He was wearing black, his face freshly shaved, his hair slightly floppier than usual. And she was happy and a bit intoxicated, and whenever she felt that way, she wanted to be around him, because he just made her happier by being there. When he had looked at her from across the poker table with mischievous and challenging eyes and an adoring smile, she had felt the giddiness inside her take a hike, her eyes and lips flirting on their own accord. Sometimes, she now recalls, she used to let herself imagine that they are actually flirting, and this is life and they will sneak out the office after a while and head home together.

She had caught him approaching them from the corner of her eye as she laughed at something Roy said, and even when his head was bowed and his goodbye to Roy a mere mutter, she felt giddy all over again at his sight. Maybe she could lull him back into some poker and pretend for a while more. It bothered her how comfortable she was playing such a charade with him almost every day, as if the sheer pain and betrayal that lay beneath the desire of this charade was not destroying her happy little world.

But she had mastered the art of pushing these thoughts away and skipping to Jim and teasing him about losing money, hoping he would shoot back with some banter and eyes full of love and a smile he flashed only for her. But he looked hesitant, almost grim, his voice faltering, his smile uneven, and so Pam joked again, because sometimes in her charade Pam forgot Jim was human too. She almost did not allow him to choose any lines or scenes of this charade, afraid that he might want to end it, that he might opt out of it and force her to face the crashing reality. So she did what she always did and continued to joke and keep the tone of this drama in her hands, but then he looked at her with his eyes fixed upon her eyes with such unwavering focus that she forgot all the rules of the charade and stared back at him.

“I am in love with you.”

“What?”

Jim might have ended the charade, but she clung to it, clung to pretending that she had no idea where that came from, clung to pretending that she didn’t see those words in his eyes every day.

He said something about bad timing and needing to know and she continued pretending.

“What are you doing? What do you expect me to say to that?”

These aren’t your lines. This isn’t our play. And she did not know how to pretend anymore.

“I can’t.”

It had been years since Pam had made a decision for herself, where she wasn’t being told what was the right thing to do, and now Jim was crying and it felt wrong to tell him that he was misinterpreting things but Pam’s hands had found her engagement ring and this was no more a charade.

He was walking away. Curtains were down, it was all out in the open and it was all over.

Pam was awake now. She had stopped counting how many times she dreamt of that night, or of how many times memories of that night downright invaded her brain. She had stopped noticing how it left her, every damn time, with goosebumps and an ache in the pit of her stomach.

And yet, she willed herself to continue to remembering, of pulling herself away from the weight of her ring and calling her mother, of being stumped on being asked if she loved him too and on finally breaking down as she had said that yes she does. Pam could still remember how liberating it had felt to say something only for her own self, it had felt as it was after years that she had finally spoken some truth.

Pam turned under her comforter, closing her eyes to remember how that tiny feeling of empowerment had disappeared as she had seen Jim walk through the door, her mind going blank as she simply uttered his name before he had kissed her.

Pam stroked her arms, her finger tracing the hollow of her neck as she remembered his arms around her waist, his fingers brushing the sides of her breasts as she had almost melted into his embrace. With the feeling of his soft hair under her fingers, she let her hands run past her body and reach under the waistband of her underwear.

She turned again and recalled his lips on hers- slow, focussed, deliberate; he had hummed and vibrated slightly as Pam had kissed him back.

She still couldn’t remember what had left her so dumbfounded, so speechless, so afraid that she did not ask him to stay, that she told him she would marry Roy even as she knew herself- the moment he had kissed her, that that relationship was over. Whether it was fear, hesitation, or the sheer unfamiliarity of not knowing how to take charge of things- she would never know. Sometimes she thought she had become so used to lying to Jim that she did not know how to tell him how she really felt. She still doesn’t. The charade still seems to be going on.

But on nights like today’s, Pam doesn’t dwell on this much and instead imagines what would have happened had she let him kiss her again. She imagines that kiss to be shorter, firmer, trailing around her neck as his arms would have finally found her hair and he would have repeated words of love next to her ear, and he would have then taken her hand to guide them outside the office, making a joke about how he doesn’t want Dwight’s bobbleheads in the vicinity when he kisses her, and she would have laughed and all would have been simply perfect as Jim would have driven her home, telling her to believe that she can, that they can.

**

It had been two weeks since Roy had attacked Jim, and he noticed in the mirror as he went about his morning routine that his cheek was finally back to being bruise-less.

Karen was neck-deep in a pool of files when Jim entered his kitchen. They shared a quick peck before Jim reached for the pot of coffee. He sat down with a magazine, finding Karen back to her files, thinking that he could get used to this life. It was almost robotic, but comfortable. No stupid emotions to deal with. It was a practical and stable adult life.

After the Roy debacle, Karen had told him they should handle this maturely, and Jim had maturely not mentioned Pam’s short visit to his house. Karen had told him that the past is best buried and they have a bright future together, and Jim had told himself that whatever Karen had decided as the future would obviously be better than his zero future plans, and so he was going to go with it.

Jim wasn’t a planner. He had always let moments and fate take him wherever they pleased, and if now the fate was in the reigns of a confident, beautiful woman who wished the best for him, he couldn’t be complaining.

“There is this safety training thing at the office today and that would keep all the morons occupied so I can finally clear all my backlog.” Karen almost muttered to herself, her eyes still busy on the files. After a second, she looked up at him and smiled warmly, “you ready to go?”

Jim nodded, and within a few minutes, they were in the car as Karen told him about the two new companies she was going to pitch to today, and Jim heard himself telling her about an overseas client he was working with.

Practical. Normal. Stable. Good. And if he tried, quite happy as well, right?

Later that day, when Kelly walked in late with earphones on and Ryan uncharacteristically jumped, betting everything in his wallet that he could guess what song was playing on Kelly’s shuffle right at this moment, a office-wide game begun and Jim thought he felt this happy after a long time as images of paper doves and yogurt lids clicked in his brain. When Kevil accosted him about the hours he had spent on the reception, it was easy for Jim to laugh it off as this was one of those days where he could pretend that most of the previous year did not happen and it was all the same, and that him and Pam would be tallying their bet earnings at the end of the day.

On some days, it was easier to forget that they couldn’t go back to that because she had said I can’t and left and then he had left and then she had left, once again, two weeks back, and now it was better letting wounds dry and forget about them rather than festering them. So he made Creed eat a potato, earned some money as Kelly cackled about Netflix, even managed to drag a reluctant Karen into these games, and tried to feel normal.

**

Today was a good day. Pam was feeling normal, and not absolutely distraught in the office, after a really long time. Maybe the last time she had felt like this was the day Jim and she had pranked Andy, and that seemed like a lifetime ago already. Who thought just a few silly bets around the office, watching Jim laugh and spare her a mischievous glance every now and then, was all it could take to make her feel less miserable?

So she almost danced her way out the office, a while after everyone had left and she had caught up on the messages piled up while saving Michal from killing himself. She was on the elevator when Paul called; they were to meet for dinner tonight at a new Moroccan restaurant he had discovered. He was calling to tell her that he was stuck in a meeting near her office, and if she could please wait so he could pick her up in about forty minutes.

Pam easily agreed, assuring him it was okay. Paul was great. During the pathetic last two weeks since Roy had pulled of the stunt and Pam had gone to Jim's place, he had been there for her as an amazing friend. And Pam was thankful for that. But she knew very well the look he wore on his face when he was with her, the one Jim used to wear for years, the one clinging on her friendship but growing sick of it. And Pam didn’t think Paul would stick around like Jim- not only because that was unfair and just unusual, but also because his project was coming to an end soon and he would be heading back to Philadelphia then. And more than anything, Pam simply could not have another heart's blood on her hands. She either had to tell him there was no future or actually, honestly try with Paul.

Because well, that chapter with Jim? That is so closed. She could see the dust gather on that chapter on her life, of them trying to find a space between workers and friends which neither of them would sway away from. And somehow, this time, closing of this chapter looked fine to her. There was too much sadness, too much past, too many emotions there. They both needed something more stable, normal, practical. And Pam could see Jim moving into this stable and practical space with Karen, and well, he looked happy. She should be too.

As Pam lingered near her car, she had a quick thought and started to walk behind the lot to check if the moon-bounce castle was still there. And it was, its silhouette grand and out of place behind the office building. And as soon as her eyes adjusted to the darkness away from any floodlights, Pam noticed another silhouette huddled at the small door of the castle.

Jim sat there, his long legs almost folded as they overflowed to the floor, and Pam noticed his tie was slightly loose and his shirt untucked, his jacket on the floor.

Had he been jumping in the moon-bounce all by himself?

Pam let out a giggle at this adorable image, and Jim looked up from his shoes that he was starting to tie up.

“Seriously, Jim?” She continued to giggle.

He looked at her for a second, as if trying to make out who she was, and then his face split open in a huge grin. Pam thought his eyes shone like crystals in the dark. “Don’t judge, Beesly. You are here too, aren’t you?” he quipped, leaving his shoes untied and looking at her with an eyebrow raised in challenge.

“Well”, Pam said, shrugging, as she saw Jim shift a bit to make space for her to sit. She sat next to him, saying without thinking, “we are just too similar.” This is exactly what she had been thinking just before coming across him, and the words just spilled.

Pam hesitated quickly as she realised this, but Jim replied at once. “Yeah.” It was short, but firm and honest, accompanied by a generous nod.

He looked at her, their eyes met, then they together looked back at the moon-bounce on which they were sitting, and then together burst in laughter.

“Well, I am going in. Not going to sit here like a loser”, Pam said between guffawing and slipping off her sandals. “You think you have a round two in your, Halpert?” she asked playfully as she climbed in, and Jim followed wordlessly with a shrug.

It was so easy. All it took for them, Pam realised, to let go of all the sadness and pain and past was to just be with each other in some silly place, and the small yet significant effort to just forget. As the two of them jumped, laughing breathlessly, bumping against each other and trying to balance while falling down once in a while, Pam was trying hard to really just forget but tears stung her eyes even as she laughed.

It was dark, and she was breathless, and her wet cheeks were either unnoticeable or could just be taken as perspiration of a kind, and well, she was smiling, more broadly than she could imagine.

Jim fell back with a thud, “I am done. I am going to be thirty, Pam.”

Pam stopped and looked at the heaving figure of Jim, his hair messed, his tie knot lying loose in the middle of his chest, and she wished she could tell him he looked like a small boy when he smiled like that. Instead, she sat back on the other end, catching her own breath.

“We are old, Pam.”

“Speak for yourself, Halpert.” Pam’s quip failed as she had to cough as she spoke, and Jim barked a chuckle in response. “This was fun”, she whispered after a weird silence took over. She saw Jim nod, so added, “I haven’t laughed like this in the longest time.”

She saw Jim grin. “I think the last time I laughed this much was when Andy punched the wall.”

Too similar.

“I feel bad for him. Felt bad when he came back today.”

Pam saw Jim look at her for a second before he said, slowly, “no you don’t”, and they both were laughing again.

Silence took over again, but it was a comfortable silence this time. Pam hadn’t felt this connected and normal with Jim since…. well, since he had told her he loved her. And Pam realised that more than anything, she had missed this. Just Jim and Pam, being idiots together and getting each other in a way nobody else could. She missed their friendship.

So she asked. “So, how are you?” and even after all this time, she knew Jim would get what she was trying to do.

He did. He smiled, the Jim smile. “Hanging in there, Beesly. Paper industry is really picking up, you know?”

Yes, she missed this, so much.

“What about you?” he moved towards the centre of the moon-bounce, placing his elbows on his knees as he looked at her. His face looked relaxed, albeit a little tired. “How are your art classes going?”

Pam saw something flicker on his face as he said this, but she ignored it. “Quite good, you know. I have been wanting to do it for so long, I am really liking it.”

I want to tell you so much more, Jim. About things my professors tell me, about the new technique I learnt, about the colours I bought last week, and about how all of this is happening because of you.

“That’s great, Pam.” His voice was suddenly softer, his eyes shifting nervously as he hesitated before adding, “everyone at the office was all praises about your show.”

While he said this, he was looking away, but then he lifted his eyes to look at her with a soft smile and all Pam could do was mumble a “yeah”; tears threatened to come back- this was still hard to talk about, she was still hurt about that night, and it was getting tougher to forget that they are not just two friends catching up on lives.

Jim continued to look at her, his face growing softer and sterner all at the same time. “I am sorry I wasn’t there.”

He was whispering, almost to himself, and Pam instinctively leaned in a bit, her hands getting fidgety. The moon-bounce suddenly felt too small and compact to have this conversation. So she just mumbled his name, trying to brush away his apology, trying to act it doesn’t matter, but her voice cracked at the end of “Jim”, and she was now sure he could see the rim of her eyes well up because he frowned slightly, maybe even shifted closer to her.

She couldn’t be sure because then he was saying, “I really wanted to be there, you know”, and his voice was husky, low, soft, and still firm and collected, and dreams of a particular night that haunt Pam came back in all their glory.

“Then why weren’t you?”

She heard him swallow, audibly. He took her hands in his, softly, almost limply, his thumb barely, lightly rubbing her palm, his eyes downcast. “I am sorry.”

“No, why weren’t you Jim? I mean, you could show up to the party and not…why?” Despite herself, anger made itself evident in Pam’s voice. Jim’s touch and the sheer stricken look on his face was breaking all her resolve.

Jim took in a deep breath, looking at her warily, still holding her hand. He straightened his back and exhaled heavily. “It’s tough, okay? With everything’s that happened between us…it’s just.”

Pam felt her mind freeze and yet spin. They hadn’t talked about the 'everything that happened between us', and although Pam had imagined this conversation a million times in her head where she would just tell him what a fool she was and that she’s ready now and that I can Jim but not now, not like this. Not when he had a girlfriend and she had boyfriend and when she was trying to forget, and when she had told him some 10 days back that they couldn’t.

Yet, she asked, “It’s what?”

“It’s. I can’t just forget it.” He shrugged, pulling his hands away and lightly throwing up his arms.

“So you will just ignore me?” her voice was shaky, and she had no idea where this conversation was going or what this had anything to do with the art show, but she will take what she gets. Because she was trying to forget, and he should too, right?

“No, Pam, that’s not.” He was fumbling, and Pam was amazed how he could be so absolutely useless with words at times. He breathed in again, she could see the struggle as he shifted to his knees and rubbed his palms over his face. “I am just saying it’s tough. And you need to understand that.”

“Well, it’s tough for me too.”

“I know. I just don’t want you to hold anything against me, because I am really proud of what you are doing, Pam.”

Pam bit her lips to stop from wailing as he said this. “You are?”

“God, Pam, of course I am.” He shifted towards her as if in a hurry, now taking her hands in his fully, completely, looking her right in the eye. “I am so proud, Pam. You are finally doing all these things you love, getting what you deserve, and I don’t want you feel any less proud of yourself.”

Pam let go of the effort to stop the tears and sobbed freely. Something in her heart came undone. “Thank you. And well, you should know”, she was saying between hiccups as her own hands tightened around Jim’s, “none of this would have been possible without you, Jim. None of it. Had you not…had you not made me realise what I was missing out on, I would have never dared to take a chance.”

Jim smiled, and Pam thought she had said too much but then his hands cupped her face and his thumbs wiped away her tears and she could not find any flaw in this moment.

**

Jim nursed a double scotch on his couch on a weekday, because well, he needed it. And it was a night away from Karen, and…

Jim laughed at his own thoughts. It almost sounded like he was enjoying this night alone in his sparsely furnished room with his second drink and random news open on his computer. But he anyway could not be with Karen after what happened with Pam today.

He needed some time, and of course some alcohol, to process his thoughts.

He doesn’t know what had gotten into him that he had brought up the art show, but he was just so happy to see here there at the moon-bounce, just reminding him all over again why this woman did to him what she did. Karen had gone off for a high-tea with her friends right after Michael had climbed down, and Jim had anyway been marvelling at what a great team him and Pam make and then there she was, her face flushed as she jumped around the castle, her clip coming off a bit as her soft curls fell around her face, the sounds of her free laugh making him feel suddenly reconnected with her.

And it was tough to feel that, and Jim had given up on forgetting anyway. He knew he couldn’t, but he also realised that he did not want to cut Pam off his life, and the last two weeks had been so terrible that he almost had. But today, between betting games and jumping in a moon-bounce together, he felt a sudden jolt to maybe start over as friends – like she always wanted, and if there was one thing that he wanted to get off his chest was that bloody art show.

And god, the way her face literally broke and then she was crying. Jim had no idea he had hurt her so bad in middle of his self-preservation, and then he just had to tell her how fucking proud he was, how happy he felt every time he heard her talk about her work with confidence. He wanted to tell her so much more, but he stuck to the basics.

But never had he thought that Pam, the Pam from whom eliciting a tiny bit of reaction was a task, would open her heart to him. She had invaded his house and sort of kissed him a couple of weeks back, but that Pam ran away. Today, this Pam, she stayed as he had held her…until her phone rang.

Jim downed the remaining scotch as he remembered holding Pam, the hands around her face going slowly around her back as she had hugged him back, telling him that she has missed his friendship so much, and even though Jim had come to hate that word, he will take what he gets because at that point, it was enough.

And then he had heard her phone ring on the outside, and told her the same, and soon she was tumbling out of the castle, leaving Jim behind. He mentally cursed himself for telling her about the ringing when she peeked in to tell him that Paul was here, and she had to leave.

He had nodded, telling her to go ahead and have a nice evening.

She had lingered for a second, still peeking. “Jim?”

“Yeah?

“Really, thank you. I mean it.”

“I am glad, Beesly.” He had wanted to ask what she really means, how had he helped her, but that question seemed pointless now

She had grinned at him, her sombre face conjuring a little mischief, and he could see her eyes twinkle under the dark. “I will kill you if you miss my next art show.”

He had laughed. “Not a chance.”

And then she left, maybe with a promise of friendship this time, and Jim had felt an eerie sense of closure even as he stayed back in that castle for over 30 minutes, just making sure he’d not run into Pam and her boyfriend.

Closure and all were fine, but he was still sure that Pam and he could not be buddies all over again. It could not be forgotten- but maybe, for their own sanity, they could at least close the chapter on a good note.

Thinking this, Jim did not refill his scotch and instead had a huge glass of water and went to sleep. He dreamt of amusement parks, Ferris wheels and a moon-bounce.

***