Jim has passed beyond panic, beyond depression, and now he’s just tired. He realized fairly quickly (and for reasons that were, in retrospect, obvious) that beer and ice cream was not a particularly good lunch combo immediately after basketball, and after emptying his stomach the wrong way he’s now munching saltines and drinking Gatorade while watching TV. Nothing good is on, so he’s watching Family Feud. It’s not good, but it is distracting.

It’s not distracting enough, however, to stop him from flipping Mark’s computer back open and staring at the “jam” search again. He realizes this isn’t healthy, but he can’t stop looking at her—and every time he looks at her, he has to look at himself looking at her. And he recognizes that facial expression. It’s the same one that’s still on his face now. That mix of desperation, longing, and warmth that says “love me?” He hates it. Not because it’s a lie, but because it’s the truth. And he thought he’d been doing a better job of hiding it.

Not that he thought he was some sort of super spy, or amazing poker player, or any other profession that rewards you for keeping your heart out of your face. It’s just that he thought he had this “friend” thing down pat, and it’s really disconcerting to see how utterly he failed. How much she must have known the whole time. How pathetic he is.

He has to get out of here. He can’t stay at that desk knowing that she knows. Knowing that she can see every day how pathetic he is, how he brightens perceptibly every time she so much as deigns to throw him a glance. He knows she likes him, he knows they’re friends, but it’s clear she doesn’t like him the way he loves her. And that was never enough—he always wanted more—but he’d always thought it was just because she didn’t know. Just because he was being noble and not telling her and not interfering in her relationship with her (shitty, undeserving, asshole) fiancée. Now he realizes he couldn’t have interfered if he wanted. And losing that shred of hope is devastating.

It’s not that he would actually have told her, though it’s not like he hasn’t hinted at it occasionally. It’s just that he liked to think that if he had told her, she might have cared. Even if she stayed with Roy, maybe she would have been a little shaken, or a little affected at least. But now he can see how obvious he actually was—even without the hints—and that means it wouldn’t matter to her in the slightest because it’s already out there. She doesn’t care. She’s not shaken. She is how she is and it’s never going to change no matter what he says or how much he loves her.

The doorbell breaks him out of his self-pitying stupor and he wonders who it could be. He’s pretty sure Mark is planning to be gone all day with his girlfriend, and he brought his keys with him anyway. He didn’t order anything online, and it’s not anywhere near his birthday or the holidays. Maybe Mark ordered something, or some neighbor needs a cup of sugar. Like that ever really happens.

He stands up and spills the saltines on the floor and picks them up as whoever it is keeps knocking. That pretty much lets out FedEx or UPS—they knock and leave, unless they need a signature. Maybe that’s it. He makes his way to the door and throws it open.

He’s utterly unprepared for it to be Pam.

But it is.

She’s got some paper in her hand and her other hand is lifting to knock again as he opens the door. He’s gobsmacked to see her, and all he can muster is a weak “hi?”

This is because he’s suddenly incredibly aware that he hasn’t shaved this morning, hasn’t showered since his basketball game, and is still wearing the shorts and ratty t-shirt from the gym. He’s intensely grateful that he at least brushed his teeth—only because of the incident before with the beer and ice cream, but still—and put on some deodorant, but he knows he’s a mess. The alcohol has partly worn off, and the Gatorade and saltines were helping, but he knows he looks like death warmed over.

She doesn’t, though. She looks…well, she always looks beautiful to him, literally always, including that time she got sick at work and looked like the life was literally draining out of her with every little heave. But today she looks straight at him (she never does that) and her hair is fluffed by the slight breeze outside and he can’t hold her eyes or he’ll embarrass himself more if that’s at all possible at this point, and he just mumbles “hi.”

“Hey.”

She’s staring up at him and he’s intensely self-conscious. Or maybe she’s just staring past him…because God, Halpert, you haven’t even invited her in or anything. She’s probably wondering why it took you so long to answer the door (he glances over and the saltines are all off the floor, thank God) and why you’ve been standing here what seems like forever just looking at her.

“Wanna…wanna come in?”

“Thanks.”

She takes a couple steps into his apartment as he stands aside, and glances around the kitchen. He just stands in the doorway taking her in, wondering what she’s doing here—what would bring her over on a Saturday afternoon. He sees the paper in her hand (is that a napkin?) and the way she’s twisting her engagement ring and he wonders even more. Wild imaginings, mostly negative: she’s here to tell him Roy wants him dead. She’s here to tell him they’re getting married tomorrow. She’s quitting. He’s been fired and Michael didn’t have the guts to tell him himself. He’s off in his own vortex of depression so far that he almost doesn’t notice that she’s speaking again.

“I…I made…I have something for you.”

She puts the napkin down on the kitchen island and smooths it out. He walks over to her in a daze and stares at it.

It’s him.

It’s him as he’s just seen himself in all those pictures online, as he hoped he hadn’t been looking for all those years. He’s at his desk, glancing up at her with that loving idiot expression on his face, and that stupid grin he can’t lose. It’s a perfect expression of how he feels when he looks at her, so perfect it’s painful to see. Because it means he was right. She did know. She’s probably always known. She couldn’t not know and draw that. Because it’s amazing—she’s amazing, so of course it’s amazing—and it’s right and he knows he should be hurting (and he is) but he’s so proud of her for it. It’s the best thing of hers he’s ever seen—the only one featuring him, too—and he can’t stop staring even though he knows it’s got to be a bad thing that she knows.

“Pam, this is…this is really incredible.” He swallows. “I mean…”

She speaks quickly, like she’s trying to spit the words out before her mind can notice they’re gone.

“Did you ever figure out what ‘jam’ was?”

He’s shocked that she’s actually asked him that, worried by what it means. Does she not know yet? Is he going to have to show her and complete his humiliation? Not that she doesn’t already know it all, he reminds himself, staring at the napkin. He doesn’t know how to answer, so his neck does it for him. He nods. She goes on, very quietly.

“So did I.”

Well, at least he’s spared having to show her, then.

“And…I’m sorry.”

Of course she is. Anytime this…thing between them, or at least between him and his idea of her, comes up, she’s sorry. She’s sorry, but she can’t. She’s sorry, but Roy said. She’s sorry, but he’s not enough for her, she doesn’t love him, and he needs to move on. But at least it’s out there in the open now. At least now he knows, knows she knows, and that she doesn’t feel the same way. Maybe that’s what he needed to hear.

“I’m sorry too.”

He’s not entirely sure why he said it, but it feels like the sort of thing you say when you’ve been projecting feelings onto someone else for as long as he has. That’s not what friends are supposed to do, after all. If he’d just been the friend she thought she had, none of this would have happened. So he’s sorry—though he’s not sorry she’s in his life, or he in hers. But he’s sorry for how they are.

“I’m sorry I never realized…I’m sorry I never…”

She’s trying to tell him she’s sorry she never shut him down, isn’t she? Well, this is shutting him down, and he realizes he can’t really do this. He can’t deal with that last moment of hope, that last gasp of fragile possibility being torn away. He can’t let her say it. So he interrupts her.

“Yeah, well…”

“I wanted you to have this. I made it for you.”

She pushes the napkin towards him.

“Did I get it right?”

What is she asking? Deflect! Deflect! He can’t deal with this now.

“I mean…it’s me. Beesly, I’m pretty sure we both know what I look like.” He gestures at himself, and then at the napkin. “And that’s Jim Halpert, right there on the paper. A little smaller than life, but just as ugly.”

She doesn’t smile. This isn’t working. But she’s speaking again.

“Is this how you feel?”

Like she doesn’t know. Like it isn’t written on his face every day—like it isn’t in the paper she’s touching, or on his face this very instant.

“Pam, I…”

“Jim. Is it?”

She’s so serious. He’s not used to this.

“Pam, I…don’t know what to say.”

“Jim.” A little more heat. She’s fiddling madly with that ring, and she’s staring at him. “I need to know.”

“Why, Pam?” Why is she making him say this?

“I…” She glances down at the paper. “It’s important to me.”

And there’s the clincher. He can’t resist that, and she knows it, and it’s so unfair. He can’t stay still as he says it, so he flings himself across to the couch as he mutters “yeah. It is.”

As she turns to follow him, he throws up a hand.

“But I know you’re with Roy, and I don’t expect…”

“I’m not with Roy.”

He points, just points, at the ring on her finger. She looks down in surprise, as if she didn't realize it was there, and pulls it off. She puts it on top of the napkin. She turns and smiles fragiley at him.

“I’m not.”