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Kelly always ate lunch with Ryan.

Every day at 12:45, they would each finish whatever respective “project” they worked on back in the annex. Ryan would silently walk towards the break room with two dollar bills in his hand while Kelly filed into the kitchen to grab their lunches from the refrigerator. They would sit at the table in the back of the break room, his chair always facing the door. She should have known then that he always had one eye on the exit sign. He was always planning his next move.

The day Ryan dumped her was also the day she inadvertently spied Pam and Jim kissing in the stairwell, her hands messing up his perfect hair; his underneath her pink sweater. Normally, this event would have been bigger than the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes hook up, but without all that Scientology stuff. Today, the sheer sight of her friends’ happiness only made her want to vomit. Or jump off the roof. Or vomit while jumping off the roof. Ryan was always doing shitty stuff like that, even in absentia, ruining the bright spots of her day—ass.

To say that she dreaded returning to an office without Ryan was an understatement. The idea of being in the annex without being able to hear his voice, to share a bag of chips with him, or pick stray lint off his shirt made her just want to die. She had spent the first three hours of her work day in complete silence; pulling at the lace edges of the black wrap-around dress she had bought specifically to mourn his absence. At 12:42, her stomach began to make that really annoying noise it did when it was time to go to lunch. At 12:45, Kelly rolled herself in her desk chair towards the break room, half-expecting to see Ryan standing in front of the drink machine getting her peach tea and his ginger ale.

Instead, she saw Andy Bernard holding a crisp dollar bill in his right hand and leaning against the machine with his left. From her desk, she watched him contemplate his drink selection for a few moments before finally choosing something. Her eyes caught his coral and navy striped tie as he pulled his drink from the machine. Kelly nodded in approval as a tentative smile spread across her face.

Andy Bernard also liked ginger ale.

“Hey, Kel,” he said, gesturing towards the empty annex as he walked out of the break room. “Home alone, I see?”

“Um, yeah, I guess,” she hung her head and pulled at the edges of her dress some more. “Toby is at some meeting, and Ryan--“her voice trailed off as she looked past him into the break room.

Andy studied her for a moment, understanding, nodding. “Lunch?”

“Um, what?”

“You do eat, right?” he gestured towards the kitchen. “Come on, I brought some leftover Thai food from last night. It’s pretty bangin’, if I do say so myself. But—it’s number four. I hope you like spicy.”

“Um,” she giggled at his odd choice of words. But then she remembered who was speaking. Andy Bernard was the king of awkward phrasing. “Um, okay. Let me just get a drink really quick.” She began fumbling in her purse for an extra dollar. She rarely brought cash to work since Ryan had always bought her drink for her.

“Nah, I got it,” he pulled another dollar bill out of his pocket. “Peach iced tea?”

Kelly smiled. “How did you know?”

The day they ate lunch together for the sixteenth time in a row, Andy brought Kelly a dollar for her peach iced tea and a box filled with the items from his desk. He put them on the desk behind hers, the one that was once Ryan’s.

She looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Okay?” he gestured to the box.

“Yes.”

“Awesome,” he smiled. “I made pasta salad last night.”

“Did you leave out the red peppers? Those were really gross last time, no offense.”

He shrugged. “Martha Stewart’s mad. I’m not mad.”

As they ate their pasta salad at the back table in the break room, Andy left out the part in the story where Michael ordered him back into the annex to make sure Kelly wasn’t going to “hang herself.” Jim had agreed with him, but Andy knew that probably had something to do with Jim wanting to banish all memories of Stamford along with Karen.

“What’s that saying—‘out of mind, out of sight’?” He stabbed a large kalamata olive with his fork.

“’Out of sight, out of mind?’” Kelly laughed.

“Yeah,” he took a sip of his ginger ale and raised an eyebrow. “How’s that working out for ya?”

She hesitated a moment before she grabbed the end of his tie and rolled the soft material between her fingers. She stared at it a moment, her eyes fixated on the pattern of lime green and navy stripes. “I really like your tie. Why do you always wear striped ties?”

He looked down at her small hand which was now resting on his chest. He took another nervous sip of ginger ale. “Um, I learned a long time ago that if you find something that works with your skin tone and your body shape that you should just stick with it. Stripes are a classic that will never go out of style.”

“I totally agree.”

She tried to think of a time that she had totally agreed with anything that Ryan had ever said to her, but nothing came to mind.

At 5:30, he walked her out of the office to her car. She pulled him by his tie and kissed him goodnight.

He took her to New York City in September, to a Labor Day alumni event at the Cornell City Club on East 44th Street. It was a couple blocks from Times Square, so Kelly made him take her to MTV Studios that afternoon and attempt to get tickets for TRL. They were both shocked to hear that the age limit was 24 years old.

“I’m so old. I’m like almost 30,” she cried into his shirt, streaks of mascara smearing into his green polo shirt.

“Well, look at the bright side. You could be almost 35, like me.”

She then dragged him into the H&M on Broadway. It took a new red cocktail dress and sling back shoes to lift her from her deep depression.

Andy just smiled as he watched her model it in front of the three-way mirror. “Now, you’re going to have to turn around for me so I can get the full effect.”

She walked awkwardly towards him, the clunky new shoes making slapping noises against the marble floor as she walked. She stopped in front of him and he put his hands on her hips, nodding with approval.

“Me likey!” She smacked his arm and sank onto the couch beside him, putting her head on his shoulder. “Is this the one you want?” he ran his finger over the flowing edge of the dress as it brushed past her knee. “Take it off, woman, I’m buying.” She moved her head slightly so her chin was resting on his shoulder.

“You sure?”

“Positive,” he smiled. “Now come on, I want you to meet the Treble guys before the show.” He tapped her knee lightly before standing up and reaching for her hand. A year ago, the prospect of spending an evening in New York at an urban country club with snotty people she didn’t know watching her almost 35-year-old boyfriend sing John Mayer a capella would have made Kelly Kapoor cringe. Now, she honestly couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be.

So the following June, when Pam and Jim were married at a park beside Lake Scranton and she stood fifty yards from a distant Ryan, she wrapped her arms around Andy and was totally fine with the way everything had turned out.