When I see him at Poor Richard's, I shudder and stare for a solid minute before collecting myself enough to call out his name. I try to be macho when I say, "Hey, Halpert," and it might sound gruff, but it feels tight in my chest and garbled as it exits my mouth, and I could almost roll my eyes at myself.
He looks at me, and I can see the wave of surprise as it crosses his face, and as absolutely pathetic as it is, I feel pretty happy with myself. This is how it's going to be.
So I sit down with the guys and we shoot the shit for a while before I ask the inevitable question - the one I know he's probably been dreading since I walked into the bar.
"What's going on with Pam?"
He looks uncomfortable as he says, "Oh, she's good actually. She's, um, she's in New York. She's at an art school. Yeah, she's doing really well."
And then he follows it up with the words I've been waiting for.
"She's engaged, um... to me."
I smile and congratulate him, but I've known she was engaged for a while. Turns out that although we didn't end up getting married, our mothers remained friends. Hers told mine about three weeks ago when they met up at the grocery store or something.
I guess I kind of expected her to call and tell me or something. Since, ya know, we'd been together for so long, and we were pretty much days away from being hitched ourselves, that maybe she'd pick up the phone and give me a heads up before my mother would have to call and tell me that the woman I actually still loved a lot hadn't just moved on, but had moved on to the point where she could marry someone new already. I still had a picture of us up at lake on my bedside table, for chrissakes. And now it's official.
Ya know, I get it. I get that maybe I never understood her art, or that I didn't listen enough, or that I didn't treat her the way she deserved to be treated. I know that now. I see it every day when I come home to an empty apartment and I regret every terse conversation and every time I just nodded when she told me about this and that art class she wanted to take, and God damn it, I should have seen her and Halpert coming from a mile away. I know it now and I wish I could take every one of them back. But I still love her. And I never stopped.
I know that I love her because I still think about the day we met, in tenth grade Biology. She was pretty, and smart, and she sat somewhere in the middle of the room while the jocks and the cheerleaders and I sat in the back, hurling spitballs at each other and cracking jokes about the teacher's mullet. The really smart kids would turn and glare, but not her. She just sat there, twirling a red curl around her finger and looking deliriously uninterested in anything but the doodles on her notebook. And then the mullet teacher decided we needed to be paired up alphabetically to cut open a frog, and Stacy Archibald and Steve Barnes were absent, so Anderson and Beesly were put together. And I could barely hide my excitement.
I'd been dating Stacy, by the way. She was a blond cheerleader who filled out more than just a sweater, if you catch my drift, but even by my standards she was a dimwit. So being paired with Pam... it was definitely going to be interesting.
I got her number - under the false pretense that I actually wanted to talk to her about the damn frog - and I called her that very night and God, we talked for hours. Her laugh... man, her laugh was like music or something. Like twinkling stars or some sappy shit like that. All I know is when I got off the phone, there was a smile plastered to my face like I'd just gotten laid and every piece of me felt lighter. And I didn't want to stop feeling that way.
I broke up with Stacy the next day, much to the dismay of the guys on the team, and when I asked Pam to Homecoming, I think they might have suffered a few aneurisms. I mean, she was Pam… The artsy girl who didn’t talk much and didn’t wear short skirts or tight shirts or anything, even though I knew she had some huge bazoombas under those sweaters. But when we talked, there was just something there, ya know? Like, she got me. I didn’t have to talk about how many beers I’d slugged the night before or what chick I had banged in the back of my truck to impress her. And that was pretty cool.
She told me she loved me on the Tuesday my grandmother died. I'd gone home early, and she came to sit with me on the couch as my parents went to collect her things at the nursing home, and she stroked my hair and kissed my cheek and told me that she loved me. I felt something strong for her, too. Something strange in me that felt heavy and warm, but light and airy at the same time, and I didn't know what to say. So I pulled her to the ground and slid on top of her and kissed her with probably everything that was in me, and I knew it was going to happen. The sex part now. She was going to let me make love to her like I'd wanted to for months.
And God, I've never felt vulnerability in my hands before, and I felt it collapse and mold and shape itself into me and I've never felt so small. She was breathtakingly beautiful below me, her hair spread out on the floor like a stain on the carpet, and I think I finally knew what love was… is, even. I’d taken her virginity pretty simply, and afterwards, she just kind of melted into me and we laid there on the carpet for almost an hour. I may or may not have been kind of upset about my Gran, and she just kept my head against her breasts and let me… well, not cry, but ya know…
Anyway, it was a great few years, and graduation came and went, and we got into some fights about what we were going to realistically do with our lives. She wanted to go to art school, which was OK, but paintings weren’t going to pay the bills and I suggested maybe she get her degree in Liberal Arts or something that we’d be able to use. We moved in together, and I started to get my degree in Criminal Justice, but school just wasn’t for me so I started a job in the warehouse at this dinky little paper company called Dunder Mifflin a few miles down the road in Scranton. When Pam graduated, she started there too, as a receptionist, and the money was good and we were comfortable. Maybe we didn’t have a lot of luxuries, but we didn’t need a lot.
I asked her to marry me on a whim. We were at Thanksgiving dinner at an aunt’s house, and they were bitching about how we’d been together for so many years, blah, blah, blah, and I still hadn’t proposed, even though I’d seriously thought about it. So I set down my crescent roll, turned to my left, took her hand in mine and asked her to be my wife. Not the most romantic situation, but she smiled and said yes, so it must have been OK, right? I bought her ring the next day, a pretty small diamond but she has small hands and I know she wouldn’t want something garish or big, so I thought it would be OK. And I gave it to her and her face broke into a huge smile and everything was fine.
Planning the wedding was a process. I wanted winter, she wanted summer. But winter came and went and summer came and went and nothing was really getting done, which I was kind of OK with because we had a lot of stuff to pay for, and… well, whatever, it was taking it’s time.
Until the day of that stupid Booze Cruise that Pam’s stupid boss decided to have, and I was talking to Captain Jack about the girl he loved, and I knew that if we didn’t set a date she’d probably leave me pretty soon. I knew that because I could feel us drifting apart, and I kept going out with the guys to Poor Richard’s or over to my brother’s to play poker, because I didn’t want to deal with the reality that she might actually not be happy with me. And I had a pretty weird feeling about that Jim Halpert, because when she came home, all it was, was “Jim” this and “Jim” that, and about all the pranks Jim played on that creepy Dwight guy, and I just kind of rolled my eyes, but it was cool if she had a friend. Especially since I was pretty sure he was gay. I mean, he was like 7 feet tall, and had been dating that smokin’ hot purse chick, and he wasn’t even trying to touch her or anything. Makes a guy wonder.
So I thought about what she wanted, and I knew she wanted summer, so I flipped open my phone and looked at the calendar and saw that the 10th was a Saturday, and all of a sudden I had the mike and I was asking her if she’d marry me that day. And she smiled and grabbed me and I kind of prayed that she wouldn’t smell the damn tequila on my breath from all of those stupid snorkel shots, and we had an official date. And it was going to be awesome. Because I love Pam, and I wanted her to be my wife. I still want her to be my wife.
So she gave me some things to do for the wedding, like the limo and the band, and the bachelor party, and yeah, maybe I was a bit more focused on the strip clubs I was going to go to in Montreal, but whatever. She was doing her thing, and I was doing mine.
And then it happened. One day she came home in tears, and I felt it in my gut that something bad was going to happen, and she told me to sit down. And she said she was leaving me. Like, 2 weeks before we were supposed to get married, even. I was pissed. I was hurt. I was angry. I asked her why, who, how, when… All the usual questions, ya know? I mean, I’d gone out on a limb for her and set the damn date, and everything was pretty much done, and now she was leaving? It had to be a pretty damn big reason as to why.
But she said she just couldn’t do it, and there was no one, she just felt like we were in two different places in our lives, and she packed a bag and left to go to her mom’s. And I felt really, really empty. Which was pretty crazy because it was a struggle for me the whole time, even though I knew that I loved her and I wanted to be with her, I wanted her to be the one I had kids with. I just wanted some more time. And then she was gone.
When she left, I kind of went a little nuts. I was drinking myself into a stupor every night, I was crazed, and no one could stop me. I just… I don’t even know. It was like I lost myself. I was lonely there at home. I struggled every day with knowing I had to go there by myself. It wasn’t that she made dinner every night or anything like that. It was… I guess comforting knowing that she was going to be there. We had been kind of stuck in our ways, like an old married couple for so long, that when she left… Man, a part of me just kind of crumbled. I was broken.
The day I got the DUI was a wake up call that I needed to get her back. I was laying in the bed in a cell of the Scranton jail, wanted to literally just blow my brains out then and there, when I realized how my life had just collapsed since she left. I needed Pam. I needed her in so many ways, because she kept me sane, she kept me whole, she was the missing pieces to the puzzle that was Roy Anderson.
It was at Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration’s wedding that I finally got her back. I shaved my beard off, and I got my hair cut, and I bought a new suit. And I saw her there, and man, did she look beautiful. All brown fabric that was silky, and her hair was curled, and her skin looked like it was so soft, and when I asked her to dance and I held her in my arms again… There were no words. I almost got choked up then and there on the dance floor.
I asked to take her home, and she looked at me really seriously, and I led her off the dance floor and to my truck and she gave me directions to her new apartment, and when we got there, I opened her door and I kissed her really, really softly. And she led me into the apartment and we had sex right there on her couch, and it was explosive and hot and it was NOT the Pam Beesly I knew. So we were back together again, and I was pretty happy, and man, my mother was just ecstatic, until the day she told me she and Halpert had hooked up.
I didn’t know what to say there at Poor Richard’s when she just kind of blurted it out, and I felt something inside of me snap, and I was pissed and out for fucking blood. I couldn’t believe it. Her and fucking gay ass Halpert kissed just fucking DAYS before we were supposed to get married. So I picked up my shot glass and I whipped it at the mirror behind the counter and there was glass shattered everywhere and she glared at me and stood up and left. But fucking goddamnit, this was absolutely NOT over. I was going to kill Jim Halpert for fucking up my relationship, for ruining any chance I had to marry Pam, the woman of my dreams. Because now I knew what I had lost and I didn’t want to be without her again, and because of HIM and his FUCKING face, now she was officially gone forever. I wanted to mangle that damn face with my bare hands.
So I tried to. And all of a sudden, in the middle of the stupid Dunder Mifflin office, that creepy Dwight come comes out of nowhere with a fucking can of Mace and I’m on the ground with fire in my eyes. And that’s when my job at Dunder Mifflin ended.
Which, I mean, whatever. It was worth it to get in a punch on Halpert’s smug cheek. He had a chick – that dark haired little fox. He didn’t need Pam. My Pam. Jackass.
But then we were over, me and Pam, and it was partially my fault and partially hers, but the fact of the matter was the sweet, caring, beautiful woman I almost had as my wife was gone now, and there was really no chance of getting her back. Every dream we’d had together. Summers at the lake, a few kids, boys who played football that I understood and girls who probably liked art that I didn’t, and everything as gone. And that completely sucked.
Ya know, I’m not usually a guy of many words. I mean, I like to keep stuff inside because I’m a dude, and guys don’t get all weepy over shit like this. But I know that I loved that girl. And over the past few months, going into years, there’s been no one that’s held a candle to how amazing Pam is. I mean, I know she’s not coming back to me. But it’s hard to compare other women to the one who still has your heart in her pocket.
So a year and a half later, sitting here with Jim Halpert, the man who destroyed my almost marriage with a simple kiss, I have to hand it to him that he won. He got the girl. And I’m happy that Pam’s happy, even though she should be happy with me, but I just smile and congratulate him and when he mentions how she was up all night with her new college friends, I chuckle a little.
“Wow, I thought you were a friend,” I mutter, and I can physically feel him tense up and it brings me a little joy… OK, a lot of joy, to know that he might be concerned. But all in all, it’s pretty creepy that we now have something in common, and I hate to have something in common with such a jackass.
But I know he treats her good, and that does mean a lot. Because that’s one thing she deserves, and one thing that I wish I had done better. And I know that if I’m ever lucky enough to have another woman in my life even close to as special as Pam, I’ll treat her like gold. Because Pam deserved that. And I was too stupid, too careless to give her that.
So Jim stands up to go and I stand to shake his hand, and I tell him to be good to her, and he looks me in the eyes and tells me he absolutely will, and I actually believe him. And I’m absolutely jealous of that fact.
Story Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Chapter Notes:
I can't stop writing angst. I need a cup of fluff soon, because this stuff is tearing my heart out even as I write it lol...
I also was really inspired to write Roy's POV because I wanted to do something different, and I haven't seen many with Roy's POV. I hope you all enjoy :) And still read it even though it's angsty lol
As always, not mine :(
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I also was really inspired to write Roy's POV because I wanted to do something different, and I haven't seen many with Roy's POV. I hope you all enjoy :) And still read it even though it's angsty lol
As always, not mine :(
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Chapter End Notes:
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And there it is!! I know, different, right? Good? Bad? I'm hoping to end the angst soon so any fluffy story inspiration in reviews would be phenomenal :)
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And there it is!! I know, different, right? Good? Bad? I'm hoping to end the angst soon so any fluffy story inspiration in reviews would be phenomenal :)
stjoespirit04 is the author of 25 other stories.
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