"Pam. Oh shit."

I run my hands through my mussed hair. "Yeah, that's about right."

Mark smiles a bit, glances nervously over his shoulder. "Look, uh--you should leave. Jim's not . . . Pam, look--"

I can only imagine how I look at this moment, with my frizzed hair and wrinkled dress and bare feet on a cool May night. But I'm lost, and I'm here, and I need to see him. "No, Mark, please, I know I had two chances but--"

"Two chances? You broke him down twice? God, Pam, no wonder he came in, did this weird grunt thing that kind of sounded like your name--well, in Russian--and ran upstairs. Next you're going to tell me he kissed you and you still said no."

"Chance number two," I whisper, holding up two meek fingers and finding my toes very interesting.

"Shiiiiiiiiit."

"Yeah, I know. Look, I just want to . . . please, I won't be long. I won't hurt him any more."

Mark sighs as he steps aside. "I honestly don't think that's possible, Pam."

+

"Fuck off, Mark."

I almost turn around and walk back out at his tone, but if I leave, where else do I go?

"Uh, hey, Jim."

His eyes squeeze together, blocking me out. I wonder how he's feeling, what my voice does to him, but then I don't want to know. "Jeez, Halpert, now you're hallucinating. Snap out of it, man."

He's lying face down on the bed, arms wrapped around a pillow. I walk closer, reach out, brush his back with my fingertips. He stiffens. "Jim, it's me. Can we talk?"

He seems almost cautious, dreadful, as he opens his eyes. Like he still thinks I'm a figment of imagination, or an apparition. At this point I'm not sure I'm not. I feel pretty translucent.

I pull out his desk chair as he eyes me warily. "Pam," he says, pushing himself into a sitting position slowly. "I'm not sure this is a--"

"Shut up. I--your knuckles." He draws back from my outstretched hand.

"Yeah, they uh . . . came into contact with um, the wall. And the headboard. And my car. And probably some things I don't remember."

I wince, standing. "Maybe I should go."

"No, Pam--stay," he says almost desperately, and there's no way I can deny him.

I eye the desk chair, and assess other seating in the room. "Okay, but can I just . . ." I gesture at his chest and don't wait for an answer because the pull is too strong, and before I know it I'm curled on his lap, arms around his neck, tightly, my face buried in the sweater he never changed out of. He's taken by surprise, and his arms curl around me carefully. Like I'm about to break, when he's the fragile one in the room and I'm squeezing him to burst.

"Jim, you're my best friend," I mumble into his shoulder, and I'm almost positive I feel him shiver from the heat of my breath. "Girls, we go to our best friends when we need help. Can you be my best friend?"

"Always, Pam," he says hoarsely, hands brushing my lower back.

"Jim, today another one of my best friends in the entire world told me he's in love with me, and he kissed me. What should I do?"

"Well, Pam," he starts, and I almost chuckle because it's obvious how hard he's trying to be subjective. "How do you feel about him?"

"I don't know. He's my best friend. And, and, well, you know about the dreams. And the fantasies." I hear him draw a sharp breath. "But Roy, Jim! What if the last ten years of my life were a waste? What do I do then?"

"Sometimes," he pauses to clear his throat, "sometimes, who you're with is just a stepping stone to prepare you for who you're really supposed to be . . . with. So, Pam, you just have to decide: are you in love with Roy?"

No hesitation. Don't think, answer. "No."

"Are you in love with m--this other guy?"

"I don't know. I--I think so. I think I am, Jim."

His arms tighten more, and it's almost uncomfortable now, but I've wanted for so long now to just be held and it's perfect and he could break a rib and I wouldn't mind. "So what are you going to do?"

"I'm so scared. Things are changing so quickly. I took off my ring in the car. It felt like it weighed like, a million pounds. It wasn't right. I feel better now." His hair tickles my fingertips. "Jim."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to call off the wedding."

"Now?"

"Tomorrow. Can I stay here?"

He starts shifting, attempting to loosen my grip. "Uh, sure, I'll--I'll take the couch."

"Right here, Jim. Stay." I wish I can see his face, because he's shaking and I'm sure he doesn't believe this himself. I've almost convinced myself I'm dreaming. But then I feel his smile, and he kisses my hair softly.

"Okay, Beesly."

I know I'm awake, but from habit I don't open my eyes.

You might think, from the insanity of the night before, that I would be confused as to where I am. But I'm not.

I am in Jim's arms, my head on his chest, breathing in his fabric softener. Where else would I be? Where else would I be this comfortable?

I don't want to move.

His undershirt is soft against my cheek and my fingertips rest softly on a tantalizingly warm sliver of skin where the cotton has ridden up. I pull my hand over the exposed stomach and hold back a laugh when one of his arms twitches and pulls me closer.

"Pam," he says, voice low and close to my ear. "That is so not fair."

I smile and hum into him. "I know." My hand splays over his abdomen. "I have to go."

"I know." And his hand rests over mine.

+

Roy shouts, and I need out. As I turn to close the door, he kicks the chair and my heart breaks a little when he collapses into it and sobs.

A little.

I return to Jim's with my bag and my left hand feels lighter than it ever has and I'm liberated. Free.

I don't go inside. On the steps I say, "Jim, I need time." He nods and he understands and when I tell him I'm taking time off he just hugs me and I kiss him swiftly.

"See you soon."

"Take care of yourself, Pam. Good luck."

+

On Saturday, Mom hugs me twenty-two times and Roy calls thirty-nine. I find a little blue car in a driveway down the street from my parent's house and it's for sale. I get a good deal, and Mom helps out a bit.

"Anything you need," she says, dabbing her eyes. "Oh, my baby." Hug twenty-three follows.

On Monday, I find a tiny apartment but know it's mine immediately because of the small balcony off the bedroom. I paint all of my three rooms on Tuesday.

Roy has called a total of one hundred and forty times, and left fifty-one messages. Mom adds a dozen more hugs to her list.

Wednesday, as I lie on the couch in my scarcely decorated living room, Jim calls.

"Work is terrible," he confesses, "without you there. I mean, really. Dwight needs a severe pranking. And Michael is, well--Michael. I'm sorry to say."

I laugh. "I'll be back soon, I promise."

"Ryan is the receptionist. He thinks I'm gay now."

"Ouch."

"I'm telling you, Beesly, we need you here. If I have to see Ryan give me the 'Is my coworker straight? Because he keeps looking at me longingly . . .' look one more time--"

I fall a little more, for him, and I don't know if next Monday can come soon enough.

+

Sunday night finds me at the supermarket and attempting to move as little as possible.

"Shit!" I curse under my breath, rubbing my shoulder after a few achy hops for the eggs. "God dammi--"

"Anything I can help you with, ma'am?" a voice comes from behind me.

"Yes, those eggs, up there, could you reach them? Thanks so much, sir, I--" His snort cuts me off, and I turn.

Jim says, "You called me sir," with a ridiculous giddy grin on his unshaven face.

"Dammit, Jim!" I launch myself at him, laughing, punching his shoulder. "Ow! Ow, ow, ow."

"Whoa there, Beesly. What happened to you?"

"Rearranging furniture," I wince. "All afternoon. Heavy stuff."

He looks hurt, his lips pulling down at the corners in disappointment. "You could have called me. I do have these hideously large muscles."

"Yeah, I could have, but Jim? I needed to do it myself."

+

I don't have eggs. I need an omelet and I don't have eggs.

There's a knock at the door.

"Pam?" he says, handing me a carton. "You forgot your eggs."

When I return to work, it's almost normal.

The first morning I'm back, I go to replace the stale jellybeans but I find with a smile that someone's been restocking them.

The second I sign on to my computer, the number of messages in my inbox starts to climb and doesn't stop until two hundred and forty seven. At least ninety-eight percent are--of course--from Jim. The most recent, dated five minutes ago, has a subject line of "I don't mean to push, but . . ." The rest of the message is short and oh-so-sweet: "Has time passed yet? I miss you."

I feel his eyes on me as I crinkle up a sticky note bearing a single scribbled word--stairwell--and toss it to him, and I feel him behind me as I walk out the door.

The coolness of the stairwell is soothing to my flushed skin and fluttering stomach because as much as I'm wanting and ready for this I'm nervous.

"Jim," I say, begging him to be serious in case of a mischievous twinkle in his eye, but as I turn I see his face looks like death.

He's scared, just as I am, but I feel the overwhelming need to put him to rest, because I've seen enough pain, more pain in his eyes than any in my life combined, and how he must hurt--

"Jim, no," I gasp, desperate, as his face falls again, triggered by my misinterpreted silence. "Jim, I--"

My arms are around him before I'm conscious I moved at all. It's instinctive, the way he affects me, and he is oxygen itself to my starved body.

"I don't know if this will work," I mumble softly, so softly, to his tie. "But I'm willing to try."

He looks down at me carefully, calculating me, before a grin touches his lips. "Isn't that your cue to kiss me, Beesly?" he asks, and so I do.

+

As a teenager, I was the frequent recipient of the "copout hug".

Jim's hugs are not, in any way, copouts.

He presses me against him like I'm his very life. He's solid, and warm, and I matter when his arms are around me. His hugs are not soft, not weak, not loose. He loves me and I'll never be the victim of the copout again.

+

Jim proposes to me ten months, twenty-four days after Casino Night. We're in the park at sunset, having spent all day on a picnic blanket in the newly revealed spring sun. He caresses my shoulder, kisses my temple. "Pam, where do you see yourself in ten years?"

"Two kids," I say. "Brown haired girls with large noses and dainty fingers."

"That's a good sign. However, I think the girls should be red haired with cute little bird noses."

I flick him and act like I care. "I do not have a bird nose."

"Do too, bird freak."

"Okay, whatever you say. Potato nose."

"Point well taken. Anyway, is there anything else in this future of yours? A father, perhaps? Or are these brown haired, potato nosed girls genetic mutations with only a mother? Or, god help me, it's Dwight isn't it?"

"Gross. Mental pictures. And also, it's you, you dork."

He pulls me closer, and I feel his smile in my hair. "Well, that's a relief. I was worried I'd have to take this back."

"Take back w--?" I start to say, but before I finish there's a rock in my face that sparkles in the waning sunlight like a star, and he's on his knee in front of me and I'm crying before he even starts to speak.

"Pam, I love you, and I always have loved you. More than anything in the world. Marry me?"

+

My life amazes me.

Sometimes, at night, I dream that I left with Roy at Casino Night. By the wedding, I'm screaming and crying for Jim and it's amazing when I open my eyes and he's there.

"It's a dream, Pam," he says low in my ear, "just a dream. I'm here. I love you."

I smile, and he kisses my drying tears.

"I love you, too."

There's adoration in his eyes and solidity in his touch that melts me into the sheets, and him.