She’s irritated when it takes them almost a month to fully sort things out, all nervous glances and flushed cheeks, mirroring each other's tiny tentative steps towards rediscovery, reconciliation.

Their slow movement winds up like a lazy rubber band so it manages to be both finally! and suddenly! when everything snaps into place, everyone becoming a little brighter and shinier after they both step into softer versions of themselves, people she has never really met before. After that she spends 11 days rediscovering her embarrassment (she calls it anger) at serving as their roadblock, the catalyst she had once feared becoming. But by day 12 their covert happiness has become annoyingly infectious and although she still can’t get too close she finds herself letting out a reluctant and shy smile for them once in awhile, when she is pretty sure only he can see.

Because she feels an odd affection for him, as long as it’s from a distance. They share a couple of conversational glances from time to time and it’s amazing to her that they can communicate now the way she has always wanted to, with anyone.

She likes that Pam never once looks at her with anything that feels like pity or anger or even gratitude or appreciation. On day 17 she decides it might be closest to respect. It almost makes her want to try out the friendship again but then Michael makes his new favorite joke about the situation, involving a blow up doll and a cage match, and her momentary impulse is suppressed by the third sexual harassment training of the week. She figures she’ll try to do her best with silent communication and hopes it will all end up somewhere understood.

***

Everyone expects her to transfer right away, she thinks even him, and she tries not to find that too offensive. She wants to announce, I’m better than that, than rearranging my life for some guy, but she knows that in itself is a relatively new discovery and a little hollow in light of how she got to Scranton. After the surprise wears off she’s a little bitter at her previous transparency.

So now she’s trying to figure out a way to secure her role in their story as neither the tragic supporting heroine nor the ill fated mistake. Watching their faces, the radiance that comes from truth, she suspects she would feel best if she could erase herself altogether.

That car ride was the most honest self she’s been in awhile and she decides she means it when she thinks she is done serving herself up as the victim.

***

It is during this self imposed solitude that she realizes how little she knows the rest of the office, how little she bothered to know them before. When she looks around she senses they noticed that long before her. So she's extra friendly when Kelly takes to hanging out with her in the break room and manages to only snap at her once, after which she feels so guilty that she chooses to view Kelly’s inexplicable need to fill her in on all things Jim and Pam as penance.

“I’m soooooo sorry no one told you sooner! No one told you sooner right? I mean you totally wouldn’t have been with him so long if you knew. I mean hello?! The whole thing was always kind of ridiiiiiiiiculous. Not that you guys weren’t cute though. You guys were totally cute! I mean he’s so tall and pale and you are so short and mysterious. Kind of like me and Ryan. But Ryan’s not that tall. But don’t tell him I said that, ok? I think he’s completely perfect. And 5’9 is average! And totally taller than Tom Cruise! Well without his heels on. And like I told him ten times that someone should mention it to you, you know, just in passing, so you knew what you were up against but he said it was nobody’s business and that I shouldn’t get involved. It was so so hard but I didn’t and he said it was probably for the best. And that I was proving I could so keep a secret, after that last time when...”

***

In the end she waits a full two months before giving notice. In the end she realizes it doesn’t hurt that they are the better fit because in that end it isn’t really about him, it isn’t about them, it is about what she should have done all along.

Because she did deserve something different but she’ll be something a little different next time.

So she packs up her things and says her goodbyes. She’s surprisingly sad when she walks away from both of them and thinks in their own way they are two of the best people she has ever met. She wonders whether that makes her an adult or a little twisted. She’s hoping for a combination of both because lately she’s been believing it could be the twists that define people. She has some good ones she thinks, mixed in with the crazy -which who knows, might be good ones to someone someday.

She moves back to where she once let her past life fade away, but into a new building with a view of neighboring rooftops and a hint of the city skyline when she's precisely positioned on the windowsill. Her apartment is next to the stairwell and through the thin walls she falls asleep to people coming and going. Every night the sounds invade her slumber until finally the once haunting memory of footsteps on the stairs fades and footsteps just blur into her dreams as waves in the ocean.