As Pam wakes, she can feel warm sunshine creeping across her face and wrapping itself around her heart. She smiles at the feeling, her eyes still closed as she relives the events of the previous day. Everything, from waking up to the messy kitchen to carrying sleeping children to bed at the end of a long day, had been exactly what she had always pictured her life to turn out to be. And Jim had been exactly the sort of man she’d imagined spending it with. In all of her imagining, she’d never considered that it would feel strange to her, that she wouldn’t remember it or how it had happened. But Pam thinks now that the how doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that it’s actually happening .

She smiles as she thinks of the previous night. She’d been woken by a fierce thunderstorm that shook the entire house, and a screaming, terrified Ben. He’d calmed down when she brought him into her room and nestled him in the bed between her and Jim. He’d drifted off to sleep and slept soundly the rest of the night, safely tucked between his parents.

Pam, however, had not slept as soundly. It turned out that Ben liked to kick in his sleep and did so every half hour through the night, his flailing foot usually connecting with Pam’s shin just hard enough to jostle her from the sleep she’d fallen into. It wasn’t until the sun had begun shining a golden yellow around the edges of the clouds that she’d finally drifted into a deep sleep.

Her heart swells with affection for the little boy as she remembers the kicking. Despite the bruise she can feel on her leg and as annoying as it had been last nigh, it warms her heart that he has this trait, which Pam herself had possessed for most of her childhood. She knows that she had eventually grown out of it, just as she knows Ben will, as well.

She reaches out now, feeling the space next to her for his head of soft, downy hair. She laughs when, instead, her hand connects with Jim’s face, hitting him square on the nose.

She smiles, reaching up to tousle his hair, but stops short at the grunt that follows her smack.

It’s too deep.

Too angry.

Not Jim’s.

Her heart thumps loudly in her chest and her breath catches in her throat. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, afraid of what she’ll see, she stretches her hand the last few centimeters towards his hair.

It’s too short. Too rough.

Biting her lip, afraid she’ll start crying, Pam opens her eyes.

Her heart stops completely and her breath solidifies itself into a lump and lodges itself squarely in her throat.

It’s not Jim.

It’s Roy.

Roy.

Not Jim.

Pam glances around the room, already knowing what she’ll see. Dull white walls. Tacky curtains. A garage-sale dresser dwarfed by a huge television. And the cheap brass bed she’s had since college.

And Roy. Snoring next to her and reeking of beer and stale cigarette smoke.

She swallows hard and forces fresh air into her lungs, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.

She knows it’s gone. All of it. The house. The terrace. Jim. Maddie. Ben.

They’re all gone.

She feels like screaming or hitting something. She feels like panicking.

She can’t do this anymore. She can’t be here. Not with him.

And she knows that it has very little to do with what has just happened to her. Or not happened to her. She’s not sure anymore. She doesn’t think it matters. What does matter is that this isn’t right. Being with Roy is not right.

She jumps out of bed, her mind made up, relief flowing through her veins. She knows what she has to do. And it does not involve being here, in Scranton, with Roy.

She can’t be here when he wakes up. She can’t deal with that right now.

She jumps out of bed and dresses as quickly and quietly as she can. She gathers a few things and tosses them quickly into an overnight bag.

Before she leaves she places her engagement ring gingerly on the nightstand next to Roy.

The rain starts to fall as she pulls out of her parking spot and heads towards the highway.

She has never felt more free.