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Story Notes:
Pam goes to CT.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Season 3, a few weeks after Casino Night.
She’s standing at the door of his apartment, in Connecticut.

She’s only been to Connecticut twice. Once when she was in high school for an art contest and second to go to her great aunt’s funeral. She doesn’t like Connecticut for three reasons. One because she got fourth place in the contest, two because she hates funerals and three because it took him away from her.

But she’s here, hoping to make a new list of things to do with Connecticut, like the things she likes about it. Maybe she can start the list with where I got Jim back.

She presses her knuckles against his door, wondering if this isn’t right, if she shouldn’t be here, if she’s impeding on something, like the unsaid words between them; maybe he doesn’t have anything left to say to her.

Whatever, whatever, she thinks. I have to do this, she thinks. This is for me, I need to let this go, she thinks. Maybe he wants to see me, she thinks. Maybe he doesn’t, she thinks. I just need to do this. I need to, she thinks. She thinks, she thinks, she thinks.

She knocks.

She counts to seven. Her hands are shaking and she finds herself shivering and she is all of a sudden lightheaded and she wants to retreat back to the safety and quiet of her car but then the door opens and she sees him and it’s like she hasn’t been alive until now.

“Pam,” he breathes, but he doesn’t really say her name, nothing really comes out. His lips just shape her name, that’s all, because he can’t really say it, doesn’t have the power to, doesn’t have the strength to because she just looks too beautiful, too much like his Pam, and it’s like the last few weeks of “moving on” never happened.

A girl comes up behind him, a beautiful girl with straight brown hair and hazel eyes that remind Pam of cappuccino with nutmeg sprinkled on top and the girl leans her head against Jim’s shoulder and her smile is wide, so wide.

“Oh, I um, I’m sorry,” she can tell she’s impeding, just by seeing this girl’s wondrous smile, so she backs up, walks down the sidewalk, back to her car, retreating.

“No, wait, Pam, just wait a second,” he calls after her, stepping outside of his apartment, his feet unsure of the cool pavement they make contact with.

She hears him whisper something to the girl but can’t make out the words, doesn’t want to know what he says to this woman, this beautiful, gorgeous woman who’s come into his life.

She can hear the door shut behind him and she doesn’t turn around, can’t face him, just can’t, she’s too embarrassed and appalled by her own actions, that she could assume he didn’t have a new life here, that he would be alone on a Friday night.

“Pam, please.”

She is quiet, facing away from him, away from this new life he’s created here in Connecticut, this new being he has formed.

He says her name again, this time with pungency and regret and she can’t help herself, she has to see him, has to, has to, because he’s gorgeous, handsome, and everything she’s ever wanted.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m doing,” she manages to utter, her fingers shaking so violently that she pushes them into the pockets of her jeans.

He takes a step closer. She makes eye contact with him and her breath is swept out of her lungs because it’s been too long since she’s seen him look like that, his eyes covered in desperation, his hair free-spirited on the top and curled up above the hem of his navy colored t-shirt. The moon is above, hovering in the space between them, lighting up their faces, her tears, the wetness of his lips.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she whispers, her voice shaky like a rickety house that has seen one too many denials, said one too many things, endured one too many heartbreaks, perched on the edge of collapse.

“Pam,” he says her name again, like he is still unsure of it, testing it out on his tongue.

“It’s not the same, nothing is. I’ve tried to move on, but I just –”

“Why did you leave Roy?” he asks frankly, like he’d ask something or normality, something that did not weigh on him with the weight of a cinderblock on his lungs, on his heart.

“How did you know about that?”

“Were you not going to tell me?”

“No, no, I was going to, I was –”

“Then why didn’t you?” It sounds more like a statement, the way he says it, because he kind of knows the answer.

And the worst part about all of this is how he is not even angry. He’s not frustrated or shouting or balling his hands into fists. He is complacent, his hands at his sides, his face still, his lips moving with his words. But his eyes, they tell another tale.

They kind of glisten under the stars, almost glow. They hold grief, an inevitability that came with leaving her, from hearing her words of I can’t that night, from knowing the truth of their relationship that he wanted more of but she didn’t.

“I just didn’t – I didn’t know how.”

He stands there, his eyes warm against his eyelids as he blinks back tears.

“I wanted you the whole time, Jim. I just didn’t know how to tell myself that.”

She pauses, looks at her hands in front of her and takes a small breath.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come. I just needed to – I’m sorry.”

“Pam, I’m not mad at you.”

“I know that.”

“Good.”

She turns to leave, her back to him now, her eyes away from him, and she knows it’s the end.

“I’ve missed you too, you know.”

She pauses, doesn’t say anything. Can’t.

Then, everything piles into this moment, everything they’ve shared, everything they’ve said, thought about, done, everything pushed together into this.

He steps forward, reaches for her hand, a tear streaming down his cheek.

She turns, the tips of their noses too close.

He closes the gap and presses life back into her.


She goes home alone that night, just how she came, driving along yellow dotted lines on pale lit streets, her eyes weary, her throat sore.

It’s Connecticut, what was she expecting, a good thing to come out of it?

When she gets home, she writes the list of things she hates about Connecticut. She comes up with more than the three original reasons as to why she hates it, and a small, little extra one as to why she doesn’t.

1. I got fourth place
2. Aunt Marie’s funeral
3. The distance between us
4. New girlfriends live there
5. Where I looked like a complete and total idiot


1. Where I got Jim back
Chapter End Notes:
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Dwangie is the author of 25 other stories.
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