, she takes long, slow breathes, hoping that she’ll stop any noise that comes out of her mouth. Hugging herself, she watches him through her warm tears.

Jim’s breathing so softly, and he actually looks peaceful. That’s when she recognizes that his eyes are closed. His eyes are closed, and they’re not on her. Not watching her. Not studying her. Not reading her. They’re closed.

Maybe this is how she’ll tell him.

Her lips tremble and she exhales instead of moans because she’s convinced that anything louder than her breathing will wake him. Her hands shake as she clutches her sides, and she tries to concentrate on not losing it. Her vision is becoming hazy again, and so she wets her lips and begins to speak.

"I miss you, too," she whispers shakily.

Behind her, the gentle sounds of Conan’s monologue thrum into her skin as she wonders how a world with laughter keeps on going.

"I’m sorry," her lips are wet as she hushes the words. "I’m sorry I ran away. I’m sorry I was too late."

Jim’s mouth twitches, and she’s not sure if he’s dreaming.

"I wish I had been stronger. I wish I had been strong enough for – "

She has to stop because she can feel another sob bubbling up, so she stops and covers her mouth with her hands. Her breathe shudders and her body shakes silently as she pushes her knees further into her chest.

He’s still there. Still sleeping, so she tries to continue.

"I love you," she soughs and a hot tear trails down her damp cheeks.

The room grows darker momentarily with the pause of a commercial break. She decides that this is enough for one night, and stands up, brushes off her PJ bottoms, and turns off the television. As she makes her way for the bedroom, she tries not to look back at him. Pam knows that her actions just now were cowardly. To talk to him when he can’t even hear her. But maybe it’s just a baby step. Maybe she’s not ready for him to hear.

Maybe . . .but her unheard words are better than no words at all.

***

It’s the weekend before the Thanksgiving holiday when Jim feels the air between them change. He’s not really sure why – maybe it’s because Pam is going home to see her mother for the rest of the week – but something just seems different.

He notices it when she’s standing next to her car one afternoon. The leaves are falling around her, and she’s bundled up in her coat as she’s packing her car with her luggage. He’s worried about her leaving, worried that her family isn’t going to understand her the way he does. That they’ll say something to make her condition worse.

The air is crisp, and the sun lights up the red, brown, and golden leaves as they fall gently to the earth. Her hair shimmers in the afternoon haze, and he stands next to her as she shuts the trunk of her car. He wants to tell her to be careful, to drive safe, and to call him when she gets there. But, he feels like it isn’t his place, so he simply gives her a smile and when she looks up at him, her face is pink with cold.

"How long are you going to stay?" he asks as she walks to her car door.

"About a week," she replies. "I kind of owe it to my mom."

The silence is thick, and he can’t help himself from asking: "But you’re coming back, right?"

Along with him worrying that she’ll not get the care she needs from her family, he’s also worried that they’ll care for her better while she stays with her mom. He’s afraid that they’ll protect her , make her feel safe, in ways that he can’t. And Jim really hopes that she doesn’t decide to stay, as selfish as that sounds.

Her eyes meet his, and they reflect the autumn sun.

"Yes, I’m coming back."

He must look unsure because what she does next shocks him.

Jim’s not certain what he’s feeling at first. All he knows is that his cold hand is suddenly warm, and when he looks down, his eyes almost don’t register her small, pale fingers wrapped around his palm. Her touch scorches his skin, and he’s forgotten what the sensation of her fingers do to him.

The look on his face must be amusing, because for a split second, he thinks he sees the shadow of a smile flicker across her face. Then she gives his hand a soft squeeze and he has an out of body experience.

"Bye, Jim," she says as she gets into her car. "I’ll miss you."

Not able to utter a word, he watches as she pulls out of his driveway. The heat of her hand is still etched in his skin, and all he can do is wave stupidly as her car disappears down the street. His legs are stiff when he’s finally able to move his feet, and his eyes burn and water (although, he blames it on the cold).

And while the frosty wind whips around his body, his hot blood warms him from head to toe.

To Be Continued. . .