You see, the thing about Pam is that even without trying to you fall in love with her. She doesn’t make it happen and I don’t think we will it to happen. It just happens, and you can’t help it. You’ll walk in one day and it’s there, suddenly, without warning. Or it will show itself at odd times, like when you know she’s upset and you would do anything to make her smile, or erase the reason she’s not. It goes beyond the call of duty in a normal friendship. It feels different. This love. And soon, it’s burning, this fire that’s ignited spontaneously within you, and it’s consumed all your oxygen but it won’t go out, not yet. It just keeps burning, without reason, without cause, without anything, even after you’ve told yourself a million times that it’s crazy. Until you’re left standing in front of her, used up and burned out, on a cool spring night and all you can see is the shimmering blue of her dress and all you can smell is her perfume, and you wonder if he even noticed how beautiful she was as he drove off without her. And you’re waiting for her to say the words that would put you out, and she tells you she can’t, and you have to walk away, out of respect for her and her decision but also for yourself. Because it’s lunacy to be this masochistic.

Of course, I’m not talking about you anymore, am I? But I suppose you knew that already.

In my defense, I didn’t know she was engaged when I fell for her. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. She just said hello and shook my hand, and I was a goner. But I might have tried harder to give it up if her fiancé was a great guy; I probably would have stopped if her fiancé was just decent. But he wasn’t even that. How could I let go knowing that she was going to pledge to love and honour a guy like Roy? You’ve seen the show – could you?

This is my life. I’m so tired, but I can’t help it. I’m still burning. I can’t carry a torch for Pam; I am the torch. There’s a difference.

She’s the only thing that can put an end to this. But I can’t make her do that.