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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is a pretty fast moving chapter, mostly about Jim's first year of college.

I don't own The Office, or any of the characters mentioned here.
------Original Message------
From: Pam BeesKnees
Date: Aug 28, 2005 11:32 AM

What, are you to cool to message me or something? Gosh, I thought we were friends…

But seriously, thank you for that mix! I’m sorry that we couldn’t hang out again before you left…had to hang with the grandparents, you know how that goes, right? But I really love that mix! You have good taste for such an emo kid…

But you better write me back, butt face!

------Original Message-----
From: Jimburger Halper
Date: Aug 30, 2005 7:32 PM

Hey! Sorry it took me awhile to get back to you, buying books is a son of a bitch, plus I gotta go around campus and scope for some hot females, you know? Haha…But anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t write you, my dorm had some T1 crash or something…I’m not exactly sure what, but my roommate ranted about it for about a year…I guess it was a big deal.

Speaking of my roommate, Beesly, you gotta come up here and meet him. There are no words that do him justice. Just know that he loves to blast Motley Crue and he’s epically awesome at air guitar. The other day, I put his glasses in Jell-O, which I know sounds mean, but this guy deserved it. On our first day, he went through all of my stuff because he said he didn’t want to be roomed with a druggie. And then, he set off the fire alarms…he’s a weird guy.

I’m glad you liked the mix, and excuse me for being in touch with my emotions…lol. It really does suck that we didn’t have a chance to hang out again, because I really had fun hanging out with you that night. Hopefully, we’ll get the chance to see each other again soon…Well, I gotta get my shit together for my first day of classes, so I’ll TTYL!

------Original Message------
From: Pam BeesKnees
Date: Sept 3, 2005 7:32 PM

I hope your classes are going well! I just started school, and I pretty much hate all my classes. But I have good news! This guy that I kind of had a crush on since my freshman year asked me to Homecoming! Pretty cool, right? His name’s Roy and he’s really cute!

I had so much fun hanging out with you too! You’re seriously a great guy, Jim…it sucks that we didn’t meet each other sooner! By the way, Michael and Holly are official now, and they’re so cute! Weird, but cute…

Anyway, I’ll let you go back to your studying, college boy! Oh, your roommate sounds crazy, by the way…

------Original Message------
From: Jimburger Halper
Date: Sept 3, 2005 10:54 PM

Good for you on getting your crush to ask you to Homecoming! I hope you guys have fun! And yeah, Michael’s been messaging me about Holly all the time…I’m happy for the guy. But I’m gonna get to bed, Beasley…big day tomorrow.


*****

I shut my laptop off, and yawned. So Pam had a date to the homecoming, huh? It didn’t bother me as much as you would think it would. I mean, I live like 2000 miles away from her…we’re in completely different time zones. Okay, maybe it did bother me, but there’s nothing I could do about it, right?

I guess you may want to know what happened after I gave Holly Pam’s mix. Well, pretty much, I just helped my parents pack all of our things. Then I hung out with some of my old buddies, actually, we just drank an awful lot. On my last night, I decided to hang out with Michael and Holly. Call me a Boy Scout, but I think drinking is overrated, so we didn’t do much. I think Holly might be a mind reader, because she kept asking me if I felt anything for Pam. But one thing I learned from high school was to never let other girls know who you like, because they can’t keep their mouths shut.

The day that I got into my dorm, some creepy looking kid was sitting on a bed reading Harry Potter. He had beady little eyes, a huge head, and an even huger pair of glasses. His name was Dwight, and within my first five minutes of getting settled in, he ripped open my duffle bag, and pulled everything out. I guess he was looking for drugs, but I remember he tried to throw my apple away.

“I don’t trust you, Halpert,” he had said, tossing my apple into the trashcan.

“Dude, what the hell?” I asked. “I was going to eat that…”

“Right, you mean you were going to use it to get high,” Dwight scoffed.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I was planning on using it for…”

Anyway, that’s how I met Dwight. I got him back later that night though. While he was sleeping, I took his glasses from the nightstand, and put them into some Jell-O mixture. That’ll show him.

So Boulder was actually really nice. There were a lot of good places to eat, and the sunsets were amazing. I’m not going to lie; sometimes I would just sit outside on campus, and watch the sunset. Seriously, I can’t describe to you how amazing those sunsets were…The sun would set right behind the mountains, the sky would turn orange, pink, blue, and purple. It was just amazing. Sometimes I caught myself wishing that I were with a certain someone.

Anyway, by the end of my second week, my brain was fried. I didn’t make any friends yet, and I blame that on Dwight because he pulled the fire alarm to see how long it took for people to respond. It was chaos: people ran out naked from the showers, girls were crying, and at least three people climbed out the windows. The bad thing about Dwight pulling the fire alarm was that everyone knew I was his roommate. I’m quite surprised that Dwight didn’t get kicked out…crazy how the world works, right? I thought about coming up with something to get back at Dwight with, but the only ideas that came to my head would get me arrested.

So thanks to Dwight, no one on my floor would talk to me. On that Saturday, my birthday, I decided to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes and some lottery tickets. Come on, I just turned eighteen; everyone’s gotta buy a pack of cigarettes on their eighteenth birthday. I did contemplate on whether I should purchase a Playboy magazine, but I decided against it. After that, I walked around The Hill to look for a place to eat. I lit a cigarette, and immediately I started coughing my lungs out. Good game, Jim…way to waste four bucks on something nasty when you could have spent that four bucks on a week’s supply of Top Ramen.

“Hey, can I bum a smoke?” I turned around, and I saw a pretty cute girl smiling at me. I nodded, and I handed her a cigarette. “Thanks,” she said.

“No problem,” I replied, and I started to walk off.

“Hey!” I turned around, and the girl walked towards me. “You’re in my Pysch class, right? Costa…? 9:00?”

“Yeah, I’m in that class…I don’t think I ever seen you though…”

“That’s because you sit in front of me, and it’s impossible to take notes because I can’t see over you,” she smiled.

“It’s not my fault you’re so short,” I teased. She gave me a gentle punch on the shoulder, and laughed. I took another drag from my cigarette, and I tried my hardest not to cough.

“So what do you think of that class?” she asked.

“It’s pretty lame…I just needed a social science credit, and everyone says that Psych is one of the easiest classes, so…”

“Yeah, me too…so what are you majoring in?”

“Journalism…you?”

“Undeclared…”

And then we stood there for a couple of minutes, both taking drags from our cigarettes. I tried to come up with something amusing to say, but nothing came to mind. This girl was pretty cute…She had red hair, a pretty smile, pretty blue eyes...

“So what’s your name?”

“Oh…it’s Jim,” I replied, shaking her hand.

“Katy,” she said, smiling. “So what are you up to tonight? Going to any parties?”

“No…” I replied shamefully, “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I came here from Pennsylvania, and I don’t really know anyone, so…”

“Oh…I know how that is,” she said. “I came here from Ohio…remember when you were little, and it was so easy to make friends?”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “If only it were that easy now…”

“Yeah…” she agreed. She stomped out her cigarette. “Hey, you want to go get something to eat? I’m starving…”

“Yeah, sure.”

That’s how I met Katy. We started dating a week later…she was a nice enough girl, but we didn’t have a lot in common. She was into movies like Legally Blonde, whereas I liked classics like Annie Hall and Say Anything. She liked Beyonce, and I liked Travis. She liked turkey and cheese, and I liked ham and cheese. But I was lonely…and Katy was a very nice young woman.

*****

Throughout the months, Pam and I would call each other about once a week. She’d tell me about school, and her boyfriend Roy. I never saw Pam as the kind of girl to date a quarterback, but I never saw myself ever dating a cheerleader, so there you go.

“Hey, what does Dwight look like?” Pam asked over the phone.

“Um…really weird,” I replied. “Kind of creepy. Dude, sometimes he sleeps with his eyes open…it scares the bejesus out of me.”

“Take a picture of him!”

“Oh god…”

“Please?”

“Why?”

“I just want to see what he looks like…I want to know if he’s real or not.”

“Trust me, Pam, he’s real. He’s very real…”

“Then take a picture of him!”

“Fine,” I laughed. “Hold on...”

I opened my desk drawer, and pulled out my camera. I turned around to Dwight, who was watching the Battlestar Gallactica Season One on DVD.

“Dwight,” I called, “Look over here…”

“What do you want, Jim?” he asked, turning around. His expression was perfect. He had a stern look on his face, and his eyes were squinting. I quickly took the picture. “What was that for?”

“School paper,” I lied, uploading the picture to my computer. “After I get off the phone, can I ask you about how you feel about campus security?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed, pumping his fist. “I could go on for years about the LACK of security…”

“All right, think about what you want to say, and I’ll get right back to you,” I told Dwight. I heard Pam giggling on the other end of the line.

“Wow…” she sighed.

“Yup…okay, I’m sending you the picture now…”

“I got it! OH MY GOD!” Pam burst into a fit of giggles. “He’s so…oh jeez!”

“I know,” I laughed, stretching back in my chair. Just then, Katy walked into my room.

“Hey, Jimmy!” she exclaimed jumping into my lap, and giving me a kiss.

“I should let you go,” Pam said quickly. “Bye.”

Before I could say bay back, I heard the other end of the line clicking.

“Are you happy to see me?” Katy asked.

“Of course,” I lied, giving her a kiss on her forehead.

*****

The rest of the year went by pretty quickly. I passed all of my classes, I met some new kids, I eventually did join the school newspaper, and I was still dating Katy. For Thanksgiving, I went to visit my brother, but Pam went skiing with Roy at the Poconos. I did see Michael and Holly for awhile…apparently they moved in together…those kids moved pretty fast. For Christmas, I went to Portland to visit my parents. My dad loved his new job, and my mom joined a book club…let me tell you, it was exciting…not really, but let’s just pretend it was. For spring break, Katy and I road tripped to Las Vegas which was terribly boring seeing as we couldn’t do anything.

Then it was my last day of my freshman year. I just finished taking my last final, and I was pretty confident about it. When I went up to my room to finish packing, Dwight was sitting on his bed, his knees clutched to his chest, and his forehead against the wall. I packed my laptop and some USB cords into a box, and I heard a sob.

“You all right, man?” I asked, turning to face Dwight. His face was bright red.

“Mawowefoijalg…” Dwight mumbled into the wall.

“What?” I asked. Dwight reached for his stereo remote, and turned on “Everybody Hurts” by REM. “Come on, Dwight. Use your words!”

I walked over to his stereo, and pressed the power button.

“Fine…” Dwight said, lifting his glasses off of his nose to wipe his eyes. “It’s…do you think we’ll still be friends next semester?”

I was taken aback. I was not expecting that…especially from Dwight, who I thought had hated me for the past year.

“Uh…yeah, man, we’ll definitely hang out,” I replied. “We’ll still be friends…don’t worry.”

After an awkward hug goodbye from Dwight, I walked across campus over to Katy’s dorm. We were going to go to the airport together. For the first month of summer, I was going to visit my parents, and for the last month and a half, I was going to go to go to my brother’s place in Scranton.

“You almost ready?” I asked, knocking on Katy’s open door.

“Yeah,” she replied, smiling. “So do you think your brother will be cool with letting me visit you over the summer?”

“Yeah, I asked him, and he said it was cool,” I said. “There’s not much to do in Scranton, but…”

“We’ll have fun,” she smiled, and then she broke out into a dance. “A-W-E-S-O-M-E awesome awesome is what we are, we’re the awesome—“

“Okay,” I interrupted, pulling her into a hug.

We took the shuttle to the airport, and Katy was clutching my arm the whole way. I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket, and I released my arm from Katy’s grasp. I got a text from Pam.

Hey, Halpert…we better hang out this summer!

I smiled, and replied back, Definitely.

“Who was that?” Katy asked, clutching my arm again. I shook my head.

“Just an old friend,” I replied, smiling out the window.
Chapter End Notes:
I hope you guys enjoyed that!

Jim and Pam finally see each other in the next chapter!

Please let me know how you guys feel! Thanks!

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