To say she's mortified is an understatement. As she's sitting there, waiting for Jan and Michael to join her in the Conference Room, Pam tries to dissect the past 24 hours to figure out what she could've done differently so it hadn't come to this. And if she's being honest with herself, it's been a lot longer than just a day; this moment has been years in the making, a culmination of a triangle that she had unwittingly let herself fall into.
She glances askance to the window that opens up to the bullpen, and her gaze lingers on Jim's desk. Her heart cinches in her chest. He'd gone home early with Karen, and she didn't know what was supposed to happen now. Their kiss from the night before is still burning brightly in her memory, and she closes her eyes against it.
Blood tastes abruptly in her mouth, and Pam realizes faintly she has worried away a dry strip from her lower lip. As she touches a tissue to the spot, the door swings open, and Jan strides in with Michael awkwardly on her heels. Jan snips under her breath for Michael to shut the door, which he hurries dutifully to complete, and Pam's stomach flip-flops guiltily as they both join her at the table.
It's that same sinking sensation like when her Mom found out she and Roy had sex for the first time. Like when Angela told her about Pam-Pong. Like the first time she called in sick to work. It's the feeling of being caught doing something wrong, of being in trouble, of someone thinking the worst about her. Her hands clutch at her knees and fist together there.
"So, Pam," Jan huffs and settles upright into her chair, papers shuffled importantly in front of her importantly. "We need to take some testimony from you, on what happened today, you understand."
"Yeah," Pam nods, demure.
Jan nods once in return and draws up her pen to the top paper. "Tell me, what happened-"
"Why aren't we talking about last night?" Michael mutters suddenly in aside to Jan, trying to keep his head tipped down low as though to avoid being heard. Pam's eyebrows shoot up to her bangs as she peeks over at an immediately red-faced, tight-lipped Jan, but quickly she means to miss Jan's deadly glare back at Michael and stares hard at her lap.
At least awkward tension was better than the guilt from before.
"I told you we'd talk about it later, not now," Jan grits out in a low tone, before she redirects her attention with a false smile back to Pam. "I'm sorry, Pam-"
"Jan-"
"What is wrong with you?" Jan hisses venomously, and off Michael's yelp, Pam is sure Jan's stiletto met Michael's body somewhere under the table. "We. Will. Talk. Later," she grounds out, and the seething look she levels at Michael is enough to send chills down Pam's own spine.
Michael clearly takes the hint, his jaw tightening into a hard pout as he chooses instead to pick at old tape along the table's edge. Silence. Pam almost feels bad for him.
Sure that Michael had been put in place, Jan turns once more toward Pam. "As I was saying… we need to interview you for a statement, in case there needs to be some kind of follow up." Pam's heart flutters violently in her chest and she's only able to wobble her head just so in assent "What can you tell me about the situation that transpired today?"
"Uhm, just… Roy called me, uhm, earlier this morning," Pam clears her throat, trying to get her voice to steady out. "He showed up here, in the parking lot," she clarifies, "and he asked me to meet him downstairs."
Jan's just nodding and writing intently, and Pam takes the time to glance over at Michael while Jan isn't looking. She catches him regarding her thoughtfully - as thoughtful as Michael could be - and when he notices her looking, he offers Pam a small, reassuring smile. For whatever reason, it makes her heart calm its fretful beating and eases her churning stomach to quiet rumble.
"And did you go?" Pam nods, and Jan scribbles. "And when you got downstairs, what did Roy say to you?" Jan queried sharply.
Pam feels her cheeks grow hot and she bows her head. Shame comes washing over her anew, and she deeply hates herself in that moment for even having gone downstairs in the first place. Would this have even happened if she had just told him no?
"Uhm, just … it was kind of a private conversation," she hesitates softly. Under her lashes, she spies Jan squinting at her suspiciously, and her heart hammers in her ears. "Just, he was upset about something personal between us and… and I think- I think he chose to take it out on Jim."
The weight of Jan's scrutiny is heavy on her, and Pam can't bring herself to look back up to meet her steely gaze. The new, brave version of herself that had appeared the night before - the one who had returned a wrong order to a bartender and the one that had unfolded her heart to Jim - had been scared away again, back into the corner, by the violence and embarrassment from that morning.
After a few beats of silence, Jan hums and shrugs, finishing a sentence along her paper. "Well, thank you," she says, with little gratitude. "Luckily, nothing happened to you, too."
Pam's head quickly shoots up, and her throat grows instantly thick at the notion. "That's not- Roy wouldn't have-"
Jan arches one eyebrow and stacks her papers again. Her silent question sends a wave of nausea rolling over Pam. Pam glances over at Michael, who is grimacing uglily back at Pam, and she's struck with the sudden urge to run out of there.
He must understand or empathize, and in a weird act of humanity, Michael suggests, "Hey, Pam- that was pretty crazy today. Maybe you ought to take some time off? Take the rest of the day, settle down?
She can't believe what she's hearing, can't believe Michael is being intuitive enough to show her this kindness. Tears threaten in the corners of her eyes, and Pam just nods and swallows and tries to smile her relief. She doesn't even look at Jan, but instead intones a quiet 'thank you' to Michael.
As she's heading for her desk, Pam knows her coworkers are watching her closely, she knows they're whispering about her to one another, and her skin just burns red under the surreptitious attention surrounding her. She's only half paying attention as she collects the things from her desk, her throat constricting around sobs she knows will come later, and her single focus is to get out of there as quickly as she can without crying in front of everybody.
Pam, to her credit, makes it to her front seat before she collapses her forehead into the steering wheel and lets out a woeful hiccup, her face screwed up as the tears flow free.
Her shoulders shake with each muffled sob, and Pam just releases all the anxiety and heartache and embarrassment from the last few days into the small space of her compact car. When did things get so complicated? Why did she have to mess it all up? And there's a tiny part of her that's angry with Jim, for waltzing into her life all handsome and lanky and silly and making her fall in love with him. Her life had been enough, until him, until he put ideas in her head that maybe, just maybe, there was more.
And she still desperately wanted more, but now she didn't think that was ever going to be a possibility again.
As her sobbing subsides, Pam finally rears herself up from the wheel and exhales calmingly through pursed lips. She sniffles and flips down her mirror, swipes at the black rivulets running from her eyes, dabs at her nose with her knuckle.
In the passenger seat, her purse vibrates twice.
Pam digs into the front pocket and retrieves the cell, flipping it open to reveal a text from Roy.
coffee l8r?
Her thumbs hover over the keys, unsure of what to say. Should she meet him? What good would it do? Look at the mess from today, how it might have ruined everything.
Her phone vibrates in her hand, and it's another message from Roy.
i just have sum things i need 2 say 2 u
Another one, then i promise ill leave u alone
She resolves herself, and she types and sends.
1:00, the usual
Pam doesn't bother to respond to his thanks as she puts the key in the ignition and pulls out of the office parking lot, hoping she can fix this mess she's made.
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali