Pam sits in her booth playing with the last scraps of her food and thinks about Jim. She thinks how amazing it is how consistently her thoughts turned in that direction now that she doesn’t actively stop them from doing so. Jim, peeking up at her from his desk and flashing a lopsided grin. Jim, whispering excitedly in her ear as he—no, they—planned another prank on Dwight. Jim, barely touching her as their fingers kissed when she passed him his messages. She finds she remembered almost every time they’d ever touched, almost as if it branded her; she wonders what it would be like to touch intentionally, to want that fire.

But she also knows that fire is not a good basis for a relationship. Fires burn out. They choke. Fire is lovely, and warm and necessary in the cold, but it isn’t everything. She had fire with Roy, too. Not the same fire, but fire nonetheless.

No, what she really thinks about is not touching Jim, or kissing Jim, or having sex with Jim. Those were all wonderful thoughts, and she’s sure she would think a lot about them as time goes on. But she thinks about Jim remembering her on Valentine’s Day and Christmas; Jim, urging her to take an arts class or a graphic design internship; Jim, grocery shopping with her.

She thinks about a life together.

And she realizes that that is what she saw on the computer at the library. A chance for a life together, made up of two people (and she has to admit it’s two) who make each other better. She knows she needs more independence than she had when she was with Roy. She needs to be her own person. But she’s most her own person when she’s with Jim. And she’s not willing to accept a lesser substitute. She’s not going to reach for some socially acceptable version of “independence” that’s actually a straightjacket—that requires her to act a certain way or avoid a certain thing because she shouldn’t be ready, or it’s not time yet, or she needs to mourn her old relationship. She’s been mourning that relationship for years without knowing it. She’s ready to move on, and she knows how she wants to move on: with Jim.

Assuming he wants to.

Assuming she hasn’t switched over from misreading him one way to misreading him another way. Maybe he just lusts after her. Or it’s a game to him, and once she comes running to him he’ll pull away and say “just kidding. Sorry you misinterpreted.” Or she was right in the first place and he’ll be completely flabbergasted that she thought anything more of this.

But even as she thinks these things, she knows this is the weakest version of her. She knows Jim. She knows what she saw, now that she’s finally seen it. She heard her mother on the phone. And she remembers that the whole reason she knows this, the whole reason she finally saw it and is in the position to do anything about it at all, is that there are hordes of people on the Internet who see the same thing. Who made fan sites and took screenshots and came up with the portmanteau “Jam”—made it so much of a thing that the NBC Universal embargo software thought it was a threat.

And they were, right, it was.

In fact, she’s going to prove it.

But she needs to figure out how.

She sits in the booth nervously scrunches her napkin in her hand, and suddenly it comes to her. She grabs the pen the waitress gave her with her receipt, takes a spare napkin from the table, and starts to draw. Really draw. Draw like the last ten years never happened, and Roy never squashed her faith in herself, and she’s still thinking, really thinking, of becoming an artist. She draws Jim. She draws him as she thinks of him: head half-lifted, sly smile on his face, green eyes staring at her with what she now recognizes as poorly concealed love. The first effort displeases her, so she grabs another and keeps sketching until, on the third napkin (and the second strange look from the waitress still waiting on that check), she’s happy with the result.

But she’s not sure when to give it to him. Or how. Or what to say. So she does what she always does when she’s uncertain and facing a major life choice.

She calls her mom.

Afterwards, she’ll never remember what, exactly, her mother said. She’ll wish she could piece the words back together and tell the story properly—tell Jim properly—but she guesses this is one of those moments where the emotion trumps the words. All she can say is that five minutes later she’s in her car and she’s heading to Jim’s apartment, with the napkin in her glove box and her bag in the trunk.

She turns the ringer on her phone to mute (Roy has tried to call six times, she’s answered zero, and she really doesn’t need any distractions right now) and she drives.

She pulls up to his front door and finds a space right in front. She glances left and right and sees his Corolla still parked in the driveway and she’s glad. Her heart literally lightens and she grabs the napkin and she’s at his door and knocking.

And knocking.

And just as she thinks she’s made a mistake and he’s out, maybe with Mark in Mark’s car or something (she realizes she doesn’t know what Mark’s car looks like), he opens the door.