Three and a half months…. 

Three and a half months had felt like a lifetime, maybe because her life had changed more in the last three and a half months than it had in the past ten years.  She’d postponed the wedding the same night that Jim had left for good, not giving Roy any one reason in particular – blaming it on stress, the fact that there was so much left to be done, and she didn’t want to ruin it by just throwing everything together too quickly.  She’d felt strangely guilty when he’d been so agreeable, not even really questioning her.  

Postponing the wedding actually worked out well in another way, because she had attributed the fact that she couldn’t stop crying all that night on the disappointment of having to put it off again. 

Roy had been a little baffled at first by how utterly undone she was, had even touched her cheek with his hand, asking, “Babe, seriously….are you okay?” 

She’d cried harder, thinking about how Jim had tried to touch her face that night after he’d kissed her and she’d cried, remembering how she’d pulled back.  She couldn’t get the stricken expression on his face out of her head.  

“I’m okay.” She’d said, even though the tears were still coming.  She took in a deep, quivering breath, then, “I just feel so tired….” 

She hadn’t been able to finish, raising a trembling hand to her forehead as her voice broke again.  Roy was watching her with a bewildered expression on his face, because in all the years they’d been together, he’d never seen her that way.  

When he asked if there was anything he could do, she had choked on a sob, then whispered, “No, really…. I think I just need to get some sleep.” 

He had nodded, kissing her forehead before she turned and trudged down the hall to their room.  When he came to bed a few hours later, she pretended to be asleep, turned on her side, the tears running from her eyes across her nose, dripping down onto the pillow.  

She just couldn’t believe he was really gone.  

She’d lived in that perpetual hell for about two weeks – emotional, volatile, alternating between sudden anger and absolute exhaustion.  She’d managed not to cry again in front of Roy, instead locking herself in the bathroom whenever she felt the tears threatening, her forehead pressed against the wall, eyes closed as she wondered if this raw agony would ever end.  Roy asked her more than once what was going on, but he’d accepted it when she blamed it on hormones, stress, exhaustion, nodding without questioning her further.  He didn’t even question her when she found excuses not to have sex with him the few times he tried to initiate it. 

She became quite adept at avoiding kissing him, too, which also slipped by him unnoticed.  She didn’t want his lips to touch hers, not yet anyway; for some reason she couldn’t have explained, it was important to her that Jim’s kiss be the last one she’d felt.  She just needed to cling to that for a little while, because it made her feel closer to him somehow, made this whole nightmare seem less real. 

Two weeks after Jim left, Roy had gone early on a Saturday morning to his brother’s house, but had come home unexpectedly, having forgotten his wallet, only to find her sitting on the couch sobbing.   She hadn’t even had time to pull herself together – the front door had opened, he’d called out, “Hey babe, I forgot my wallet ---“ and then had spotted her sitting there, head in her hands, cheeks wet. 

She’d jerked her head up when the door opened, when she heard his voice, but it was too late.  Fear seized her as she waited for him to be angry, suspicious.  She braced herself, desperately hoping that he wouldn’t say Jim’s name, because she didn’t think she could bear that. 

But he wasn’t angry, wasn’t suspicious, just looked deeply concerned, anxiety settling over his features as he suddenly realized that something was very, very wrong, and had been for a while. “Hey….”

He dropped his keys on the little table next to the front door and came to sit next to her on the sofa, reaching one arm out to rub her shoulders gently as he asked, “Babe, what’s wrong?” 

His kindness sent a shaft of guilt right through her, so she could only sit there and cry harder, no idea how in the hell she was going to explain this. 

So she shook her head and whispered, “Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” He repeated, then tilted her chin so that he could look at her face, those blue eyes softening, his dimples deepening when he gave her a small smile, then said, “Come on, babe, obviously it’s not ‘nothing.’ Talk to me; tell me what’s been going on with you; I mean, you’ve been acting a little strange for weeks….” 

She shook her head again, unable to say anything.  Then he asked, “Is it me?  Did I do something?” 

He was starting to look perplexed now, worry creeping into his expression.   She looked up at him then, tilting her head to the side and putting one hand on his cheek.  Dear god, she thought, he’s sitting here asking if it’s his fault…. I kissed another man; I’m in love with another man, and he’s here willing to accept the blame for whatever is wrong here.  He doesn’t deserve this.  

So she’d started talking, slowly at first, then the words rushing out faster and faster, as if speaking the truth – no, facing the truth – for the first time gave her momentum.  She was careful in how she worded it; she made sure to couch the explanation in language that emphasized the fact that they’d gotten together when they were so young, that she’d accepted his marriage proposal without really even knowing what she wanted out of life or who she even was…that she was beginning to realize now that the two of them just weren’t right for each other.   

She wisely left Jim out of it, because really, she knew she’d be having this conversation with Roy regardless of whether or not Jim had told her he loved her. And she knew instinctively that she’d blown whatever chance she might have had with Jim; she’d driven him away – he’d moved to a different state just to escape her.  He was through trying, and she knew that.  

Roy had been shocked at first, initially not believing her, but when it slowly started to sink in, he stood up abruptly, turning in a half circle, then reeling backward, one of his hands against the wall to steady himself as he realized that she was serious, that she meant it, that it was really over.  In the nine and a half years that they’d been together, she’d never tried to break up with him, ever, and he knew instinctively that she was serious.  

He’d tried for a few minutes to talk her out of it, to convince her that she was just tired or maybe had cold feet.   When she was resolute, he grew desperate, sitting down heavily on the couch beside her and covering his face with his hands; she was stunned when he started to cry, the sobs wracking him. She’d instinctively put her arms around him, guiding his head to her breast as she stroked his curly hair, tears falling down her own face as she sat there miserably wondering if that heavy ache would ever leave her, if there could possibly be anything worse than seeing the two men she cared about most in the world shattered this way, all in the span of two weeks that had felt like an eternity. 

For a brief moment, she contemplated taking it all back, considered telling him that she didn’t mean it, that she’d marry him and find a way to make herself really love him….just to end his tears because it tore at her to see him so broken; he wasn’t as sensitive as Jim, and she’d only seen him cry twice in all the time that they’d been together – and never over her. 

Over the next few days, Roy’s shock had morphed into anger, confusion…then, after about a week, a kind of weary acceptance.  She understood what he was going through, even though she couldn’t tell him so; looking at him was like looking in the mirror, because he looked like someone had just sapped the spirit out of him, had blindsided him. 

She knew the feeling. 

She’d moved out a week and a half later, everything happening so quickly, but it had to; she understood that.  She’d moved her things while he was at work, knowing it would be better that way.   

She didn’t want him to have to watch as she slowly dismantled their life; it was hard enough bearing witness to it herself.

_____________________________________________________________

She hadn’t actually seen Roy in close to five weeks, even though he was still working down in the warehouse.  He’d taken some time off when she’d called off the wedding, and at some point, she knew he’d come back, but their paths had miraculously never crossed.  ---Not so miraculously, actually, given that she never had occasion to go down to the warehouse, and it had been a while (thankfully) since Michael had had one of his stupid mandatory employee morale boosters.  And she was very careful to always get to work early and leave a little late, just so she didn’t have to risk running into him in the parking lot.           

 The few times that she had seen him since they’d broken up, he always made a point of telling her he still he loved her, but he hadn’t pushed the issue.  And truly, he looked more tired than devastated, and maybe still a little shocked, too, like he still couldn’t believe it was over for good.             

 Of course, she realized she was comparing his state to the way Jim had looked the last time she’d seen him, and somehow, remembering Jim’s face, the tears….well, he set the bar for forcing her to witness what a truly shattered man looked like.                        

She wondered what Jim looked like these days.  Had his smile come back, reaching all the way to his eyes, or did he still carry with him that wistful, haunted expression he’d worn the last several months that they’d worked together?  Did he feel as utterly devastated as she did?  Was he able to get through a single day without shedding tears at some point, whether feeling them just burn but never fall because of some stupid, simple reminder or giving in to them altogether, sobbing until sleep mercifully came…?

Another part of her – the deeper, more instinctive part – suspected that he was probably living in a hell much like her own, only without the bitterness and regret.  Because he’d been brave enough, at least, to be honest and to face his feelings, no matter how difficult.

Over the course of those long months, she’d started several emails to him – twenty-seven, in fact, all of them saved in the drafts folder on her computer at home.  She hadn’t dared to even try to write one until a few weeks after she had broken things off with Roy for good, and maybe that was the problem.  She couldn’t quite figure out what to say or how to say it, and she found that her emails tended to run along one of three themes. 

The first was what she’d come to inanely label in her mind as the musical chairs variety, wherein she tried to tell Jim tactfully that it was over between she and Roy, but she couldn’t keep from thinking that it seemed disrespectful of the near ten years she’d spent with Roy (not to mention presumptuous) to consider just sending an email to another man announcing their breakup, almost as if it were an invitation for Jim to try to stake his claim on her now.  Or at least, that’s the way that type of email had come off sounding to her in her head, and it was not at all what she was trying to convey.  

The other type of email was more in the forgive-me-for-being-an-idiot vein.  In those emails, she tried unsuccessfully to explain to Jim what had been going through her head that night when he’d confessed.  How she’d felt a flash of anger wash over her, hot and irrational, when he’d told her he was in love with her, but only because she was so terrified.  Why was he doing this?  Why now?  Why couldn’t he have just let things go on the way they had been?  In a single impulsive moment, he had shattered the delicate balance that they’d perfected months and months ago, the mutual silence that they’d maintained, in a tacit agreement – better to leave it unsaid in order to preserve their friendship, such as it was.  So what right did he have to risk everything now?   

And that was why she’d so cruelly asked, “What do you expect me to say to that?” And when he hadn’t backed down, she tried to explain, she’d been pleading with him silently: Don’t do this; don’t risk this…what if we can’t go back? I’ll do anything to keep this friendship – this relationship, whatever it is.  Surely the hell of trying to ignore those loaded silences and heartbreaking stares is better than what would inevitably be an unbearable nightmare if we had to say goodbye completely. And if we continue this conversation, we’ll have to say goodbye; how could we possibly go back? 

Of course, she never would have believed that night that he would actually say goodbye, that he’d leave her alone, stuck in the worst kind of purgatory without him, every day the same as the one before it: gray, never-ending.

Then she’d get stuck, faced with the task of rationalizing why she’d kissed him back, why she’d then told him she still couldn’t…why she’d so heartlessly asked him to forget all of it.   And there was no rationalizing asking him to do such a thing, because even though at the time she’d only partially grasped the enormity of it, now she fully understood.  He was in love with her; he’d been waiting months, years, to finally confess to her, having watched her closely and ascertained – correctly – that she felt it, too, that she needed to hear him say it before she made the biggest mistake of her life in marrying someone else.   

She had, in being so cryptic -- “I can’t” with the inflection of a question, not a statement; “I can’t,” not “I don’t”; in kissing him back with the passion borne of all those months, years of trying to ignore the fact that yes, she was in love with him, too, and god yes, she wanted him --- in the span of one minute given him hope, more hope than he’d probably ever dared to allow himself to harbor, for fear of being crushed.   

And then, all in that same minute, she’d shattered that hope, devastated him.  

The third type of email was the one that she found herself typing only when it was very, very late at night and she’d had a glass or two of wine; it ran along the same theme every time – was always short, to the point…aching in its honesty: I’m so sorry Jim; all I want is for you to come back, please.  Please come back to me. I need you so much closer. 

It was fear that kept her from sending that type – that kept her from sending any of them, really.  So three and a half months had passed, and she had no idea how he was doing, if he knew that she’d cancelled her wedding…if he even cared.  She was sure that someone – Phyllis or Ryan, maybe – had probably emailed him and told him what had happened, and she assumed that he would have contacted her if he wanted to try again, to start over. 

She felt absolutely paralyzed by the certainty that she had no right to contact him now, when he was probably well on his way to getting over her. And she loved him enough to maintain that distance out of respect for the life that he might now be living; she loved him enough that she’d leave him alone if that meant he could finally be happy after so many years of suffering at her hands. 

Of course, the irony wasn’t lost on her. 

Her thoughts were interrupted when Michael’s door suddenly opened and Jan strode out, Michael on her heels, his face flushed; he was clearly agitated. 

“Could I have everyone’s attention?” Jan’s crisp voice rang out, and immediately all heads in the office turned her way – except for Creed’s.  He merely glanced up at her over the half moon of his glasses, then went right back to the book he was reading: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.  He even chuckled to himself a few times while Jan was speaking. 

“I have an announcement to make, one that is actually very good news for your branch—“  Michael snorted, and she turned to shoot him a withering glare, prompting him to close his mouth, widen his eyes, and look up at the ceiling.  She continued.  “But it is good news that will necessitate some slight changes in this office.” She paused, then, “The good news is that this branch will not be downsized.” 

A sense of relief seemed to pervade the atmosphere – Dwight pumped his fist, exclaimed, “Yes!” Stanley let out a sigh of relief, exchanging a smile with Phyllis; Kevin was nodding slowly, a smile on his face, slapping a high five with Oscar.  Angela looked self-satisfied, as if she were solely responsible for saving the branch.  Meredith didn’t react for a few seconds, then finally a slow smile broke out across her face as she sipped from the cup in her hand.  Kelly was staring at Ryan hopefully, while he sat looking mortified, as usual.  Toby merely shook his head and went back to his cubicle.  Creed seemed wholly unaware of the announcement as he continued to read his book, eyebrows raised, a small smile on his face. Pam herself felt oddly…nothing. But that didn’t last long. 

Jan continued: “Instead, based on the numbers, corporate has decided to downsize the Stamford branch, which means that two of its employees will be transferring here  -- one of them you already know, Jim Halpert.” 

Just the sound of his name was enough to bring a flush to Pam’s cheeks.  She didn’t even hear the name of the other person or that individual’s job description, just sat there feeling stunned, aching at first because it still hurt so damned much to think of him…but then the realization hit her in full: He was coming back; soon, she’d see his face again, hear that wonderful low, deep voice..... 

Maybe it wasn’t too late.  The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that it wasn’t.