.
Things had finally fallen perfectly into place. Jim had been interviewing with an architect firm in Philadelphia. Pam had sent in her applications for graduate schools and she had gotten into all of the schools except the one she wanted; waitlisted for Philadelphia. If it all worked out they would be looking for places to live in May. Three years ago she would have never guessed that this is where life would have taken her. That the floppy haired boy would be discussing their future and she completely looked forward to everything he wanted to do.
She knew it was obsessive, but she kept hitting the refresh button on her browser. The sooner she got her acceptance or in the worst case, still waitlisted, they could really begin figuring things out. She had some backup schools, nothing too spectacular. Just a few other schools in Pennsylvania and one in New York. The New York school was a long shot that she some how managed to get into. She just applied because Jim told her to. Philadelphia though, that’s where she needed to be. Philadelphia was dreams and family, love and marriage, forever and always. Philadelphia was Jim.
She should have been studying for finals instead of wasting time clicking her mouse, but studying for finals didn’t sound at all appealing. She had a week though before she really needed to study, and now she was just going to enjoy the little bit of time she had before things got crazy. Actually, she should have been doing the work Phyllis had left for her, but that probably wasn’t going to happen.
Jim was staring at some sketches. His final project was due in two weeks and at this point he felt like he was royally screwed. He wasn’t confident about anything he had sketched, and while he was still sketching others were in studio already starting their models. His mind was on bigger pressing matters at the moment.
He had gone in for 3 interviews for this job. The people seemed really interested in him. In fact, they had offered him a job, but he told them that he needed some time to think about it. It was a great offer, but it was in their San Francisco office. What he really needed was time to tell Pam. He had known for a few days and when she asked how his last interview went he just smiled and said good. It looked like she bought it because she told him that she was proud of him and hadn’t brought it up since then.
It was eating him up inside that he was keeping something from her. He knew he should just call and turn the offer down. Look for a different firm. But it would mean turning down working for the best of the best. And honestly, he thought he could do that if it meant not leaving Pam. This shouldn’t even be bothering him. He should have just been a man and told her what they had offered. Instead, he had been hiding out in his room not getting a single thing done. Deep down he knew he was avoiding her because part of him wanted the job. He had just spent half of the year telling her about their future, and now he was going to be the one throwing the wrench into their plan.
He threw down his pen against the desk and watched it roll right off the edge. He had been building the courage to go downstairs and tell Pam. The sooner he could get this off his chest the sooner he could start building his model. Or he could just not tell Pam and not build anything and then fail his class. That would really solve all of his problems. He couldn’t take the job because he wouldn’t graduate and he wouldn’t have to tell Pam because there would be no job. His mom would probably kill him for staying an extra semester, but that would solve all of his problems too.
He took one long exaggerated breath before heading down to the office. He sort of hoped that she was busy and all he would have to say is hi. She jumped up as soon as he walked through the door.
“I got in!”
His lips spread tensely across his teeth. He hated fake smiles, but it was all he could muster up at the moment. He was extremely happy for her, but he was just angry that he would have to crush that happiness with his news. He took her into his arms and he could feel this energy surging through her body from her excitement. He wondered if she could feel the complete lack of excitement radiating from him.
She pulled back and that smile was still plastered on her face, and he tried to look happy again.
“That’s great. When did you hear?”
“Just now. I was getting ready to call you.”
He shifted on his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“It’s official. We’re going to Philadelphia!” She hugged him again and she could feel his hands lightly resting at her sides, like he wasn’t as excited about this as he should have been. She leaned back to look at him, finally noticing the uneasy smile.
‘Shit,’ he thought.
“Jim?”
“Sorry, I’m just thinking about this damn model.”
The worry dropped from her face and she shoved him back lightly. He couldn’t believe that he was lying to her right now. He could do this, turn down the job and look for something else. Because there were a thousand other jobs that he could apply for, but there would only ever be one Pam.
“What are you doing down here then?” She leaned back against Phyllis’ desk.
“Just thought I’d come down for some inspiration.” He took a few steps closer until he was standing chest to chest with her.
“Well Mr. Inspiration,” she shoved him back again, “I get off in ten minutes. So you’re going to have to wait.”
“Ten minutes, huh? Don’t think anyone would care if you closed the office early.” He stepped forward again snaking his arm around her waist.
“By inspiration I thought you meant my amazing artistic abilities, not me.”
He leaned down and kissed her on her neck.
“We can get to those. After.” He kissed her gently on her lips. God, why did he still feel so guilty about this. He was going to decline the offer. Nothing to feel guilty about, right?
“Actually, I was going to call it an early night. I’m pretty beat by all of the work I didn’t do today,” she teased.
“Really? Guess I’ll have to keep myself company tonight.”
“If you put it that way, I guess I can take time out of my busy sleeping schedule to watch you glue things.”
“Oh, you obviously think that I’ve done a lot more work than I really have. There will be no gluing tonight.”
“Jeez Jim. What have you been doing?”
“Honestly? Thinking about you.”
He knew that it sounded cute, but he really had just spent the past 12 hours thinking about Pam. Running through fake conversations in his head. And all of them ended with her telling him that he should take the job. He knew that’s what she would say even if every piece of her was screaming for him to stay. And he couldn’t do that to her. Make her pretend to want the very best for him when all she wanted was for them to stay with each other. Technically she wouldn’t be pretending though and that’s what really bothered him. He could picture her saying go and she would mean it. Because she really did want the very best for him. She would tell him that the last 3 years had been great and that would be it. The end.
They went up to his room and she watched him try and work for a few hours and eventually she pulled him to bed when she saw that he wasn’t making any progress. It was hard to admit, but this was the first time he didn’t enjoy having sex with Pam. It was great, like it always was, but he couldn’t get San Francisco out of his head. Even after telling himself that he would turn down the job he couldn’t accept it. He wasn’t going to be able to do anything until he got this off of his chest.
She was lying on top of him catching her breath and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. Probably too tightly, but he was afraid that once he told her he would have to look at her in the face and that fake excitement would be looking back at him when really it would be covering disappointment.
“Pam?” The nervousness in his voice was so apparent.
“Yeah.”
“That interview the other day, they offered me a job.”
“That’s great. Why didn’t you tell me?”
She tried to pull up to look at him, but he just kept her close against his chest. He could feel her tense up at his action.
“It’s in San Francisco.”
She laid motionless against him for what seemed like an eternity before letting out a quiet ‘oh.’ She didn’t say anything else and the conversations that he had in his head earlier in the night didn’t happen. And something about her reacting like this eased all of his worries. That she would fight for him and wouldn’t let him go. That he wouldn’t have to choose between Pam and San Francisco, because she wouldn’t let him.
She pulled herself up higher until her face was nestled in his neck. There was a lump stuck in her throat and she knew she would eventually cry. This was it, after all of this planning, nothing was going to go the way they wanted. He was going to leave. If had told her about this right away, she would have known that he wasn’t really considering the job. But he had kept it to himself for days and she knew that he was just buying time. Trying to figure out how and when to tell her. This was the start of the end. A tear rolled out of her eye and teetered on the bridge of her nose until it finally fell onto Jim’s neck.
When that tear hit his neck he realized that he wasn’t as great at reading Pam as he thought he was. That maybe that ‘oh’ sounded better in his head than it really was. He looked down and wiped the wetness off of her cheek and then her nose.
“Hey. Why are you crying?”
She shook her head against his neck. “I don’t know. No, I mean, I know why. It’s just stupid.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you like that. Not now. I should have waited.”
“You did wait though. Why did you wait?” Another tear hit his neck.
“Because I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to be all noble and tell me to take it.”
“Are you?”
“No. I’m not going to take it.” He sat her up so he could see her face.
“Because of me?”
“Um, well yeah. It’s just a job.”
“Did you want it? Would you go if I wasn’t here?”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re here and I can’t imagine anything without you.”
“Come on Jim.”
“It’s a great offer, but...” He took her face in his hands. “It’s not the only offer.”
She could read Jim like a book. He wanted that job so bad that it hurt, but he was willing to lie to her to make her happy. She had three choices: ask him to stay, and he would; not ask him, and let him go; or go with him.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
The year is almost at an end, but not without some trouble for our beloved Jam.
Chapter End Notes:
Next chapter is Graduation! The Beeslys finally meet the Halperts too.
