The next few months for Pam were a whirlwind of change. Breaking up with Roy and moving out on her own kept her busy enough that she was able to suppress thoughts of Jim, and anything related. To keep herself further busy, she signed up for art school before she was even settled. Wasting no time, she took a class in the last summer session- a design class. Their first assignment was to express a word using only four black squares on Bristol board. Her word was "castaway".
When she wasn't doing homework for class, she was painting on her own. All of her personal time after work and on weekends was spent in her paint-splattered overalls, her hair piled on top of her head. She'd set aside a whole room in her two-bedroom apartment as her studio, and she spent the summer and fall in front of the open window, painting. Her feelings of regret and abandonment worked themselves out onto the canvasses. Dark swirls and heavy brushstrokes became her definition. These deeply personal works were completely different from the water-colored still-life and pastel-colored landscapes she rendered for her painting class. It was as if she was two different people- the one she was inside, and the version she showed others.
As the months passed, and the art therapy worked out all the corks that plugged up the box where she kept her heartbreak, she began to think about Jim more and more. As fall turned over to winter, she found herself wondering what he was doing at any particular moment. She pictured him in his own apartment, drinking a beer and watching sports on a lazy Sunday, laid back in jeans and a t-shirt, socks floppy on his feet.
She thought about seeing him again, telling him she was ready. But fear always trumped action, so she remained still, idling in a state of in-betweenness.
Until the night when too much wine became her courage.
She'd been convinced by Kelly and Phyllis to join them along with Meredith and Angela out to dinner at Chili's for a Girls' Night Out. She'd tried to get out of it by reminding them that she'd been banned from all Chili's restaurants for life, but they wouldn't have it. Kelly hounded her all day with "Pleeeeeese, C'mon, Paaaam!" Every time she'd walked by. She was finally convinced.
After dinner, they'd stayed and had a few drinks. Angela huffed about it, but couldn't leave because she became the designated driver as the only one who wasn't drinking, and Pam ended up having four glasses of wine- a couple of glasses above her threshold. In her wine-induced, uninhibited thoughts, she found herself unable to stop thinking about Jim. In her state, she found herself wanting to tell Jim she loved him.
She was in love with Jim.
Huh.
She always knew she had feelings for him that she maybe shouldn't have been having when she was engaged to Roy, but even after that amazing kiss she and Jim had shared and the way that she had found herself kissing him back, she'd still remained in some serious denial. She remembered briefly realizing how deeply her feelings ran for him the day she said goodbye to him, but then he was gone, and she had to forget.
But suddenly, those feelings were right there, clear and strong. After Angela had dropped her off at home, she stumbled over to her computer desk, and started up her computer. She had to get in touch with him- there was no question about it at that moment in her drunkenness with her inhibitions almost nonexistent. Opening her e-mail, she typed him a message. "Come back," it said, and that was all. She sent it off with a click of the mouse and butterflies in her stomach.
The next morning, when she'd woken up with what felt like a woodpecker drilling into her skull, she'd thrown the blankets over her head with full intention of sleeping until noon. With a jolt, her eyes flew open when she remembered her e-mail to Jim the night before. It almost felt like a dream, but she was pretty sure she'd really done it. She was both humiliated and hopeful. She threw off the covers and jumped out of bed as fast as one with a hangover was capable of, one eye closed, hand on her aching head, and booted up her computer. She took four Aspirin while she waited for her computer to come to life, slumped into her desk chair, and opened up her e-mail. Her stomach swirled both from nervousness and the headache she was nursing.
But there was no e-mail from Jim.
She found her own sent e-mail in the Sent folder, but nothing from Jim in her Inbox. There were e-mails asking if she wanted to refinance her mortgage (which she didn't have), e-mails asking if she wanted to enhance certain parts of her body (which she also didn't have), a forwarded inspirational e-mail from her mom, but nothing from Jim.
She was pretty much obsessive about checking her e-mail for days afterwards. She kept her e-mail open all day long while at work, and her stomach would flip every time she saw a new message. But the wave of disappointment that came over her when she realized it wasn't from Jim was strong enough to make her feel a little sick. After a week and a half of no response, she decided that for her own health, she just had to accept the fact that things were really over between the two of them.
To Be continued...
