They’re kissing on his couch again. It’s what they do now, how they spend most of their time together outside of work. Sometimes it leads to more, and sometimes it doesn’t. But on the nights when it doesn’t, Pam has no complaints; kissing Jim has become her new religion.

Her favorite part is how she can feel him smiling when they kiss, as if the act itself is physical evidence of how happy she makes him. And it’s contagious. Sometimes it feels like they’re doing more smiling than kissing these days.

“Mmm,” he hums softly against her lips. “You’re a great kisser, you know?”

She opens her eyes, the corners of her mouth predictably turning up. “Really?” No one’s ever complimented her kissing prowess before. She has a feeling there’s never really been a reason to, but something about being with Jim has skyrocketed her confidence.

“I mean, I’m admittedly biased, being in love with you and all,” he grins. “But you are.” 

“You’re not too bad yourself,” she replies. She considers diving right back in and never coming up for air, but his comment has given rise to an opportunity. “How many girls have you kissed?” 

“Wow, Beesly, you’re really going for it tonight, aren’t you?”

“I want to know!” She pushes him playfully on the shoulder. He leans back into the couch, his expression contemplative.

“I’m not sure I can answer that accurately,” he admits. “I mean… could you?”

“Yes. I’ve kissed zero girls.”

Jim laughs, but she can count them, actually. There were a couple of boys in high school she’d kissed: her date to the junior prom, and Matthew somethingorother from one of her history classes. But after Roy, there was no one else. No one but Jim.

“It’s a pretty embarrassing number,” she says. “I can promise you that.”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Clearly you’re a natural.”

He leans in again, starts kissing her neck. She’s learned by now this is Jim’s “move” that means he wants to go further, but right now she wants to know more.

“When was it you first wanted to kiss me, Jim?”  

He doesn’t stop. “Um… the day I met you?” he mumbles behind her ear. His hand weaves into her hair at her temple, letting his fingers run through it a bit. She’s been wearing her hair down more lately and isn’t sure why, but suspects Jim’s fingers are a primary factor. 

“Okay, fine, but when’s the first time you really wanted to go for it?”

“The booze cruise,” he responds immediately, pulling back and catching her gaze, “when we were alone outside. There were a million times I wanted to do it but that was the first time I seriously considered it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’ve thought long and hard about this.”

“That’s what she said.”

He raises an eyebrow appreciatively. “Well played, Beesly. But it’s true. That was my moment, and I blew it.”

She’s thought about that night a lot about it herself. She remembers wanting him to say something in that moment, to do something, to change her life. She hadn’t been entirely certain of her own feelings at the time, but they’d lived in those silent twenty seven seconds together in hope. The ball had been in his court. Then Roy set the date and the moment passed. Subsequently, she convinced herself she’d imagined the entire thing. 

“I think I wanted you to,” she admits. “Maybe. Subconsciously.”

“You think?”

“Okay, I definitely wanted you to.”

He scoffs dramatically, looking at the ceiling. “Unbelievable.”

“Why didn’t you?” 

“You were engaged,” he shrugs. “I didn’t want to be that guy.”

“The guy who breaks up a wedding?” 

“Yeah.”

“You were that guy, I hate to remind you,” she smirks.

She watches his chest rise, then fall. “Well, that was different. I thought I’d never see you again. And what would have happened if I hadn’t said anything to you at all?”

“I’d be married to Roy.”

“Or engaged,” he says with a wink.

“Shut up,” she laughs, grabbing the nearest pillow and hitting him with it.

“What was it about him?” Jim suddenly asks, not unkindly. 

Pam sighs. “Well, you didn’t see everything, you know,” she says, a bit defensively. 

“I know. I don’t mean that the way it sounds.” 

She can tell he means it exactly the way it sounds, but appreciates his discretion. Roy wasn’t a bad guy, really… she can simply see now she’d gotten too comfortable with him. She should have realized they’d outgrown each other long before she finally did. 

“I guess... I just thought he was the one,” she replies. “We’d been together for so long even before I met you, the idea of leaving him for someone else just felt wrong. Even in the moments he felt wrong.”

“But... you did have that idea?” Jim prods. “About leaving him?”

Even now, every time she admits to Jim she’d had more-than-friendly feelings about him well before the night she’d rejected him, she feels even worse about what she’d said to him. He never misinterpreted their relationship because even then she felt the same way he did and she knew it. He’d simply called out the true nature of their friendship and that truth scared her.

She heads straight to Jim’s desk and picks up the phone, her mind reeling, her heart racing. It’s late, and it only takes a ring and a half for her mother to pick up.

“Mom? It’s me…. something just happened and I need to talk to you.”

“What is it, honey? Are you okay?” 

She’s quiet, not for dramatic effect, but because she honestly doesn’t know how to start. 

“Pam?”

She sighs. “You know Jim, the... guy from my office?”

“Of course, you talk about him all the time.”

Does she? All the time? Her mouth is dry. What will her mom say about this? “Well, he just… I don’t even know how to say this.”

“Tell me, sweetheart.”

“He just told me… that he’s in love with me.”

Silence. 

“Mom? Help.”

“Now I don’t know what to say,” her mother replies.

“What do I do? I don’t know what to do.”

There’s a sigh on the other line. “Where are you? When did this happen?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

Her mom is quiet for a moment, then surprises her. “And did you tell him how you feel?”

Pam usually tells her mom everything. She’s realizing now that she’s probably made no secret of the fact she’s been falling for Jim, however subtly she may have been dropping those hints. However she’d been denying it to herself. However engaged to Roy she might be. 

“No, I didn't know what to say.”

“You’re getting married in three weeks, Pam.”

“Yes, I know.” She just wants her mom to tell her everything is going to be okay, that of course she shouldn’t tell Jim she loves him back. That doing so would turn her entire world upside down. That she loves Roy, she should marry Roy. But her mother does the opposite.

“Well, you have to make a decision, honey. Do you love Jim?”

“Um, I don't know, mom, he's my best friend.” She says it like a mantra, like a scripted reply. My best friend. My best friend. As if that’s a way out, some excuse as to why she shouldn’t want him the way she does.

“The way you talk about him, though, honey… I’ve only met him a couple times but he seems like such a nice guy.”

“Yeah, he's great.”

“Well, then? Are you in love with him?”

She’s grateful for her mom’s openness, that she hasn’t freaked out over losing wedding deposits or upsetting guests and family members and all of the other things Pam can’t help but worry about. Her mother has always been a voice of reason, getting to the heart of the issue. She always wants what’s right for her daughter. Her mother truly does know what’s best. 

Pam doesn’t even have to hesitate. She may have lied to Jim but she won’t lie to her mother. “Yeah, I think I am.”

“Well, sweetheart, I think you have your-”

Just then Jim is here again, moving through her peripheral vision like a ghost. She was certain he’d left already, yet here he is.

“I have to go,” she says into the receiver, abruptly changing her attitude. Her mother barely has time to instruct her to call her back when she says “I will” and slams Jim’s phone down. She wonders why she’d gone to his desk without a second thought.

“Listen, Jim-”

Her plan is to tell him she needs time to think, to process her own feelings. That she obviously cares about him more than she’s letting on but this is all happening too quickly. But before she can, his lips are pressed against hers, and that line of friendship has been irrevocably crossed. 

She’s wanted this for so, so long, that she allows it; lets him kiss her, hold her, pull her close. She tries to ignore her guilt for these precious seconds and simply enjoy what it feels like to kiss her favorite person in the world. Her best friend. It feels unavoidably right while her brain is screaming that it’s wrong. She wants to pull away; she never wants it to end.

She doesn't know how many seconds pass but she knows it's been too many. She pulls away from him, gently, and Jim looks at her with such an earnest, loving expression she wants to live there. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he says quietly.

Her rational mind knows it’s the wrong thing to do but her heart wants nothing more than to tell him the truth: that she’s wanted to kiss him too. She never “misinterpreted” their friendship. If anything, she’d rebuffed him earlier out of guilt for letting things get this far. Everything had gotten too messy, so messy that he’d gone and confessed his love for her. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. She’s supposed to marry Roy, and this entire thing with Jim was just for fun… just how she got through the day.

How she got through every single day.

“Me too,” she replies. 

Where the hell did that come from? 

This can’t be happening. She’s marrying Roy. What would he think? What would he do? Her brain misfires. 

Shut it down.

“I think we’re just drunk,” she tries. Make it light, Pam. Turn a heated moment into something innocent, like she has so many times in the past.

But this time, his face falls. “I’m not drunk. Are you drunk?”

And the truth comes out once again: "No.”

Jim takes this as a green light, which she knows he should, but she cannot take any more truth tonight. She has responsibilities: to herself, and to Roy. She cannot make her body move, however, and as his lips touch hers again, she stops him.

Shut it down.

“Jim.”

It’s not what he wants to hear. She knows what he wants to hear but she cannot give him what he wants. She's can't even form any more words. So he does it for her.

“Are you really gonna marry him?”

Her head is swimming and she flounders, she cannot find the surface. She feels her neck move, nodding, as if some unseen force is making it happen. What that force is is something she will toil over for months to come. Is it duty? Guilt? Hell if she knows. All she knows is he is squeezing her hands softly, backing away, and letting go. He is walking away from her and now she feels completely empty. 

The moment he’s out of sight her legs give way and she sinks down into Jim’s chair, sobbing uncontrollably. She wants to chase after him but she’s such a fucking coward she knows it won’t happen.

She doesn’t call her mom back. 

What has she done?

Her mind is a torrent of contradictory thoughts, ticking down the list of vendors she’s hired, the irretrievable deposits on photographers, caterers, bartenders. Roy’s parents, of whom she’d always been fond. And Roy… someone who, despite everything that’s happened with Jim, is someone she cares about. The idea of being that person who jilts their betrothed at the altar (practically) is appalling to her, it isn’t the person she ever thought she’d be.

But thoughts of Jim push their way to the forefront: Jim, who apparently scheduled a trip halfway around the world just so that he wouldn’t have to watch her take vows with someone else. Who must have been experiencing such torment that he’d complained to Toby about her wedding planning. Everything clicks into place now, and it’s not that she’s stupid or oblivious, she’s just not accustomed to being fought for. Maybe she’s simply refused to believe anyone ever would.

“I’m in love with you,” he’d said. “I’m sorry if that’s weird for you to hear, but I need you to… hear it.”

It should have been weird to hear but really, she almost expected to hear it: in the deepest darkest part of her heart, the part that has always known he loves her. It’s the same part that knows she loves him too.

“I can’t,” she’d told him.

I can’t.

That part is true: it’s not that she doesn’t love him, it’s that she can’t love him.

What she really wants to do is to run after him, throw her arms around him and finish the kiss. Take their friendship to the next level, see where it can go.

She wants to. But she can’t. 

I can’t.

I can’t.

Pam Beesly’s entire life has centered around this very notion: I can’t.

After her confusion and frustration come the tears, and through her tears she remembers she’d had every intention of asking Jim to take her home before he’d confronted her in the parking lot. She’s stranded, in more ways than one. 

After calling a cab and sobbing in the backseat the entire ride home, she wipes her eyes and walks into the apartment she shares with Roy, closing the door behind her. It’s dark in their bedroom, and she sees the half lit familiar form of his body under the covers. She doesn’t know what else to do, so she undresses and gets into bed next to the man she’s planning to marry. There’s a tightness in her chest that constricts, and it only gets worse. She has trouble breathing, she has trouble sleeping.

She cries softly to herself night after night and Roy never notices. 

A few nights before the wedding, she wakes up with a start. It’s the kiss again, The Kiss, the one she’s been reliving in her mind, in her soul. Her heart will not let go of that night she’d sent him away and very possibly made the biggest mistake of her life. 

She rarely goes to Roy for comfort, but she needs something from him tonight: to know she's making the right choice, to not feel this aching doubt. It’s never been more important.

The taste of Jim’s kiss still lingers from her dream, but she leans over to kiss her fiancé softly. He stirs, mumbles a bit.

“Hey, baby.” He slaps her backside playfully. “Someone’s frisky.”

She isn’t, not at all. She just needs to feel in Roy’s kiss what she’d felt in Jim’s. She needs to feel it right now. 

Roy opens his mouth and pulls her in, hard. He always kisses aggressively, always rushes to the finish line. For the first time, she realizes she hates it.

She brings a hand to his face, tries to emulate what had come so naturally with Jim. But it doesn't feel right anymore. Roy doesn’t touch her tenderly, or cradle her in his large hands like she’s the most precious thing in the world to him. And she doesn't kiss Roy the way she’d kissed Jim: with a sweeping passion that made her knees weak and her heart flutter. 

Passion is what she feels for Jim. She’s never done this with Roy because she feels no passion for Roy. 

And now she knows for certain she cannot marry him. 

She sits up a bit, pulls back. “Roy, I…”

In the dim moonlight she can see the annoyance on his face. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and for the first time she can see it, really see it: this kiss was for him, not for them. And maybe that’s been the problem all along.

“What is it, baby?” he asks again.

She summons up the courage she should have had years ago, and tells him the truth.

“...I can’t.”

Jim notices her hesitation in answering his question. The answer is simple: yes, she’d thought about leaving Roy, many times. But she isn’t sure how to tell Jim that. 

“I’m sorry, Pam, you don’t have to answer. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“No, it’s not that,” she says. She wants to start fresh with him, to not have to hide anything. But it’s hard to do that when she can’t stop thinking about how his face looked when she’d lied to him. “I know you said not to give it another thought, but… I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“About what?”

“About that night, when you kissed me. And what I said to you in the parking lot. Because I did think about you, Jim. I did want to be more than friends. And after so many years, you said the one thing I always wanted you to say, and I just… I panicked.”

Jim puts his arm around her. She lays her head against his shoulder. “When I said let’s not give it a second thought, I meant the whole heartbreak part,” he explains, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

“I broke my own heart too, you know.”

He chuckles, just a tiny bit, then turns his head to look down at her. “Well, I know how you can make it up to both of us,” he says.

“How?” 

“Tell me about those times,” he says instead. “That you thought of me as more than a friend. Any of them. All of them. Whenever they come to you.”

“Really?”

He nods. “I think knowing will make everything better, not worse. Trust me.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

She sighs against his chest. “But... we wasted so much time, Jim.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t regret a single second I spent with you, Pam. And knowing you felt the same way I did helps. A lot.”

She snuggles into him closer. “Well, okay. Let me think.” There are so many to choose from. After a moment, she decides. “That day I told Roy I wanted to pursue my art, and he told me not to, and you told me to do it.”

She feels him sigh, his warm breath against her crown. “I remember that.”

“I felt so trapped, Jim. I knew what the right thing to do was but I couldn’t do it. Deep down I knew you just really cared about me, and Roy really didn’t, and I didn’t know what to do with that.”

“Well, you sort of yelled at me.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry,” she says. “I only yelled at you because I knew you were right, though. About me, and about Roy.”

Jim’s gentle breathing against her head is so soothing, she wonders how she ever got by without it. He’s quiet for a moment, then responds.

“Look, it wasn’t my place to get involved. But it was hard not to. You two just… never really made sense to me, that’s all.”

He’s right, but she doesn’t want to talk about Roy anymore. She takes Jim’s hand, holds it up. Presses her own small palm against his large one and interlocks their fingers. 

“You and me, though,” she says, lifting her head up to look at him. “This makes sense.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up in that Jim way. He leans in, and their lips touch again. It makes sense.