Karen is shell-shocked.

That’s the only way she can think to describe it. All of the turmoil unfolding is so far beyond her comprehension that there might as well be a pane of glass in front of her, separating her from the drama.

It’s as though she started watching a movie at the climax point. She has no concept of setup. She is hopelessly unaware of the complex story arch that had led up to this moment. She feels impotent and foolish, standing on her boyfriend’s front stoop while an entire side of his life that she’d only seen hints of until now comes out. It’s all rushing into focus at a speed so rapid that she can’t concentrate on any one thing.

So she just stands there while the spectacle progresses. Every now and then she blurts out an exclamation or a desperate question, but it’s about as useful as screaming at the characters on the television screen. The plot plows ahead with little notice of her interjections.

The revelations keep coming one after another.

Pam was engaged.

Jim kissed her twice, not once.

Neither of them were drunk the second time.

Pam had feelings for him, whatever that meant.

It’s an unrelenting barrage of truth and all Karen can think is, ‘He lied to me.’

It doesn’t even hurt. Not yet, but she’s knows vaguely that it will. It’s too new and nothing has sunk in. It’s like when you forget to turn off the stove and your hand grazes the burner. You feel a shock and you recoil, but you don’t know yet if it’s extreme heat or extreme cold or what just happened. Your body is just telling you that it’s bad.

That is how Karen feels, but instead of her body it’s her mind. Her mind is screaming at her to just leave, take her hand off the stove, walk away. But she’s just standing on his stoop, staying in this relationship, leaving her hand on the burner, and it’s getting worse and worse. She’s hurting herself, but she can’t force herself to move.

It’s not until she hears Roy’s truck start up that she jolts back into complete awareness. She sees her boyfriend standing inches apart from Pam. His fingers are curled gently around her forearm and she’s saying his name in a soft, pleading voice.

Are they really going to do this now? Are they going to pretend that she’s not there and talk it out?

“What the hell, Jim?” Karen calls out.

She wants it to sound strong and angry. Instead her voice betrays her and cracks halfway through the sentence, and she ends up sounding small and hurt.

Jim looks at her as if he’s only just remembered that she’s still standing there. And Karen knows right then.

It’s over.

He forgot she was there. She feels exceedingly stupid. She really thought that they could share one night where she could feel like he was completely there.

Karen has known from the start that she was more invested in the relationship than he was. That had never happened to her before. It was embarrassing for her. She wasn’t the type of girl who clung to her boyfriends with faithful adoration. She didn’t obsess over it if they didn’t return her calls. Screw them if they didn’t want to call her back. But with Jim she found herself indulging in all sorts of insecure behaviors that weren’t her at all.

Insecure is not a word that Karen would use to describe herself. Ever. But when Pam shifts uncomfortably beside Jim, who has yet to respond to Karen, and whispers to him, “I’m going to call the police,” all Karen wants to do is scream at Pam to stop leaning in so close to her boyfriend.

But he’s so obviously not hers that it would make the statement ridiculous. Pam walks toward her car. She leans on her driver’s side door and pulls out her cell phone.

However, Karen isn’t really looking at Pam. She’s still staring at Jim in a hurt, accusatory way.

“Karen, I… I don’t know what to tell you right now,” Jim says finally. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and he keeps alternating from looking at the ground at the door behind her, but never directly at her.

She can tell he’s being honest. He looks confused and resigned. But she’s not satisfied. She can’t let this happen again. She won’t be mollified by five more nights of long talks. They are going to deal with this right now.

“Okay. You don’t have to come up with an explanation,” she says. There is an angry edge to her voice that she can’t hide. “I just want to ask you two questions.”

He tilts his head a little and looks at her like she’s just told him she needs him to cut off his own hand. Like her demand is unthinkable, painful, too much. Normally one look from him can melt her irritation in an instant, but not this time.

“Can we do this tomorrow?” he asks pleadingly.

“No,” she responds firmly.

He pulls back a little. He frowns, and winces when he does so because the movement jars the cut on his face. She feels a small tug at her heart because she knows he’s been through too much tonight.

“Seriously?” he asks. There is a touch of resentment in his tone.

She feels for a moment like she’s being unreasonable. But then she remembers his angry admonishments from earlier tonight.

‘Face is fine, Karen. Thanks for asking.’

‘Jesus, Karen. Not. Now.’

What right did he have to dance around the issue now? It was his fault that it came to this. If he had just been honest with her in the first place they wouldn’t be here right now.

“Seriously,” she parrots back at him. He opens his mouth, and Karen is sure that an angry retort is about to come out, so she cuts him off.

“Jim, I’m just trying to piece together the parts of a story that you should have told me months ago. I’m not asking you to rehash your entire life to me. I just have two questions. Don’t you think that’s fair?” she says, struggling to keep her tone neutral.

Jim swallows whatever he had been planning on saying and sighs softly. He looks at her instead of behind her. She thinks that she sees remorse in his eyes. She’s not sure which part of the night’s events he’s feeling remorseful for.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

Karen lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and nods. She throws a glance at Pam, but she seems engrossed in her phone conversation with the police.

“When you told Pam that you had feelings for her...” Karen pauses when she sees Jim’s reaction. He immediately looks back at the ground. His hands burrow deeper into his pockets, like he’s bracing himself.

“When you told her you had feelings, how did you say it?” she continues.

“Karen—” Jim starts.

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t say ‘Karen’ that night. It would have been awkward. You didn’t even know me yet,” Karen says. Her tone is lighter, but she isn’t smiling. Neither is he.

“I just don’t see why it matters how I said it,” he says stubbornly.

Karen is sick of the non-answers. Sick of him tiptoeing around the question. Sick of him trying to placate her. She feels malicious comments teasing their way out from between her lips before she can stop them.

“Was it, ‘Pam, I like like you?’ Was it, ‘Do you like me, circle yes, no, maybe?’”

He grits his teeth and looks up at her through narrowed eyes.

“No,” he bites out.

She feels contrite almost immediately. This doesn’t have to get nasty. This is not who you are, she repeats to herself. She’s asking a simple question. She knows what she’s afraid of, so she decides to ask it more directly.

“Did you use the word ‘love’?” she asks. She’s almost whispering but she’s not sure why. Pam is at least five yards away, still talking on the phone.

Jim’s eyes widen almost imperceptivity. He quickly looks away in an attempt to cover his surprise, but it doesn’t escape her notice. It takes him only a second to compose himself. He looks back at her and opens his mouth to say something, but falters again. He blinks a few times and then seems to give up. He lets the air out of his lungs in a resigned sigh. And she knows.

“Of course you did,” she whispers, and she knows that he hears her. She is horrified to feel pinpricks of moisture in the corners of her eyes, and fights furiously to keep the tears from forming. She will not cry.

“Karen,” Jim says quietly. His expression conveys guilt and pity, and she can’t stand it.

“One more question,” she says, cutting him off before he can fall over himself seeking forgiveness. “Why did you ask me to come here?”

He straightens up immediately.

“Come on,” he says, exasperated.

Karen plows ahead, unmoved.

“Yup, that’s what you said. ‘Come on, Karen. I think you should come to Scranton.’”

She looks at him expectantly. He looks back at her as if he can’t believe that she’s really going to make him explain himself. ‘How can he be so surprised?’ Karen wonders. He apparently overcomes his shock, because he starts to respond.

“I asked you to come because I like you,” he says, and Karen has to struggle not to cut him off immediately. “I didn’t want to never see you again. I thought that we could be good together, and I didn’t want to let that opportunity slip away.”

He looks at her with an expression that seems to say, Well, are you happy now? Karen is not happy.

“I don’t think that’s why,” she says simply.

Jim throws his hands up in the air.

“Well if you think you know, then why did you ask?” he asks angrily.

“I was a buffer,” she says, ignoring his outburst. He doesn’t get to be the angry one in this conversation.

“No, Karen,” Jim quickly amends. “You were not a buffer. You’re funny, and beautiful, and amazing.”

“So I was a funny, beautiful, amazing buffer,” Karen says brusquely.

“No—” he starts, but Karen is still talking.

She has to make Jim admit what he’s doing. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t just accept his explanation. It’s so much more pleasing.

“Hey, as far as buffers go, that’s pretty impressive. Buffers just have to be able to buff. I was like a quadruple threat.”

She’s smiling now, but it’s an ugly smile. She knows that she’s being spiteful again. She’s just protecting herself. It hurts too much, but she has to get the truth out there. So she puts on this unaffected bravado, this false indifference. Because it hurts too much to admit that she was falling for him when she knows that he was never going to fall for her.

“It wasn’t like that,” Jim says earnestly.

Karen softens for a second. He seems to truly believe what he’s saying.

“I’ll cut the crap Jim. I’ll stop with the sarcasm,” she pauses. She looks at him without trying to hide how she feels. She lets the hurt and the humiliation show openly on her face.

“I feel used,” she says.

Jim doesn’t look away. He lets out a small sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Sorry that I feel used or sorry that you used me?” she asks, because she truly isn’t sure.

He shakes his head.

“Karen, I wasn’t using you. I never saw it like that,” he says, and she knows he’s being sincere.

She smiles. It’s a small smile, and it hurts a little to let it creep onto her face.

“Of course you didn’t, Jim,” she says. “You’re not a bad guy. Only a really despicable guy would consciously use a girl like that. I honestly believe that you didn’t know what you were doing.”

Jim stiffens at her statement. She realizes that to him it still sounds like an accusation.

“I’m not using you,” he insists.

It occurs to Karen that she’s going to have to be the one to do it. He’s not going to break up with her, at least not tonight. He actually expects her to go home, sleep on it, and talk it out tomorrow over coffee. He probably wants time to sort things out in his mind, time to create delicate phrasing that won’t hurt her feelings. That is so him.

Well, she doesn’t want his pity or his sympathy. She doesn’t want to play the clueless, clingy girlfriend anymore.

She decides immediately that she’s not going to quit her job. Quitting would be admitting that she moved all the way to Scranton for a man she barely knew. She is not the type of woman to do something like that.

Ignore the fact that it’s exactly what she did.

She can fix that now. Rewrite history. Staying there will show that she moved for her career. She’ll talk to Jan about opportunities for advancement within the company on Monday.

Jim’s voice breaks through her thoughts.

“Karen, I mean it,” he says.

His voice shocks her back into the present. She remembers that she’s still standing there with him. She looks behind him and sees that Pam is done with her call. She’s hanging back by her car, warily eyeing Karen and Jim and trying to pretend that she isn’t. And Karen realizes that she’s broken up with Jim in her mind, but he doesn’t know it yet. She has to say something.

“Well, I’ve got my answers,” she says. Jim looks at her imploringly. “So, I think it’s pretty obvious that this is over,” she continues. She sounds business-like. Matter-of-fact.

Jim looks honestly surprised.

“What?” he scoffs.

“I’m leaving,” Karen says.

She’s already walking away. She has to leave now. Take her hand off the stove. She’s already badly burned and it’s time to start the healing process. She hates to admit just how deep the burn is. How close she was to using the L-word with him. She’s incredibly relieved that she resisted, but it doesn’t change the fact that she knows.

She thought she was in love.

It makes the burn that much deeper.

“Karen, just wait,” he calls out.

Karen whirls around to face him, feeling the pain and embarrassment all over again like a fresh wound.

“No, Jim. I’ve been ‘just waiting’ for way too long. I just feel like a complete idiot,” she shouts.

She hates that she’s shouting. She can’t control herself anymore. She wants to keep up the calm exterior and she’s so close to pulling it off. She just has to leave now.

“What are you talking about?” Jim asks.

Why can’t he just let her leave? Let her go home and lose it there? He has caught up with her at the foot of the driveway, and Karen struggles to keep her restraint from slipping away. She won’t do this in front of him. In front of her. She shoots another glance at Pam, who is now watching the two of them openly, looking concerned.

“You know what? I’m not even mad anymore!” Karen says loudly.

She starts to laugh, a quiet chuckle because the whole situation is ridiculous. But the laughter doesn’t last long and she feels those damn tears building in the corners of her eyes again.

“I’m just...” she stops talking for a moment. She has to focus all of her energy on not allowing the tears to fall. She takes a deep breath in and out, and looks up at the sky, hoping that the open air will dry the moisture in her eyes.

“I’m just so tired of this,” she says, and she sounds as exhausted as she feels. “I can’t do this anymore.”

To her surprise, Jim reels back and throws his hands in the air again.

“Oh come on! What the hell is going on tonight?” he shouts.

He has clearly reached his quota in drama for the night, Karen realizes. She has too, so she decides.

“Exactly,” is all she replies.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jim asks in annoyance.

Karen shrugs her shoulders and lets out a sad laugh.

“It means that I’m done. I’m so done. I can’t. This—” she pauses and gestures between the two of them. “This is making me into someone I’m not. I’m pretty sure that it’s doing the same thing to you. And I just can’t do it anymore.”

“Karen, I’m begging you. Just for tonight. Just don’t. Please? I can’t deal with anything else tonight,” Jim pleads.

Karen feels a surge of irritation. She’s giving him an easy out. Why can’t he just take it?

“Why do you even want me?” she asks. It comes out harsher than she wanted it to.

“What?” he asks.

“Why do you want to keep me around? Pam is single again. Why don’t you just go for it with her? You obviously want to,” she says.

Again it comes out sounding harsh and reproachful. She can’t help it.

Jim is flustered, and seems unable to form a coherent response. He makes a couple of false starts, but ultimately falls silent. He looks contemplative.

With every second that the silence continues Karen feels the pain and humiliation intensify. It’s as though he’s realizing that their entire relationship was a distraction—something keeping him from the person he really wanted all along.

Karen can’t stand there for another second.

“Asshole,” she mutters. She turns and marches determinedly in the direction of her house.

“Karen, wait. Come on,” Jim calls to her.

“No, Jim. I’m walking the two blocks home. Don’t follow me,” Karen says resolutely.

She doesn’t look back to see his face. She just continues to walk away. Her hand is off the burner. The shock of the initial contact is gone, and all she feels now is a deep throbbing pain. She knows it will go away eventually. It has to.

***

Jim can’t believe that this is happening. The whole night has been like something straight out of a soap opera. He distantly wonders what could happen next. Maybe Dwight will show up and announce that he wants Pam to be the mother of a new batch of thirsty Schrute babies.

He shudders when horrifying images involving Pam and Dwight and beets run through his mind, and quickly tries to think of anything else. He focuses on Karen’s retreating form. She hasn’t hesitated, hasn’t looked back.

It’s really over.

He feels exhausted but relieved. He never had a specific plan to break up with Karen, but he always knew that they wouldn’t last. It was just easy to stay with her. Comforting. Distracting. And then it hits him.

He was using her. She was a buffer.

And he feels like an ass.

Jim is not the type of guy who uses women. He tries to reassure himself with this thought. But then he remembers Katy. What was she?

He’s such an ass.

He hates himself right now. His face is throbbing and his car is currently serving as a mattress to a large, drunken man who thinks that he’s owed a new pair of jet skis, but Jim sort of thinks he deserves it.

Especially when he glances back at Pam and feels his pulse jump.

It jumps because he realizes suddenly that Karen is right. Pam is single again and so is he. They’re alone at his place, save for an unconscious man, and she’s looking at him in an anxious, fidgety way that makes him feel dizzy.

“The police will come by and pick Kenny up in a little while,” Pam says. She’s making her way toward him, tugging nervously at the bottom of her jacket. “They have their guys keeping a lookout for Roy’s truck. They say that you should go to the station tomorrow to give them a statement if you’re going to press charges.”

She stops a couple of feet away from him and shifts uncomfortably. She looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. They just stand there for a moment while she fidgets with her jacket.

He’s not sure if he’ll go to the station tomorrow. He doesn’t want to press charges for the assault, which he figures he pretty much earned by kissing another man’s fiancée, but there’s his car to think about.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

It feels like he’s living in a snow globe that’s just been vigorously shook. The chaos of the original quaking is over, but he’s still floating through the water. He hasn’t come down yet. His feet haven’t hit the base of the globe. He’s just drifting in the midst of the pieces of his world, which are similarly uprooted and drifting with him.

“This night…” Pam says. Her voice trails off. She just sighs and shakes her head and looks down at her fidgeting hands.

He wants to reach out and cover her hands with his to quiet their agitated movement. He wants to pull her hands away from the hem of her jacket and tug her toward him and lock his hands behind her waist. He wants to feel her hands rest on his back and her face fall gently forward onto his chest. He wants to just hold her like that, because they both just need a moment to breathe. But instead he shoves his hands back into his pockets.

“Yeah,” is all he says.

There is another uncomfortable pause. Pam looks back up at him and they hold each other’s gaze for a moment. Then she smiles. It seems somewhat forced. It’s a small gesture, but he knows that she’s trying to lessen the prolonged awkwardness that has settled over them.

“Hey, um, you have a little blood,” she says suddenly, pointing toward his face.

“Where?” he asks, raising his hand to his cheek.

“Right about… here,” she says, motioning at his entire face and neck.

The small smile has growing into a subtle smirk. He feels the corners of his mouth tugging upward too.

“Very funny,” he says.

She’s amazing, he thinks.

“Seriously, we should get you cleaned up,” she says motioning toward the door.

His pulse does that funny skipping thing again, and he’s genuinely wondering if he should get it checked out by a doctor because it doesn’t seem like it should be happening so often.

The thought of the two of them in his house, alone, sends a surge of heat through his body, from his feet all the way up through the top of his head. He tries to tell himself that he is the biggest jerk on the planet for feeling this way. His girlfriend… ex-girlfriend… just stormed off to spend the night hurt and alone because of him, and this is what he’s thinking about?

“What about him?” Jim asks. He gestures at Kenny, who is currently nestled into the deep v-bend he created on the hood of Jim’s car.

“Well, the police said they might be a while. I’m sure they’ll knock when they get here if they need anything,” Pam responds.

He nods and she takes a few steps toward his front door while he just stands there, watching her. This is really happening. They are finally going to sit down and talk about things.

She turns around when she realizes that he isn’t following her. She looks at him questioningly, and he snaps out of his daze.

When he comes up beside her, an unwelcome thought occurs to him. What if she tries to avoid the issue again? What if she falls back on non-answers? What if the only reason that she seemed so close to really talking before was that her defenses were weakened from the anxiety and chaos? He frowns at this.

They are at his front door and he’s reaching for the door handle when he makes a decision. He won’t let her do that again. He won’t let her get away with non-answers. If she tries that, he’ll just have to find some way of redirecting her.

He pulls the door open for her, and when she starts to walk through it he gets the irrepressible urge to touch her. And then realizes that he doesn’t have to repress it anymore.

So when she’s halfway through the doorway, he reaches out and catches her hand in his, just for a second. He feels her jump and stiffen, but she doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t hold on for long. Their palms kiss for just an instant before separating again. He lets her fingers slip away, and that just increases the sensation of his skin gliding over hers. The trails that her fingertips trace across his palm feel electrified, his nerve endings so sensitive that it’s almost painful.

Their hands separate and Jim remembers to breathe. He follows closely after her and pulls the door shut behind them.