Jim quickly reread the note from Marsha before setting it down on the coffee table and turning to the stack of papers in his hand. He couldn't believe that Marsha had found this many letters from Pam; he couldn't wait to see what they contained.

The first letter was fairly short, but from the moment he saw Pam’s greeting: "My Jim," all the way until she mentioned kissing him on the back of his neck, Jim could feel his pulse speeding up.

By the time he reached the last line, he could feel a distinct burning sensation exactly where she had said she wanted to kiss him. Maybe this wasn't right. He knew that if Pam could see him now, there would be no way she would want him to keep reading.

But Pam wasn't here. And this was the only way he knew to figure out what she was thinking, the only way to really understand how she had been feeling lately. Besides, some part of Pam must have wanted him to get these letters, right? Why would she have gone to all the trouble of writing them out and then throwing them away if she had never meant to tell him any of this?

He couldn't help himself; he turned to the next letter.

Dear person who makes me laugh harder than anyone in the world...

Jim smiled as he continued reading. Dwight, women, sex, and chocolate. It was exactly the kind of moment she would have been dying to share with him back when they were still best friends. When he made it to the part where she said, "Suck on that Halpert!" he couldn't help but grin in a way that would have turned into a genuine chuckle if he hadn't been so engrossed in the letter. He was so stunned by her next line, though, that he couldn't think of anything else.

Jim gasped. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

He set the letter down for a minute. This was... this was not the Pam he knew. At least he was sure Pam had never talked to him this way. He may have overheard a few conversations between this particular Pam and Roy, but now...

For just a second, he imagined himself with Pam--imagined what it could be like. This letter was proof that she wanted him. Wasn't it?

He scanned it again. Yes. Yes it was.

His eyes glazed over, and he could almost feel her skin against his fingertips as he brushed her curls out of the way and turned her face up to his. He lowered his lips toward hers and stopped to just look at her expression for a moment. She was so happy. He couldn't remember seeing her that happy ever. In that moment he had all the time in the world, and there was no need to convince her of anything...

His eyes shot open when he heard his phone begin to ring. He scrambled to his feet looking around frantically for his cell. It took him a second to find it in his bag.

"Hey Karen," he answered, having checked the caller id first.

"How's my invalid doing?"

"Uh... not, I mean, um... I'm not really doing anything. Why do you ask?" The guilt in his voice was audible.

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Sorry." Jim nearly smacked his forehead with his hand. He was pacing his living room at this point. Play it cool, Halpert. You weren't technically doing anything wrong.

"Sorry, hon," he continued, "I was, uh, I was a little confused. I'm fine, though. How are you?"

Oh good, she just thinks I'm crazy. That's good. Wait--what? "What did you just say?" he asked.

"I am coming over to see you in a couple of hours.” she repeated slowly, like the fact that he was supposedly “sick” had somehow turned him into a third-grader.

“I have some shopping to do, but I want to come see if you're okay. I'll bring you something to make you feel better, okay? What do you want?"

Jim’s eyes froze on the stack of papers that were sitting on his coffee table. She can't come over here! Pam's letters are here!

"No, really, you don't have to do that."

"I want to, though. I'll call you from the grocery store, okay? Keep thinking about what you want."

I want you to leave me alone so I can figure out what to do about all this! He was trying to come up with a better reply when he noticed that Karen had already hung up.

Crap! I really can't deal with this right now. Maybe I should just stop reading Pam's letters. I'll go talk to her instead. I'll make her tell me everything. This is crazy! How did we end up like this?

His plan already forgotten, he sank back onto the couch and read that letter from the beginning. When he finished it, he quickly picked up the next one in the stack.

From that point on, he didn’t even give himself any time to process what he was reading, or let it sink in at all. He just had to keep going, to find out what was in each one. The only time he paused was when he saw that, almost out of the blue, Pam had written “Mr. and Mrs. Jim and Pam Halpert.”

Wow. Frankly, what amazed him the most was how little he was shocked. Pam had basically just admitted that she wanted to marry him and, as he kept thinking about it, he realized he was fine with that. Better than fine, actually. Even after everything that had happened, in this moment of bizarre clarity, he knew that, deep down, he had always wanted that, too. And, somehow, he still did.

But what a way to find out! How was he going to fix this? It wasn’t like he could just come into the office on Monday and say, “Hey Pam! How’s it going? Oh, by the way, I read your letters, and, uh--turns out I want to marry you, too! What do you think? You, Me, Vegas? We could leave right now! Just wait here for a second while I go dump my girlfriend first.”

Right. Because that would work out soooo well.

With a sigh, he turned to the last three letters in the stack. They were sweet and lighthearted. So typical of the Pam he used to be best friends with, but so unlike the Pam he had seen at work lately.

He wondered when Pam had written the last one. In it, she mentioned being worried about him and wanting to be part of his prank on Dwight.

Oh--right, he thought. He recalled the look she had given him when he had asked about the cleaning crew’s schedule a while back. He had wanted to know because he needed to arrange something with Marsha and his dream girl letters, but he remembered thinking at the time that Pam probably suspected it had to do with another prank on Dwight.

Somehow, connecting those two moments—his asking, and Pam’s writing this last letter—made everything about the situation seem so much more real. He still couldn’t believe that this was all really happening. He couldn’t believe Pam had actually written to him so openly while sitting at her desk at work. The entire thing was just too surreal.

He set the last letter on the coffee table and leaned back against the couch for a minute. He closed his eyes, willing himself to focus on exactly what was going on, but as he tried to wrap his head around the situation, he kept thinking of phrases from Pam’s letters.

I don’t want to keep denying it to myself…I love you…Pam Halpert…Lying in your bed…I’d kiss you goodnight…you’ll never read these letters…pretending we were still friends…I just happen to be secretly in love with you…If we ever do get engaged…Darling Jim…You’re still my best friend…I’d love you forever…too many awkward conversations…kiss you senseless…I have always loved having you around…come to my rescue…

It wasn’t until he heard the knock on the door that he realized he had dozed off.

“Jim?” Karen called through the door, as the knocking continued. And then his phone started ringing; he glanced at the caller id and noticed that Karen was calling him from the doorstep, which meant she had probably been there for a while.

Holy crap. This was not going to go well.

“Hey, hold on just a sec, I’ll be right there!” he shouted in the direction of the front door. Frantically, he scooped up Pam’s letters and looked around for a place to hide them.

This felt so wrong. He wondered for a second if this was what Pam felt like after he kissed her.

“What’s up with you? It took you like ten minutes to get the door.” Karen sounded more than a little annoyed.

“I was, um, changing. Sorry,” he managed.

“Hey, it’s not like I haven’t seen it all before,” she pointed out, giving him an amused glance. “So, are you feeling better yet? Because I was hoping maybe you’d feel up to some Chinese take-out. Oh, and I checked the TV guide earlier, and it looks like we should have a pretty good selection of movies to mock tonight.”

She pulled him down onto the couch with her as she spoke and kissed him softly before he could come up with any sort of reply.

“Of course, if you’re still not feeling well, I could think of a few ways to help remedy that…” she murmured against his lips.

“Karen,” he began.

“What?” she whispered, still only a few inches away from him.

“I can’t do this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I… I don’t want to…I can’t be with you anymore.”

“You’re kidding, right?” The laughing look in her eyes just made this so much harder. But he really couldn’t do it anymore, not when he knew how Pam felt about him. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to do about his situation with Pam, but he couldn’t do anything with Karen still in the picture. It wouldn’t be fair to her or him--or Pam.

“No,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m not kidding. I’m really sorry, but I just…can’t… I don’t feel… I don’t…”

“Stop. Just stop. You’re not even making sense. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I want to break up with you.”

He could hear Karen’s breath as she exhaled, but he couldn’t tell if that was a sign of anger or just surprise. Or maybe both.

“Karen…it really has nothing to do with you, I promise. It’s me, this is all me, this is… completely my fault.” He waited for her to say something, but she seemed to be in shock. She had moved across the couch as he was talking and now she sat at the other end, completely still.

“You…you’re amazing,” he continued, “and I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me, really, but I just--”

“Give me a reason,” she interrupted.

“What?”

“This isn’t just coming out of the blue, Jim. What happened today? What’s been happening all week? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I…”

“Why can’t you just be honest with me? Just once?” she pleaded, her voice tinged with bitterness, and the tears he could tell she was holding in.

“Karen…” This was so hard. “I--I don’t have a good reason, I just…”

“Bull-shit, Jim!” she shot back angrily. “You can’t just say something like this and expect me to walk away quietly. Do you really not get it? I moved here to be with you. I have done everything I could think of to make this work! And now you’re saying you just want to give all that up, without even telling me why?”

“Okay! I know! I know you’ve done all that, but I never…” he paused. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he couldn’t see any way to be honest without bringing up Pam.

“What?” she asked.

He took a deep breath. If he could just slow this down for a minute, maybe he could think. Everything was happening so fast: Pam’s letters, breaking up with Karen. He hadn’t even had a minute to stop and consider what he was doing.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked suddenly.

“What?”

“Just stay there for a minute. I’ll be right back, okay?” He didn’t even wait for her to reply before walking into the kitchen. He had planned to just get her a glass of water, but as he stood next to the counter for a minute, he realized his heart was still racing with the tension of everything that was happening, so he headed to the bathroom to splash some water on his face and try to calm himself down a little bit.

By the time he made it back to the living room, Karen was calmly waiting for him on the couch.

“Sorry--” he began. But before he could get any further Karen held up piece of paper.

“What’s this?” she asked, the calm in her voice scaring him even more than her yelling had a few minutes before.

Jim was speechless. He had hidden Pam’s letters in a box in the hall closet, but he had forgotten all about Marsha’s note.

He cringed as Karen began to read it out loud, and by the time she made it to the last paragraph his head was reeling again.

Dear Jim,

I realize you've probably been confused by my arrangement so far, and I'm sorry if I've done anything to make your situation with Pam worse than it already is. I think the contents of this package will make it clear that I was only ever interested in helping you, and that if I wasn't as forthcoming as you would have liked, it was simply because I wanted to protect Pam.

But I'm leaving town tonight on family business and I don't know when I'll be back. So, I just wanted to tell you that I've been getting Pam's letters from her trash can when I cleaned there, so that's where you'll be able to find more of them, if you want to look. Also, I have to confess that I've been leaving your dream girl letters on Pam's desk. I hope you won't be too upset with me about that. I know I really shouldn't have interfered, but I felt like something had to be done, and this was the only thing I could think to do.

Jim, I'm trusting you to do the right thing with the letters in this envelope, I wish I had more time to make sure that you would, but I hope and think that you will. I know that I don't know you very well, but I just wanted to say this: don't ever give up a chance at real love. Believe me; you may never have another one.

Wishing you both the best,

Marsha Platz

Karen looked up at him expectantly when she finished.