The next few days were hard on Pam. She was trying with Roy, she really was. He just wasn’t cooperating. The first night home she’d planned he’d ruined by going out with the guys to Poor Richards and stumbling home at one am; the next had been some college football game she hadn’t known he cared about; by the next she was feeling pretty discouraged and his utter indifference to the freshly prepared meal had almost done her in.

Still, she was trying. She wasn’t getting online very much, and when she did she kept the conversations with Scranton light and airy. She was still going into work, so she still saw Jim, of course, but she was trying very hard not to think about how life would be with him instead of Roy, or to take too much refuge in his eyes and smile.

She hadn’t really realized how important those were to her until she tried to stop caring.

But she was trying to give Roy a chance to be the fiancé he was supposed to be. She dragged herself down to the warehouse to say hi, invited him up to the break room, made the gestures she felt guilty for not having made before. It helped a little, but not too much. She found herself wishing involuntarily for Jim to be at lunch with them, and feeling glad instead of sad when Roy was too busy downstairs to see her or to come up. Though his casual inconsiderateness still affected her more than she wanted to admit.

This particular day he had barely acknowledged her with a shouted “Hey Pammy, guys and I are going out for lunch!” as he passed her on the stairs. So she was sitting in the break room feeling pretty unhappy (even though she was eating with Jim—and everyone else, which kind of minimized the effect) when Oscar started telling the story about his terrible first date, who had done a background check on him. And for some reason her mouth got ahead of her brain and she blurted out her own story: “Oh my God, I win! Ok, it was a minor league hockey game. He brought his brother, and when I went to the bathroom, the game ended and they forgot about me.”

Everyone assumed it was either a joke or a sad commentary on her relationship with Roy. Of course, it was Roy, but why did everyone assume it had to be? Sure, Roy was her fiancé, but shouldn’t that mean they would assume it wasn’t him? She almost missed Jim’s little “wait, when was this?” as she realized she’d dug herself into a hole. At first she answered honestly—“it was not that long ago”—before realizing that wasn’t actual an honest answer. As the whirl of questions rose around her she revised her answer.

“Actually, it was definitely a while ago.”

“So it was Roy?” Kelly would not be put off.

In a moment of weakness, Pam dodged the question. “Why do you all assume it had to be Roy? It’s not like Roy’s the only man I’ve ever talked to! I’m not a nun!”

Kelly spotted the flaw in that logic right away. “Yeah, duh, we know that. But isn’t Roy, like, your only boyfriend or your first or something like that? Usually it’s so romantic, like Leo and Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet” (somehow she pronounced the +) “or Leo and Kate Winslet in Titanic. OMG, did you hear who he’s dating now?”

So Kelly was going to be on a roll for a while, and Pam tuned her out, but what she’d said so far stuck with her. Why was she so insistent that people not realize this was Roy? Why was she so defensive? Was it because, deep down inside, she didn’t like that this was how she’d dated Roy? No. She realized in a flash, it was because everything they were all saying (oh no, how could you have kept dating him, that can’t be Roy, that can’t be who you decided to marry) was so familiar. Scranton had said all those things. And she’d responded by telling him never to talk about it if he wanted to be her friend.

She was so caught up in her own thoughts as they carried her through to Scranton that she didn’t notice that Jim had fallen silent, staring at his ham and cheese.

*******

Jim was having a hard time processing what Pam had said. On the one hand, that was a really distinctive story, right? There was no way that two people had been left at hockey games by their inconsiderate dates and said dates’ brothers. It had to be her.

But on the other hand…how could it be her? Over the last three years, how could he not have noticed? Or, for that matter, how could she not have noticed? It couldn’t be Pam. OK, they were extremely similar people, but Morgan was…free and open in a way that Pam never was. Morgan had suggested that Pam (well, “Normal Chick,” but that was just code for Pam) was into him the same week Pam had shrieked and told him to drop her at the dojo and then stopped making time to chat with him at work. Morgan had obliquely suggested he break up an engagement, for god’s sake, while Pam couldn’t see the extremely oafish writing on her own particular wall about Roy. No, it had to be a coincidence.

Maybe Morgan was from Scranton and had dated Kenny. He could definitely see Roy and Kenny doing that twice. Hell, maybe she’d dated Roy, it was long enough ago. Or maybe…he realized that he was pretty sure that Morgan was still with the guy she’d gone on that horrible date with—was Pam so insistent that it didn’t have to be Roy because she’d dated Morgan’s fiancé, who somehow had a habit of doing this? Or because this was her one disastrous date before Roy, so she only counted Roy as her boyfriend ever since? If Pam was Morgan, this would have to be Roy, right? But Pam was so horrified that people assumed it was Roy…maybe it wasn’t?

He was all twisted around. But one thing he knew was that he was Pam’s friend, whatever her dating history or online habits. So he used the information he had to help his friend.

“Hey, it’s not that unusual. I had another friend it happened to. Minor league hockey must be uniquely boring.”

*********

Pam’s head whipped around. Did Jim just say what she thought he said? Her brain, on autopilot, used Jim’s excuse to get out of the room without saying more about the hockey game. But inside she was whirring.

Did this mean Jim was Scranton? I mean, they’re very similar people, you said it yourself last week, that’s why you’re doing this whole thing with Roy. But hey, maybe it wasn’t that unique. She didn’t even know if it was the same team, or anything, or when this was, or…no reason to run away with yourself. Maybe she had gone this whole time thinking this was the worst first date ever and it wasn’t really that bad. OK, amend that, but maybe it wasn’t that uniquely bad. Maybe this did happen to other women. Jim never said what friend; he probably knows her in real life. There’s no reason to think that makes him the only other person outside my family, Tess, and Izzy I’ve told about this. It could really be someone else.

Or it could be Jim is Scranton.

She filed that away for future investigation, but it was way, way too explosive to think about right now.

The rest of the day was a real pleasure. She found the Michael Scarn script, and they had so much fun with it, and then sat on the rooftop and swayed to music, and she felt herself feeling increasingly guilty. She hadn’t even given Roy a full week. She’d fallen right back into her routine of letting Jim be her emotional support. As a punishment to herself, she didn’t get online that night, and just sat with Roy watching college basketball (go Nittany Lions, apparently).

The next day, when Jim tried to tell her it was their first date, she shot him down out of guilt and frustration with her situation. When he lashed out with the story of her first date she had to get out of there. Yes, it was Roy, yes it was bad, yes it was somehow simultaneously the start of her relationship and one of her biggest regrets. But she needed some time to process how she felt. And letting Jim joke about it was not going to help. She busied herself with the faxes and resolved to give Roy another week, this time for real, before she made any hasty decisions.

******

Jim regretted it the instant the words came out of his mouth. But he’d been so close. So. Damn. Close. The idea that they could be together had been so tantalizing—and he hadn’t had Morgan to guide him last night, so he was in the dark about where to go from here.

Apparently his own instincts stunk. Great job, Halpert. Throw the one thing you know she’s ashamed of right into her face.

And if he needed any confirmation this was not Morgan—and that Morgan didn’t know what she was talking about in terms of Pam being into him—her quick denial that that could have been a date should put that to rest. Still, he needed to tell her about it. If anyone could help him now, it was her.

Too bad she hadn’t really been on much in the past week.