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Pam couldn’t turn off her mind. She laid across the bed, eyes closed, as Roy slept beside her, his gentle breathing interrupted every so often by an abrupt snore.
She glanced at their alarm clock, the late hour flashing back at her, and squeezed her eyes more tightly. Her mind drifted still, to thoughts of Jim, and she allowed it to be okay, because everyone always said dreams are merely mental composites of the day's events, and surely, she surmised, thoughts must work the same way. It was a psychological effect, simply her brain remembering moments with her best friend--It wasn’t a fantasy, it wasn’t a hope. It was just her brain.
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The first time Pam had lunch with Roy, he knocked over her water bottle. She’d been sitting with her friends from art class, and Roy had come over and she was sure he was trying to tease them, just like he had in class, when he and his friends were sneakily throwing paper clips at the teacher’s desk and one had hit her in the shoulder.
He was a jock, this obvious even in the cafeteria as he fist-bumped classmates Pam herself had never seen before and shouted out, “Hey, man!” to anyone who crossed his path. He knew everyone, that was clear, and everyone knew Roy Anderson.
She was a much quieter personality, content with quietly sketching during lunch while her friends chatted about movies and music and just really simple things. She loved that simplicity. She didn’t like the girls at Roy Anderson’s table, those girls who laughed far too loud and far too long at things that weren’t even very funny.
“Hey.”
When she heard Roy’s voice above her head, she warily looked up from her sketchbook. Her friends had stopped talking. Pam stared at him, waiting, and he rested his arm awkwardly against her chair.
“I just wanted to, uh, say I’m sorry...about the paper clips?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah...it was stupid. We were just messing around. Old Man Lock, you know, he failed Ronny and...anyway, we didn’t mean to hit you with one.”
“It’s okay.” She looked back down, ready to continue her drawing. Roy didn’t move.
“Is that, uh...is that the Pocono’s?”
She looked up in surprise. “Oh, um...yeah. I love the mountains.”
“Me too!” He pulled out the empty chair beside her, and she caught the shocked look on her best friend Isabel’s face as he sat down. “My dad has a place out there.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, it’s right by that place with the bumper cars---“ Her open water bottle toppled over with his excited gesture and she jumped up, stunned as the water spread across her drawing and streams of water toppled over the table edges.
“Oh, my God! Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry.” Roy was frantically grabbing napkins, trying to mop up the mess, but her sketchbook was ruined, as was a good portion of her jeans. Other students turned toward the commotion and she felt herself blush as one of the supervising teachers came over with more napkins.
“I have to go change clothes,” she sighed to her friends, happy that at least one good thing about following her mother’s encouragement to continue playing volleyball in high school was that she always had extra clothes in her locker.
“Pam, I am so sorry.” Roy pulled out his wallet, removed a ten dollar bill. “Here, take this. Buy a new sketchbook, okay?”
She smiled slightly, forgiving. “It’s okay.” She handed the money back. “I have another one at home.”
“No, take it.” He shoved it back into her hand. “And just--how can I make it up to you? Maybe...do you like hockey?”
She furrowed her eyebrows. “Hockey?”
“Yeah, I have an extra ticket to the game tomorrow at The Ice Box. Let me make it up to you.”
Pam felt her friends staring at her. “Okay.”
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Jim always seemed to be watching her. Not in a scary, creepy, Every Breath You Take kind of way, but he seemed constantly aware of her presence. Sometimes she’d be working and she’d feel his eyes on her, and she’d look up to meet them and he’d just smile. Chills would run through her in those moments, good chills, and she’d feel her heart start to speed up a little bit.
She loved Roy. That wasn’t a lie, wasn’t fake, wasn’t phony---she really did love him. Still, she couldn’t remember ever having those chemical rushes when she first met Roy...or anytime, really. She felt something close to obligation when she was with Roy. But that’s what happens, right? When people are together for awhile? Yeah. They had just been together for so long. She’d smile, thinking of that, and the next time Roy came up to the office, she’d kiss him.
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It was the dead of winter and Roy’s truck wouldn’t start. Pam stood in the empty parking lot, Target having closed half an hour before, and wished with all her heart someone would just answer their damn phone. She rested her head on the steering wheel, the coat around her not coated enough to keep out the December cold, and willed herself not to cry. Roy had been watching the game, seemingly home for the night, so she’d taken the truck on a search for last minute Christmas gifts. There was no reason for him not to be answering his phone. No reason.
She felt the tears start to come, finally. She was freezing and angry, she’d called practically everyone in her cell phone contacts, she couldn’t remember the number for that dang taxi company, everything around her was closed, the gas station was up the road and she guessed she’d have to trek through the snow to see if someone could--
Her phone rang, the name Jim flashing across her caller ID as a musical interlude played from the cellular, and she felt herself actually laugh in relief.
“Hey!” she answered gratefully, her breath forming white clouds in the air. “Thank God!”
“Hey! You okay?”
“The truck won’t start...” The tears must have been evident in her voice, because she hadn't even gotten through the sentence before Jim was asking her where she was and telling her to stay in the truck and that he was on his way.
She shut her phone and called Roy back, leaving another voice mail message, this time telling him not to worry about it, that Jim was coming for her.
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She really couldn’t turn off her mind. Lying across the bed, eyes closed, as Roy slept beside her, his gentle breathing interrupted every so often by an abrupt snore, Pam thought of Jim.
”I was just trying to finish Christmas shopping!”
Well, Christmas shopping is a dangerous experience, Beesly...C’mere...”
She could still smell his cologne from the hug he’d given her, quick and friendly, but so warm.
”You gonna be okay?”
“I think so.”
She’d laughed, embarrassed to be crying in front of him, and he’d lightly touched her shoulder.
”No jumper cables?”
”We like to live life on the edge.”
”Hmm, and I see how that worked out.”
While he was working on the truck, she’d sat in his car, the heat on full-blast per Jim’s orders. She flipped through his CD case, popped a Travis disc into the player. But if you sing, sing...
”Alright, after all that, you have to be hungry. And I have to buy you a hot chocolate, because I will not be responsible for hypothermia due to lack of warm beverages.”
Pam smiled to herself, Roy’s snores intensifying beside her.
The problem with attentiveness is that it makes you wonder.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Quickest update ever? Yeah, I was just bored.
Oldleaf is the author of 1 other stories.
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