September
The first week in her new apartment was terrifying. Every single night there were little creaks and groans that would sound throughout the tiny place. Pam just knew that every one was a robber. Even though she locked the door twice. It didn't matter, okay, she just knew.
The eighth night in her new apartment, Pam finally let herself relax a little bit. Breathe in, breathe out, just go to sleep, Pam. She soon realized that the fear of having all of her possessions stolen by a masked intruder was preferable to the feelings that were creeping over in its place. She hadn't lived alone since...ever. She had never lived by herself. How much of a loser was she, to be this old and have never lived alone? Obviously she was being stupid, but her mind wouldn't believe it. For so long there had been another body in bed next to her, and her bed was too big now, too cold. At the same time, she'd never known a tiny cramped place to be so suffocating. The air felt stale, even though the window was open.
But she was determined, now, to be Independent. She was a new Pam, for better or worse, one who didn't need men to complete her. Repeating that to herself made it a bit better, because she knew this was good. She needed this. Really and truly.
But that didn't mean it was easy.
October
After Jim left, and she stopped answering Roy's phone calls, it got harder. She had lost her best friend and fiance in one swoop, and now things just...sucked. They really sucked. Some days she would go to work and do as much as she possibly could, leave and go to the gym for an hour, and then do every stupid errand she could think of, so when she finally went to bed she was too exhausted to think. Sleep would come easy, those nights.
Other days she would wake up clutching her pillow and the very thought of getting out of bed was enough to make her think she would literally crumble into pieces. On those days Pam would call in sick and refuse to get out of bed for most of the day.
After the night of Kelly's Diwali party, when she had texted Jim out of desperation and had received nothing in return, she went home and cried for an hour and a half. It wasn't really about him, not really, and she knew that deep down. It was the fact that she was still a receptionist, still working at a paper company that lived under the threat of being closed down. That she had been with the same man since high school and let herself be treated like dirt for much of the end of their relationship. All of it made her feel like a failure, and when Jim had been around it distracted her, but now that he was gone she was faced with her true feelings. It was easy to blame him for all of it, but it was a blame he didn't deserve.
Finally, around two in the morning, she got out of bed and walked into the kitchen, sniffling. She made brownies and sat in front of the oven while they cooked, shakily breathing in the homey smell and letting the warmth wash over her.
She couldn't do this forever. This hanging-on in-between purgatory. Something needed to give. She was tired of struggling to get through every day because she'd made a few stupid mistakes.
"I mean, seriously?" she said out loud, leaning her head against the bar of the oven, the metal cool on her forehead. r43;What the hell?r43; She laughed a little, but it was hoarse and tearful.
The brownies didn't answer her, not that she'd really expected them to, but her voice broke the stuffy silence that was in the room.
When they finished cooking, Pam took the brownies out and set them on a rack to cool. She didn't really want them, but cooking made her feel better when she was stressed. So did making lists.
Her mother had been hinting lately at Pam talking to somebody, anybody. "You always keep everything inside. Just talk to someone before you explode, Pam," she had said. Pam was pretty sure her mom wanted her to see a therapist or something, but instead she decided to have her own therapy session right there.
She tore a sheet of notepaper off the refrigerator notepad magnet and grabbed a pen lying on the counter. At the top in capital letters she printed: Stuff I'm Scared Of. She paused and drew a little ghost beside it, gave him eyes and a squiggly mouth.
Underneath she composed a list of reasons what she, Pam Beesly, was afraid of. There was no room for hesitation at two in the morning. It was hard, and she cried a little bit before it was done. But it was relieving, in a sense. Eventually, maybe, she'd cross everything off.
She named the ghost Ernest.
Spiders
In December, after the awesome Christmas party she and Karen threw, Pam went home and took a shower. As she was rinsing shampoo out of her hair she spied a spider crawling across the wall.
She smacked it quickly with her hand and jumped back a half-step as it fell and swirled down the drain.
"Way to go, Miss Beesly," she said to herself, grinning. Hey, it might not have been the biggest accomplishment, but little victories mattered, too.
Never accomplishing anything
The catalog for the local community college arrived in the mail like it did every few weeks. Pam was about to throw it out along with the three credit card applications, but stopped. Maybe she'd just look through it.
Art classes were not that expensive, and the picture they'd put in looked fun. The students were smiling, at least. That had to be a good thing.
She was about to go ahead and throw it away because, after all, she worked a lot and she'd probably be too tired to go to art class after. Then she spotted the list on the fridge. She couldn't let Ernest down.
At the bottom of the fear list she wrote down the phone number of the college, and signed up for the class the next day.
Loneliness
When New Year's Eve came, Pam decided she wasn't going to be sad. Instead she went out to dinner with her mom and dad, came home and watched her favorite movies, and watched the ball drop snuggled in her pajamas with the softest blanket she owned wrapped around her.
Roy texted her at two in the morning to tell her "happy new yr," but she didn't get it. She was sound asleep, dreaming, and didn't wake up until ten in the morning with a smile on her face.
Hiding
The night in Poor Richard's, sitting with Roy, Pam was overwhelmed with a feeling that she needed to tell him about the kiss. Not because she felt bad lying to him, because she was pretty sure he'd lied about a few girls at some point. But she was tired of hiding, of pretending to be the demure little girlfriend who didn't really care.
His reaction only confirmed her resolve. Not only did she not need a guy, she definitely didn't need Roy. When she went home that night she proudly scratched one more item off her fear list, made some popcorn, and put in a movie.
Being weak
So maybe she didn't need sexy underwear. Maybe she didn't even know when she was going to wear something sexy for anyone again. But damn it, she could change a tire. She hadn't even known that she could change one. She'd read about it, but she'd never done it. Which made it somehow even better to be the one taking charge out there on the side of the highway, while Michael directed traffic and almost got hit by a semi.
And okay, maybe she gloated a little. Michael couldn't do it, and Karen couldn't even do it. Pam did it. When they got back to the office she realized she really didn't give herself enough credit at all. Definitely something for a to do list. She wondered how many lists a person could keep.
Burns
When Pam was three she'd grabbed a pot off the stove and burned her hand pretty badly. It healed completely, but she'd always been left with an irrational fear of burns. She didn't even remember the incident clearly, only that it had really, really hurt, and her mother had cried harder than she had.
On that night at the beach when she was staring at the glowing coals, Pam was thinking of facing her fears. She'd conquered just about everything. She could sleep by herself with no problem, and she could change a flat tire. Hell, she'd killed a freaking spider.
This coal walk...she was going to do this. Yeah, it was going to hurt. Probably really badly. Her feet would probably burn off. But what did she have left to lose (besides her feet)? She was awesome, and she was going to do this. And if she needed to get somebody to carry her to the bus, then so be it.
But her biggest fear, the one left on the bottom of the list, sitting over by Angela right now laughing at Dwight making an idiot of himself, was the last hurdle she had to leap. It scared her more than walking over coals...at least that would be over in a few seconds. But doing what she was about to do...she didn't quite know what the consequences would be.
She also knew she had to do it. She took a deep breath and listened to the fire crackling. She felt really, really good. Invincible. I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. And then she had run across the coals, and with that momentum hurried down the beach to say something she should have said a long time ago.
It really was a good day.
Story Notes:
Written for LiveJournal's 2009 Femgenficathon. Yet another Pam-is-awesome story, but really, can we have too many of those? I think not.
Warning is for mention/feelings of depression.
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.
Warning is for mention/feelings of depression.
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:
All feedback is enormously appreciated!
The prompt I had to work with for this story was "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." by Eleanor Roosevelt. That's really what shaped the story.
The prompt I had to work with for this story was "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." by Eleanor Roosevelt. That's really what shaped the story.
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