The absence of a hangover was expected, as Jim woke with clear eyes and a head swimming with hopeful thoughts. Before he let himself drown in overthinking, he grabbed his cell, solidifying the truth with seven voicemails still in his inbox, and one answered incoming call in his call log, affirming that for twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds, she had been his.

Joining the red and green streak of Pam calls, he also had an outgoing call to his boss, Josh, from earlier that morning, stating that he wouldn’t be coming into work. This, of course, came coupled with two texts: one from Andy Bernard, and the other from Karen Filippelli.

Do Not Respond

Tuuuuuu-naaaaaa! Couldn’t handle what the Nard Dog was cookin’ last night?!? Rest up, Big Tuna. I’ve got plans for us this weekend… ;O)

This, he chose to ignore, and immediately delete. If the message didn’t exist, he didn’t have to acknowledge it, right?

Karen 

You know, I had to wear a different pair of shoes today because of you. I was so looking forward to shoving them up your butt.

He chuckled, shaking his head as he pieced together a response.

Sorry about that, Filippelli. If it makes you feel any better, I got it all out on your shoes last night. I owe you lunch on Monday. And maybe a trip to the outlet mall.

After clicking send, he scrolled further down in his text messages, finding exactly what he expected after his conversation with Pam in the early hours of the morning.

The text from Pam remained unopened, below the two from his coworkers, one from his brother, and one from Kevin about fantasy football.

He gulped, wondering what about the message had sent her into a tailspin that conversely dumped sixteen ounces of wine through her veins in one sitting.

Pam

Oh my god. Jim. Michael just proposed to Carol. In front of Kelly’s entire extended family. God do I wish you were here to see this.

His chest clenched with the weight of missing her message, of the secret plea that he easily deciphered as the safe, Pam Beesly version of reaching out with her God do I wish you were here to see this. 

If he had read the text when she had sent it, he undoubtedly would have been off in his own tailspin, talking himself out of overthinking, because of course she didn’t really wish I was there and it was only to see Michael. She didn’t miss me or anything. 

But she did miss him. And it wasn’t about Michael. It was about him, in her secret way of burying her true feelings, only this time, the true feelings were about him. And this time, he didn’t have to wallow in his own sea of convolution, but knew for certain that right now, she missed him. Right now, she wanted him. And when she finally woke up, the knots would be untangled into an uncomplicated line of her truth.

--

Her head weighed like a ton of bricks, but the illusion of being stuffed with cotton tricked her into picking it up too quickly, only to be dragged right back to her pillow in a dizzying spell. Her alarm blared like the speaker to her clock was lodged between her ears, buried deeply into a place that rattled her brain. She extended her arm, heavy like lead, and swiped furiously at the bedside table until the only noise in her head was the residual ringing that bounded from ear to ear in mockery.

Seven AM was far too close to three AM and waking up in a pool of sweat with Jim’s voice still painting her ears like a ghost only twisted her stomach further. Dreams were a real bitch sometimes.

A drafted text to Dwight was sent, informing him that she was ill and wouldn’t be making it in. For some reason, he had been nothing but kind in her time of picking up the shambles of her life. She took his Affirmative. Feel better. I expect you here on Monday as sweet, and pinched her eyes closed to get in a few more hours of sleep. As she began to doze, she willed her dreams to pick up where they had left off, with Jim on the other end of a middle of the night phone call, his laughter cradling her closely, his I miss you and I fucking hate it too holding her close so that she could pretend she hadn’t lost him for just a little while longer.

It was after 11 before her eyelids were complaining at the screaming sun that pried them open. She rolled towards darkness, but the stark white walls in her new apartment reflected the brightness on both sides, trapping her in an annoying embrace that lifted her into a half seated position against the headboard. She squinted both eyes, burying her fist in one as she attempted to combat the light. But it was no use. For the amount of darkness that had clouded her life in the past several months, the light sure was being a bitch today, too. 

With eyes clenched, she blindly reached for her cell phone. The previous night’s dream still tiptoed across the surface of her body, and she figured the only surefire way to rid herself of missing him once and for all would be to pop into her outbox, delete the unreturned text message to Jim, and cleanse herself of all of their supposed contact. 

Until the next time her fingers had the urge to dance across her keyboard in betrayal, and then the cycle would inevitably begin again with a fresh wave of pain.

Her fingers ignited though as she flipped her cell open in her palm to a new text from the exact person she was trying to eradicate from her subconscious.

The rest of her body caught up quickly, the prickle in her skin spreading everywhere as her mind buzzed, piecing her night together by the time her thumb had navigated her to the call log.

Outgoing Calls:

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

Eight times. Eight times she had somehow skated around her own self imposed warnings to fucking call him in the middle of the night? Drunk?

She was going to vomit. She was going to puke all over her brand new bedspread and there wasn’t a damn thing anybody could do to stop it.

The air in her lungs was coming in desperate pants and she had a fleeting wish for a brown paper bag before her vision became too spotty.

The calls began after midnight, the last one edging on almost three-AM, 12:37:04 taunting her from the place in her mind that still identified that conversation as a dream. But it was apparently real, and realer still as the two-minute reminder from the buzz in her hand alerted her to the still unopened message that she had waiting from DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.

Hey there, Ace. Just making sure you made it through the night okay. Let me know when you’re awake and functioning enough for me to give you a call. 

She gulped, feeling redness buzz through the skin of her cheeks as she read and reread and reread his message a half-dozen times before realizing that they did talk last night and he wanted to talk again today and did I really tell him all of those things though? Fuck me fuck me fuck ME.

Standing, her feet carried her back and forth over the plush carpet that was just now getting accustomed to her footprints, the carpet of her brand new bedroom in the apartment whose lease proudly bore one name. The apartment whose walls were still white because she wasn’t allowed to paint them and were bare because she wasn’t allowed to put holes in them and whose rooms carried a lot of mismatched second-hand furniture because she was just starting out.

The apartment, whose sole decoration so far, aside from a half-dead potted plant in the living room and a few stray Bath and Body candles, was a teal teapot, and a small frame that bore a grainy, black and white yearbook photo of a boy with too-big ears and a dorky smile.

She paused in front of the small table from Goodwill, the best end table of the bunch, that she had chosen to hold her most prized possessions. Lifting the photo, she smiled wistfully as she ran her thumb over his cheek. Underneath the lid of the teapot, she unearthed several new additions to their inside jokes that she herself had added after his departure: a yogurt lid hot-glued to a string of paper clips, a stack of multicolored sticky notes with various shabby cartoon drawings, an unopened packet of instant coffee in his favorite flavor, and the lone pen he had left behind on his desk.

She became more grounded with each item that passed through her fingers, and once the tingling settled to a dull buzz, closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed before flipping open her cell phone.

Her fingers shook as the fumbled over T9 and took way too long to manage Hey. I’m awake and mostly functioning, which was a total lie, because sweaty palms and a pulse of 130 and my bones trying to jump out of my skin barely constituted as functioning, but all the same, she was suddenly desperate to hear his voice in the sober light of day. She thought about busying herself while she waited for his return text; maybe a plate of dry toast and the half-bottle of Gatorade she had in the fridge would settle her stomach. But as soon as her bare feet hit the floor, a chime resounded from her sheets.

Suddenly, food sounded like the opposite of a good idea.

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

Good to hear. Give me 5 to finish up the dishes and I’ll call?

By the time she had finally decided on a response--mulling between Sounds great and I can’t wait and Sure! That gives me just enough time to throw up and I love you and I miss the shit out of you and ultimately deciding on the first option--three of her five minutes were spent. The remaining two were enough time to swish and spit a shot of mouthwash, and throw on a sports bra. Both were things that he wouldn’t be able to notice, but for some reason, she felt more comfortable talking to him with fresh breath and her girls hiked into place.

The phone vibrated with the steady rate of her heart as soon as she had situated herself against the headboard--he really did have impeccable timing.

“Hello?” whispered past her chapped lips as her eyes fluttered closed and she tried to will herself into his presence instead of talking to him through a piece of worn plastic.

“Hey.”

It was only a single syllable, but its thick, sugary texture was enough to crank the temperature in her body and liquify her muscles to the point of near collapse that almost had the phone falling from her already shaky grasp.

--

She was silent, save for the breathing that he had trained so long to listen for over the five-foot gap between their desks. 

“I just wanted to clarify that, uh, that this is Real Jim,” he joked, remembering how easily it was that just last week, they had slipped into a comfortable banter.

“Oh, good god,” she replied, and immediately he could see her forehead falling into her palm. “I can’t believe I said that last night.”

Her words dripped with embarrassed laughter, and for a moment, he regretted bringing it up.

“It’s okay,” he tried to salvage. “I’m just wondering what Dream Jim’s rap sheet looks like at this point.”

“Oh, it’s quite extensive,” she quipped back, that still ironic chuckle pushing her words along. “He should probably be locked up at this point.”

“Oh really?” he challenged, crossing his free arm over his torso to tuck his hand in the crook of his elbow. 

“Yeah,” she snorted, ultimately letting the tail end of the thought finish itself with, “Dream Jim can be a real asshole sometimes.”

“Wow, I’m hurt, Beesly. This is the welcome that I get? After nursing you through immense drunkenness?” 

“Hey, you didn’t nurse me," she giggled. But this time, she was truly giggling instead of that laughter being fueled by nervousness, and that thought alone made him close his eyes in a moment of thanks. “If anything, you humored my drunk ass and made sure I got to bed.”

“Exactly!” he retorted with a burst of laughter. “Come on, Beesly, give credit where credit is due, here.”

“Okay, mom,” she giggled, and he could picture her rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

Their laughter danced, twining together for the first time in way too goddamn long, before the song ended and they found themselves on opposite sides of the dance floor again.

“How’s the hangover?” he finally cut in.

“Which one?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows. “I thought you got like, super drunk last night?”

“Oh, right,” she brushed off, like this entire conversation wasn’t stemming from the fact that she had stuck an IV of Pinot into her veins the night before. “I mean, I have Gatorade and ibuprofen. I think I’ll live.”

“Good to hear,” he continued, airing on the cautions edge of the tide, afraid to get his feet wet still. So he let the waves of silence lick at his toes while he waited for her to speak.

“God I wish I could...I wish I could be un-drunk.”

“What do you mean?” he asked hesitantly, about 90% sure he didn’t want to hear the answer to his own question.

“You know, like...I just wish I could take back all of those drunk voicemails and...unsay all of those things and…” As she trailed off, he moved the phone away from his ear, fully intent on hanging it up, deleting her contact, and booking a plane to Australia that he would actually get on this time. It was her small voice, now timid, that prompted him to erase all of those wishes. “I wish I could...I wish I had the courage to say them in person.”

He leaned back against the headboard, pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes fluttered closed, absorbing the reality of her sober words.

“I wish...I should’ve said them to your face, you know?”

He pictured her then with her words from last night, her I’m really sad that you’re gone and You should be in that chair and He was good enough for her. You, I mean all dancing off her pink lips. He pictured her calling him a skater boy, with her tongue poking through her teeth as she sang off-key. He saw her lips trembling as she said things like You were the reason I turned my desk chair around and I made it a whole day without crying over you and Is that why you didn’t answer me right now? Because you don’t want to talk to me anymore, Jim?

“And, I wish I had been sober to say them,” she tacked onto the end in a flippant way, one that was less nervous and hesitant and was just Pam. 

He had to crack a joke before he drowned in her truth.

“I don’t know, Pam. I didn’t know I needed a drunk, acapella rendition of Skater Boi in my life, and I think it would be awfully cruel of you to take it away from me now.”

“Especially after what I’ve put you through already.”

It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected, wasn’t her usual quick-witted banter. But this new, honest side to her was something he was simultaneously still getting used to and craving more of with each passing second.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

He pictured her nodding, pictured a small bump in her throat bobbing as she swallowed. He willed his silence to press her forward.

--

Feeling suddenly ushered by the soft wave of silence, she let the slow ebb push her.

“You didn’t deserve to be lied to that night,” she continued, watching the skin on her forearm turn first white and then raise a dull pink as her nails travelled over herself distractedly.

“What lie?”

“You know,” she said more softly, her eyes fluttering closed as she willed him to understand. “The one where I said that you misinterpreted things.”

She thought, could’ve sworn she heard him say Oh, but if he had, it had been swallowed by more silence, silence whose steady pool was only disrupted by the plick of her soft but determined “You didn’t.”

The water calmed again, though she could hear his thoughts swimmingly steadily below the surface, like fish waiting patiently for more food to drop.

“Listen, Jim,” she started, closing her eyes again in an effort to transport herself back to that night. “I was afraid. Okay? I’ll admit it. I was afraid of a lot of things. I was afraid of a lot of people and their opinions of me and I just...I didn’t put it together that the only person who’s opinion mattered to me was standing right there and telling me that he loved me until I had broken him so badly that he had to leave the state.”

She paused, giving him an opportunity to cut in, only continuing when he didn’t.

“You asked me how my hangover was, and the reason I asked which one was because sometimes...sometimes I have these dreams where I’m back in that night. I’m back in that stupid blue dress, and you’re telling me that you love me, and I say it back, Jim. In my dreams, I say it back.”

She breathed in, holding the air in her lungs as she saw him on the backs of her eyelids with tears in his eyes, but shining with hope because this time, she had said yes.

“It’s different after that,” she continued. “Sometimes, we’re in the parking lot. Sometimes, we’re upstairs, and after you ask me if I’m going to marry Roy, I say no like I...like I should have done in the first place. Sometimes, Roy shows up, and I tell him off. One time, you punched him in the face, grabbed me by the hand, and I think we stole Dwight’s car and rode off into the sunset. Which really should have tipped me off that it was a dream, because it was supposed to be the middle of the night, but anyways, that’s beside the point.” 

Her thought trailed, laughter skipping tentatively behind it before she found it again.

“But anyways. Those hangovers are the worst, Jim. Worse than when I have too much wine. Those...Dream Jim hangovers are the ones where I wake up puking because you’re not here, and you’re not coming back, and that thought alone makes me fucking sick, because I…because it’s my fault and...”

He chose then to cut in, finally casting himself out as her proverbial lifeboat.

--

“Hey.” 

When he heard her sniffle, heard her whimper like a wounded puppy, he was halfway to his door with Scranton, Pennsylvania in the GPS.

“Hey, Pam, I’m…”

He was at a loss for words, where in their place he just wanted to hold her. Here didn’t seem appropriate, because there was a chasm one-hundred-fifty-four miles long between them. It’s okay felt like a lie, because it really wasn’t. His brain was still trying to piece together the picture she had just painted with her tongue, and part of it set off the alarm bells of You didn’t misinterpret a goddamn thing.

He wished for a second that they were doing this over text, or email, or something where he could sit and ponder and process what he was going to say next. But then, he wouldn’t have her steady, if a little rapid, breathing to cradle him while he worked through it. He wouldn’t have the emotion in her voice telling him that she was finally telling the truth.

He wouldn’t have her soft Are you still...fuck biting in his ear on the edge of another sob before he swooped in to save her with his own, “I’m here, I promise. I’m just, uh...processing?”

“Okay,” she choked back, sniffling. He heard a soft thud, the rustling on the other end of the line adding a tissue box to his image of Pam in her bedroom.

He was so absorbed in listening to her calm herself that it startled him when she asked, “Still processing over there?” with a nervous chuckle.

“Um, a little bit, yeah,” he said, matching her nerves as he palmed the back of his neck. “I, uh...I’m sorry that Dream Jim is being a major dickhead.”

That was what he chose to settle on. After she dumped her entire heart out and spilled it into his lap. It wasn’t quite the reaction she had been expecting, and it took her quite off guard, but cautiously, she rolled with it anyway.

“Real Pam appreciates the apology,” she nodded, doing her best to mask the way her voice was trembling. 

“Because,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “if...if it were me?”

Her eyes closed at the same moment that she pushed a hard stream of air through her nose, bracing herself for the impact of the impending wave, not knowing if it would take her away like a surfer settling in on top, or drown her to the darkened depths.

“Pam, I would’ve been there in a heartbeat.” 

Her entire body melted with his words, with the way that they were so thick with want that she could feel them squeezing her back together from across the map.

“Pam, I miss you...everyday I wake up missing you.”

“Me too,” she interrupted, not at all caring. “God, I miss you, too, Jim.”

Her fingers ached to reach out and touch him, but she settled for squeezing her eyes closed and doing it in her head; if she concentrated well enough, she could still feel his strong hands at her back, stroking her cheeks, holding her to him like their two bodies together were the key to make the world turn.

“When you called the office last week, I honestly felt a piece of my heart rebuild itself,” she admitted, clutching onto her cell with two hands unnecessarily now, because for some reason it made her feel closer to him. “And just...ever since then, I’ve been thinking…I’ve been trying to...listen, the drafts folder in my email is an embarrassing place to be right now.”

She was laughing nervously, but it was no longer the bad nervous, and he couldn’t control the tickling in his throat much either.

“C’mon, Beesly,” he offered. “You can’t give me that and not deliver.”

“Maybe I’ll show them to you one day,” she settled. “They’re basically just sober versions of what you heard last night.”

He chuckled, and she took that time to keep going.

“Honestly? This isn’t even the first time that I’ve tried drunk dialing you.”

“Oh?”

“Mhm,” she nodded. The liberating feeling in her veins was warm, and she welcomed it. “I’ve been...Kelly has taken me out a couple of times since...well, since you left. And...every single time I get past buzzed I...she has to take my phone.”

She ducked her head, her cheeks suddenly pink with her admission.

“Really?” 

“Really.” She nodded, despite the fact that he couldn’t see her. “Most nights, I just end up fighting with her for not letting me call you. I tried to throw a drink at her once, too, but I missed and ended up with half of a long island down the front of my brand new outfit instead.”

“Pam Beesly! God what has gotten into you since I’ve been gone?” He was laughing a big bellied laugh, and she let a smile paint her cheeks as she closed her eyes and pictured him slapping his thigh in that way he always did when he found something particularly funny. 

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I guess...sober me wasn’t exactly doing the best job of handling you being gone, but apparently drunk me really didn’t want to get over you at all.”

“Wait a minute,” he interrupted. “You didn’t want to get over me? When exactly were you under me, Pam?”

She heard him bite back his laughter, and her eyes rolled back in a way that her body thrived upon, because they were slowly beginning to click back into place.

“Oh my god-- okay Ross Gellar,” she groaned, stifling her own laughter as his turned into these little squeaks and squeals that she was dying to feel against her skin.

“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

“Mhm. Sure.” She shook her head, letting a comfortable silence blanket the space between them before laying on her next retort, wishing so badly that she could be there to see his face when she said, “Those are Dream Jim moments that I’ll save for another day.”

She could picture his jaw dropping and his eyes bugging, the tips of his ears turning quickly from pink to crimson as he sputtered, “Wh-- hold on-- Beesly, you can’t--”

“I can,” she cut in quickly, before adding quietly, “I want to see you. Can I...I took today off because I thought I’d be super hungover but--”

“What’s your address?”

The last blinking minutes of their phone call consisted of making plans to meet up in the middle for lunch and deciding that they were both going to pack bags just in case, because really she just wanted to see with her own eyes that he still existed, and it would honestly be more than enough for him to hold her in the middle of a parking lot one more time.