All was silent in the break room, save for the droning of the vending machines, the occasional rustle as the man handling the camera for the identification photos rifled through his bag for portions of his lunch. The camera crew wasn’t nearby, instead in the conference room, recording Michael’s futile attempts at conflict resolutions. Dwight was off on his own lunch break, digging whatever deer sandwich or horse steak or goat cheese he had today out of the fridge in the kitchen. Pam occasionally swallowed a spoonful of her Yoplait yogurt, the flavor mixed berry, of course. The way her lips wrapped around the spoon was strangely alluring, and I couldn’t help but glance at her throat as she gulped. She was deep in thought, staring daggers into the table, a little lachrymose, a little… adrift.

“Alright,” I said, adjusting myself so that my chin rested on my arms, and I could easily look up into Pam’s angry eyes, her face expressive of turmoil, “what’s up?”

“Are you serious?” She directed her eyes at me. I knew that her palpable rage wasn’t fully aimed at me, but it felt as if a jot amount was. 

“No. Sorry.” I cast my eyes down to the table. “It’s just no fun when you’re angry. No one to concoct pranks with,” I added hastily, looking back up. I smiled to alleviate the tension, terrified and mute when she kept her petulant gaze on me. The silence stretched on, and all I wanted was to cower behind the most obscuring object that could exist, anything to get away from that stare, because I couldn’t stand the fact that she was so angry.

Relief crashed down when her expression softened, but tension seized my jaw and anxiety rolled my stomach over when she gave out a wry chuckle. “Just do what you do best—” she swallowed another spoonful of yogurt, waved her spoon around a little—”and concoct them yourself. I’m not much help, anyways.”

“Are you kidding me?” I straightened up, staring at Pam in disbelief, her slightly glowering back. “Without your input, Dwight would never have thought that Thursday was Friday, or that the super secret warehouse alliance meeting was even real.” As I went on, I put a finger up for each one. “That karate fight between Michael and Dwight? All you, and it’s not even just pranks that you're good at. Remember the Office Olympics?” I couldn’t stand the fact that she had such little faith in herself.

She giggled, a meek little smile brightening her sulky mood. “I guess so,” she said, and stared down at her Yoplait, then back up at me so our eyes met. I couldn’t hold it for more than five seconds. She was so warm. I cleared my throat and glanced away, down to my hands, intertwined and taut. My face grew warmer.

I looked around to check for the camera crew. They were nowhere in sight. Then I began, “I must understand, though, if Angela did write that—“

“She most certainly did. I’m not budging on that,” Pam interrupted, and she looked angry again. Not as livid as before, though.

“You are so obstinate,” I teased with a wide smile. She was so cute when she was this intense.

“‘Obstinate’?” She laughed a bit, her eyes reflective of her own grin. “Big words for Halpert! I’m impressed.”

“Ha ha.”

She finished off her yogurt, and got up to throw it away. The trashcan was only a journey of a few steps, but I already wanted her to come back, to sit in front of me so I could admire her for just a while longer. To bathe in her attention and feel like the people filtering in and out for their identification photos didn’t exist, that instead I was the only person in the room, right up until the foreboding moment where thoughts of Roy seeped in and I was forced back to reality, because I couldn’t stand that fact that she was with him.

I just stared at her back, enamoured by how beautiful a person’s every aspect can be, and felt guilty when my gaze slipped to her bottom, respectively covered by her plain gray skirt. I looked up at the ceiling, focused, just barely squinting one eye. I rubbed my chin in thought.

I started when I heard Pam’s voice in front of me all of a sudden. “You see something interesting?”

I looked back at her, sitting with her chin resting on her hand, looking at me intensely with squinted eyes. I smiled wide, warm, as I met Pam’s stare, which eventually softened and she let out a laugh, gaining the photographer’s attention before he went on to finish his bag of Funyuns. “Yeah,” I murmured, and looked down at the desk, because I couldn’t stand the fact that she was only a friend of mine, such a beautiful one.

I had a feeling she was still looking at me, and I heard her scratch her cheek before she put her hand down to join her other one, and drummed her fingernails on the table before stopping shortly. I knew she did because it kind of hurt her fingers, as she’d told me a few weeks back when I had inquired about it in the kitchen.

“Why did you stop drumming? I was actually grooving to the sick beats.”

“It kind of hurts my fingers. But also, ‘grooving’? ‘Sick beats’?”

“What, isn’t that the language of the raucous youths nowadays?” I grimaced.

“I don’t believe so.” Pam laughed.

“But does it seriously hurt your fingers? I’m sorry, but that sounds ridiculous.”

“Yeah! I mean, it’s not a debilitating pain, but it’s not pleasant.”

“Couldn’t you just use your fingertips instead of your fingernails?”

“Yes, but does it produce a sound as satisfying as when I’d use my nails? I’d say no.”

“But it doesn’t last as long as it would with your fingers.”

Pam smiled so wide that I thought she was going to laugh, but instead she took in a short breath before exclaiming, “That’s what she said! That’s what she said.” She drew dismayed attention from Ryan, who was eating a turkey sandwich over the sink.

I contorted my face in mock disgust at her. “I no longer recognize you. Your mere presence makes me want to vomit in your coffee cup.”

“That’s specific.” She drew her mug nearer to her person.

“Well.” I shrugged, and bit into my tuna sandwich.

“You know, despite what Angela wrote, I kind of want to know what other people here think of me. Too bad there was only the one complaint,” Pam added with a sigh.

I forced myself to look back up at her, and my heart dropped. I felt so guilty, because I couldn’t stand the fact that I had actually gone off to complain about my one actual true friend in the office.

“Hm.”

“Don’t you?” She asked.

“I guess. I don’t care too much, though.”

“Huh. How’s it feel?”

“What?”

“To not care about other people’s opinions. Of you.”

“I don’t really know how to answer that.” I straightened up as I turned my palms up toward the ceiling in a matter-of-fact manner. I decided to attempt to lighten the mood. “I’ve been like this straight from the womb, born and raised to not care.” I cringed at myself, but jokingly winked, and instantly felt ridiculously brainless, because I couldn’t stand the fact that she would only see it as that, a joke.

But in all honesty, I did care. I did care about what she thought. About what she thought of my consistent ham and cheese sandwiches, my consistent tuna sandwiches. About what she thought of my shirts and my shoes, because I’d subconsciously conformed to the stereotype that women truly care about how you look to the point of severe scrutiny. I did care about what she thought of me, and I felt so terrible for complaining about her, and knew that redacting it would not be enough.

I wanted all of this to spill out, but what stopped me was the realization that a camera appeared in the doorway, and that the photographer was still in the room, and that Dwight had just come back from his lunch break, pushing aside the cameraman with a punctuated, “Move.”

Instead, what came out was pronounced with a slight lisp and an effeminate tone: “But I mean, I really hope that Dwight likes me. I’ve always wondered, and tomorrow I’m going to wear the raddest outfit just for him—“ I switched back to my normal voice—“oh, hey Dwight!”

He stopped in his tracks right next to Pam, who was covering her mouth as she struggled to keep in her guffaw, her shoulders shaking.

“What are you talking about?” He asked, clenching his fists at his sides and raising his chin just a bit to seem domineering.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Just Jim’s unrequited crush on the branch’s best salesman,” Pam whispered loudly to avoid bursting into a laughing fit.

“Oh, please,” Dwight scoffed, rolling his eyes as he continued walking, smacking my head with the back of his hand as he passed. “Jim would never ever be able to get me to be attracted to him. That’s just an unrealistic scenario due to his inferior station in life.”

“And what station is that, Dwight?” I asked, wheeling around so that my legs were off on the left side of the chair.

“The station of absolute debauchery and wiseass-ery.”

“That’s not a word.”

“Neither is…” Dwight started off his sentence snarkily, but faltered as he realized that he had nothing to say, and pressed on to find what to say next, as he never backs down.

“You know what, Dwight? I’ll give you until the end of the day to think of something.” I stood up and slowly walked over to him, hands clasped calmly behind my back. I stood close enough for me to smell the meat he had eaten earlier, whatever it had been. “I’ll give you a nice hundred dollar bill if you do.” I put my hand out.

“That’s a stupid deal.” He glanced down at my hand, then back into my eyes. ”Fifty, I know my worth.” We shook hands on it, and I nodded solemnly before turning to Pam with a grin. I had no plans on going through with it.

Then Roy walked in. My stomach rolled over and a weight seemed to drop onto my shoulders. I didn’t want to move from where I stood, I felt so weak, and suddenly quite tired.

I watched as Roy kneeled down and whispered something into Pam’s ear. She flinched for a second, as she didn’t know he was in the room, and giggled as she gave his chest a little slap. They were both grinning, and I saw the cameraman direct the camera at me. I cleared my throat and started walking toward the exit on my right, waving a goodbye to Pam, and made my way to the kitchen, into the bathroom.

I placed my hands on the sink and saw, through the mirror, the camera peeking in the doorway. I whipped around. “Are you serious?” I asked, and then added, as the camera slipped out of sight: “You seriously need to follow me everywhere?”

Sighing, my hands made their way back to the sink and my eyes met their reflection in the mirror. I bit my lip as tears threatened.

Michael’s surprisingly profound advice seeped into my senses. Well, if you like her so much, don’t give up.

I won’t.

I made my decision then and there, tearfully staring myself down in the mirror. I had to confess to her. Soon.

Wiping stinging tears and sniffing away my clogged nostrils, I made my way to my desk. Gripping my chair, I took a deep breath, recuperated in a few quick seconds, and took a seat.

This heartbreak calls for an old-fashioned leg-pull on Dwight. What an eventful day!

I waited around for Pam to come back to her desk, which only took about a minute, Roy tailing behind her. They shared a kiss once they reached the reception desk, and departed. I sighed. This called for an even bigger leg-pull than I originally planned for.

Sure, security threat Dwight Fart Schrute’s outburst was a nice distraction from my despair, for some short ten minutes, but all in all, it had a depressing end result. While I was explaining all my pranks on Dwight, which had seemed so damn clever to me at the time, another after another after another, I came to a realization that was long awaiting to surface and form into a clear thought: I had no future in Scranton. I wasted every day on pranks that borderline on atrocities, on sightless endeavors to court Pam. She was, quite literally, the only reason I stayed and worked for a faltering industry, and tried to try.

Dwight’s suggestion to transfer to Stamford stood out to me. Even though it was exactly what he wanted, some way to get rid of me, I put a pin in it. I’d have some place to go to if Pam didn’t reciprocate my feelings.

Oh, what the heck. She’s engaged. What could I ever do about that? I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t break up the wedding, I couldn’t convince her to call off the wedding, probably. Even if she felt the same way, she wouldn’t abandon a decade-old relationship in the snap of a finger.

I made the phone call in my car, after work. With shaky fingers and breaths, I dialed the corporate number.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Grace.”

The next morning, I left reception a quick voicemail while hurrying out of the house.

“Hey, Pam, it’s Jim. Um. I have a doctor’s appointment in the city, so I probably won’t be in till the late afternoon.” I took in a nervous breath. “Just thought I’d let you know. Okay, bye.”

I got in my car and silently bade Pam a sad farewell.

Maybe this would count as giving up. Just maybe. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t stand the fact that Pam couldn’t be with me instead. I had to get away.