She’s tried to make him her own.

Everything happened the way these things are supposed to happen: girl meets guy, girl likes guy, girl loves guy. 

She hadn’t counted on “guy loves someone else.” 

There have been two parts to Karen’s relationship with Jim. She thinks of them as the Before and the After: Before Pam, After Pam. It’s just semantics, really, because now she knows that the Pam of it has always been. But the moment she learned about her boyfriend’s history with the receptionist things changed between them, and as much as she wants to believe things have gotten better, she honestly isn’t so sure anymore.

It doesn’t matter how often Jim tells her he’s moved on. It's not only that she doesn’t believe him, she isn’t sure he even believes himself.

Karen Filipelli isn’t the type to bend over backwards for a man. At least, she never thought she’d be. When she’d told one of her girlfriends, Monika, that her boyfriend had admitted he still had feelings for another woman, Monika didn’t have to think twice. 

“Dump the motherfucker already,” she’d said instantly. “Why did you even need to call me?”

Karen had sighed, pulling out every possible defense she had from her rapidly diminishing arsenal: Jim is special, this is a strange circumstance, he wants to try, yada yada yada. Monika wasn’t convinced, and she completely understood her friend’s perspective. It seemed like an open and shut situation. But there was just one problem. 

“I love him,” she’d said. 

Monika was a good friend, and had said her piece. She wouldn’t broach the topic again.

Karen still loves him, weeks later: after learning he’d avoided mentioning Pam in the first place, then lying to her about his lingering feelings. After watching them demonstrate their very obvious bond directly in front of her day after day. After Roy attacked Jim in the bullpen over a kiss that happened almost a year ago, and now – even now – after Pam had essentially declared her undying love for him in front of everyone in the Scranton branch.

Okay, she hadn’t said exactly those words, but Karen isn’t stupid. She may not understand Jim all the time -- hell, even most of the time -- but she definitely speaks Pam’s language.

The opportunity to move to New York seems to have fallen into her lap at precisely the right moment. They need to get out of here, and quickly. Otherwise there’s no telling how long she has before she loses him forever. 

It sounds desperate. Hell, it is desperate, but she’s reached that point.

She loves him, after all.

Jim is still at corporate having his interview, and she doesn’t really wonder where he is for a couple of hours. Everything feels so comfortable and safe here at one of the city’s finest local bistros with some of her old college girlfriends. Monika is a successful stockbroker on Wall Street, and Sarah recently got a great job in the Garment District. Karen has been hoping to catch up with them for some time, both literally and figuratively.

Monika teases her about living in Scranton, Sarah orders a bottle of champagne to celebrate the job Karen has certainly gotten at corporate, and Jim comes up as topic only briefly. Soon enough the conversation shifts into talk of other matters: careers and gym routines and New York and the future.

By the time they drain the entire bottle of champagne, Karen looks down at her watch: it’s 1:50. Jim’s interview was scheduled for eleven, and he should have called her by now. 

She shoots him a quick text.

Where are you? We are at Mastro’s in midtown.

He doesn’t reply immediately, but after a few minutes:

Can you come outside? I’m by the fountain around the corner.

It’s weird, the way your body sometimes understands things before your brain does. But this is exactly what happens to Karen when she reads Jim’s text. Her entire body goes cold, her heart skips a beat – not in the good way – and she’s suddenly short of breath.

She lays down a bunch of cash and apologizes to her friends for bailing, and that they didn’t get to meet Jim. Maybe next time, they say, but she is too distracted to reply. Grabbing her coat and purse, she walks around the corner and down 6th until she sees him waiting for her next to an enormous fountain. 

He’s standing alone on the sidewalk, his jacket slung over his arm and his shirtsleeves rolled up to the crooks of his elbows. He looks different. Relaxed, collected, and something else she hasn't seen in all the months she’s known him: very, very certain.

And she is now certain, too. Certain, for the first time, that this is truly and finally over.

***

The new guy is cute. Really cute.

The idea that a documentary crew followed him here gives him that extra air of intrigue, but even if they hadn’t, he’d still totally be her type.

She isn’t sure she even likes him yet, though. It’s weird, the way the cameras tail him constantly, as if they’re waiting for something hugely entertaining to happen. The dude sells paper, for god’s sake. 

She tries to get a read on him over the first few days. He came from Scranton, his name is Jim. He’s quiet, but polite. He has a great smile, whenever she’s lucky enough to get a glimpse of it. 

The others have pegged him as a bit of a suck-up but she doesn’t see him that way; after a few initial bumps in the road, he seems genuinely interested in being helpful, in getting his work done. He’s got an intense drive and it isn’t long before she finds herself wanting to know where he gets it. He keeps his head down, buries himself in the work, and he isn’t very social. 

Which is a shame. Because he’s really, really cute. 

It’s the sweaty shirt and hair that finally does it. She was attracted to Jim before but there’s something about him walking into the office, completely unbothered by how disgusting he looks, that she finds alarmingly sexy.

“Nice basket,” she says, referencing his bicycle but trying to hide the fact that she’s actually looking at his butt.

“Thanks,” he replies. 

He flashes his smile and it’s all over. 

***

When she learns the Stamford branch is closing, she’s filled with conflicting emotions. Even if she’s offered a job in Scranton, it’s hard to imagine actually moving there, actually living there. But she doesn’t really have a choice. Does she? If she decides to quit Dunder Mifflin, she’ll have to look for another job. And that means starting all over again, possibly at the bottom.

She’s worked too hard to start over at the bottom. 

Then there’s the matter of Jim. It’s been a strange several weeks with him, and she’s not really sure what to do with all these feelings she has for a guy she works with who hasn’t really been giving her much in return. Well, most of the time. There are some days she can almost convince herself he likes her too. But nothing ever comes of it, so she’s left to wait and wonder if and when he’ll ever make a move.

Karen has never been a shy person. She’s never balked at asking a guy out, or making her feelings known to him. But Jim sits right in front of her. She’s hesitant to make a move without knowing if he will reciprocate, because avoiding the inevitable awkwardness a rejection would cause feels more important than taking the risk in the first place.

When he tells her he thinks she should come to Scranton, it’s the first real sign he’s given her that he might be interested. And the universe has presented her with an opportunity, it seems: take that risk. See where Jim is at, and then decide what to do. If he says no, and all of this is in her head, she’s no worse off than she is right now. She won’t have to face him in the morning for much longer.

But if he says yes…

She’s so excited at this prospect that she’s far too open with the camera crew. Joe, the producer in charge of the documentary at the Stamford branch, asks her how she’s feeling after Jim said what he said, and she can’t help herself.

“Yeah, I’m happy he said that,” she tells the crew, her excitement all too apparent. “I mean, I don’t think he’s into me or anything, but… I’m kind of into him. So there you go.”

She realizes she’s probably said too much, but she doesn’t care. Because she’ll know soon enough if he likes her back, and then it won’t matter what he sees in the documentary anyway.

She rushes downstairs and catches Jim in the lobby of their building, asks him if he wants to go grab a drink with her. He looks surprised, but pleasantly so, and says yes. Her heart expands, just a bit, like there’s a tiny balloon in her chest that’s slowly inflating. And on her way over to the bar, she gets the call from Jan she’d been counting on.

Jan tells her to take the weekend to think about it. It’s a huge decision, after all, to uproot her entire life, move to a new town. But her sales record is one of the best, and they’d hate to lose her. She’s the kind of employee that could someday make it to corporate, Jan tells her.

She hangs up the phone as she sits in the parking lot of Casey’s Tavern, waiting for Jim to arrive. When he does, she watches him approach the entrance. He’s really so cute, she thinks again, as he takes a deep breath and opens the door. He looks nervous and she thinks that’s probably a really good sign.

She finds him at the bar and takes the open seat next to him. He seems happy to see her, and they chat and laugh for a good hour. She’s two drinks in – her responsible limit for the evening – but she’s feeling really good. She’s feeling brave. And she decides at this moment to go for it: to just lean in and see if he takes the bait. 

When her lips touch his, she can tell he’s surprised. But he doesn’t pull away. He kisses her back, softly at first, then something comes over him and before she knows it, it’s no longer a kiss. It’s a makeout session. 

All of her fears flutter away as he gives her everything she’s been wanting for weeks, leaving no doubt in her mind anymore about what those glances in all their sales meetings might have meant. 

He’s a good kisser, too. That’s a nice bonus.

The rest of the evening goes well, and she takes the opportunity to tell him she’s seriously considering moving to Scranton. He seems pleased by this development, which in turn pleases her. The tiny balloon expands a bit more. She’s not entirely sure how Jim feels about her yet, but he’s given her enough, so she makes up her mind. 

Scranton isn’t necessarily the destination, it could be merely part of her journey. And if Jim is joining her for that ride, well… it would be stupid not to go, right?

By the time he walks her out to her car, she’s feeling on top of the world. It’s been such an eventful day – a good day – and she feels like it couldn’t possibly get any better. 

But maybe it could. 

She briefly considers asking him to come home with her. If he can make her feel like she did in the bar with only his kiss, she’s dying to know what else he can do with that mouth. But she hesitates. She really likes Jim, and this is not something she wants to rush. She doesn’t want this to turn into some kind of one night stand situation. He told her himself he’s really bad at reading signals and for his sake more than for her own, she decides not to send him that one.

They part smiling, lining up a real first date for the next night. Dinner and a movie. 

She calls Jan first thing Monday and tells her that yes, she would be happy to accept the job in Scranton.

***

Jim Halpert moves pretty slow.

It’s interesting to learn this, particularly after the way he’d kissed her in the bar. But they’ve gone on four dates now. She’s more than ready to sleep with him, and now they’re in Scranton for good. She’s ready to take this thing to the next level.

She has to give him a break, she thinks, because it’s been a stressful few days. Packing and moving has been consuming every ounce of her energy that hasn’t been directed at Jim, or daydreaming about Jim. And she can’t complain. It’s been going pretty well so far. 

Maybe he’s just a romantic. Maybe he wants them to be settled, for it to be the right time and place. If so, it’s sweet, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. He’s a really nice guy, after all. She’s not really used to having nice guys in her life.

The documentary crew in Scranton is an entirely new group of people, and a bigger one than she’d met in Stamford. They introduce themselves and she does her best to remember every name. 

“Hi, I’m Delilah,” one of the producers says as she shakes Karen’s hand.

“Hi, Karen,” she replies. 

“Have a seat. Are you excited to be here?” Delilah asks.

Karen shrugs. “Yeah, I mean… I’m excited to see what this place is like. Must be super interesting if you guys are making a movie about it.”

Delilah eyes her curiously. “I take it Jim hasn’t said much about the employees here?”

“Not really,” Karen shakes her head. “He just kept saying I need to see it all for myself.”

Delilah grins, raising her eyebrows slightly and glancing at the floor. Based on this reaction Karen thinks she’s probably right: that there’s something about this place, this group of people, that must be really special. She can’t wait to figure out what that is.

After about an hour of Michael Scott, she decides she should be more careful about what she wishes for. 

“Well, this is going to be interesting,” she says to Jim later that evening as they sit down at their table at Cooper’s. He seems a little distracted by something. “You okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You just seem a little far away.”

“Do I? Sorry,” he says. “It’s just a little weird being back, you know. Seeing everyone again.”

“Is Michael always like that?” She prays he isn’t.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Jim says. “You’ll get used to him, I promise. Eventually.”

She nods, aware he’s trying to be supportive but at the same time really, really not having any desire to get used to Michael. But she’s here now, at least for the time being. She might just have to.

They peruse their menus and order their meals. Karen sits back and sips her water. “So tell me about everyone else. I want the lowdown.”

He clears his throat. “Okay. Well, Michael has pretty much told you everything you need to know about him on the first day. So… there’s that. Dwight… is sort of indescribable.”

“Oh yeah?”

He gives her a tight smile. “Well, he and I don’t really get along very well. I sort of... used to pull pranks on him.”

“Pranks?”

“Yeah, like… just to mess with him. He’s a little much.”

Karen raises an eyebrow. “What kinds of pranks?”

He laughs a little to himself. “Well, like… one time I paid everyone in the office to call him Dwayne all day. That was fun.”

“Okay,” she nods, with a laugh. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Jim would spend so much valuable work time on.  “Starting to see why you never tried for a promotion before now.”

“Ha, yeah,” he says, again, a bit distractedly. The waiter sets down their drinks and he takes a long sip.

She wants to ask him about the receptionist. He’d seemed pretty friendly with her earlier. She's not typically the jealous type, but she's observant, and it hadn’t escaped her notice the way she’d practically thrown herself into his arms upon his arrival, the way she hovered near his desk all day. Not to mention the way she’d sat down right next to him in the conference room for that horrifying Michael video. 

“What’s up with Angela?” she asks instead. “She seems kind of mean.”

“Oh, she is,” Jim says, his eyes widening. “Steer clear.”

“Is there anyone I don’t have to stay away from, Halpert?” she smirks. “It would be nice to have some friends at work that aren’t you. No offense.”

He laughs in that cute way she’s noticed he does when he doesn’t want to say something. It’s still so early in their relationship; she doesn’t want to pry or make him feel uncomfortable. But he’s been acting weird all day.

“Kevin is cool,” he says. “Phyllis and Stanley are all right. Honestly, you only really need to watch out for Creed.”

“Why? What’s wrong with Creed?”

It appears to be beyond Jim’s explanation. “Just stay on your toes, Filippelli. That’s all I’ve got for you.”

“Is that it?” she asks him, knowing he’s left someone out.

“Um… am I missing anyone?”

“What about the receptionist? Pam, was it? She seems nice.”

He picks up his beer, takes another sip. “Oh yeah, she’s pretty cool.”

He says nothing more about Pam the receptionist. She realizes in the moment that she'd actually been hoping for more not out of jealousy, but because she misses her girlfriends. Based solely on first impressions, Pam seems like the best candidate for a friend here in Scranton. 

Something about Jim's demeanor makes her think he probably does have more to say, but for whatever reason he’s not offering. Maybe it's simply willful ignorance, but she decides to push it away. She wants to focus on him tonight, on them.

“Well, thanks for the 411,” she says. He grins at her, and soon enough their meals arrive, and things feel normal. After a while, he seems to be acting like himself again. So much so, that when they walk back out to their cars, she decides enough is enough.

“Do you… want to come back to my hotel with me?” she asks him, point blank. 

He blinks, a little stunned at her blunt proposition. But she wants to be as transparent as possible with Jim. He’s made it clear to her that he doesn’t like reading signals. Maybe a metaphorical sandwich board with the words LET’S HAVE SEX is the best way to make her intentions clear.

“Um,” he smiles, a little timidly. He reaches his hand to the back of his neck, scratching at the tiny curls of unruly hair. “Yeah. Yes. I do.”

She smiles back. “Okay, then.” She digs in her purse for her second room key and hands it to him, then stands up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his lips. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

He looks nervous – slightly terrified, actually – and as she climbs into her car she worries maybe she’s been a little too forward. She doesn’t want to pressure him into something he’s not ready for. But when he arrives at her hotel room, he appears to have transformed. He’s assertive and passionate and it’s exactly what she’d been hoping it would be like.

Afterwards, he lays on his back next to her, his bare chest rising and falling, breathing heavily. He stares at the ceiling.

She pulls the sheets up to her chin and turns on her side, facing him, waiting. “That was… really great.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It really was.”

He’s sort of distracted again, and for the first time she starts to really wonder what’s going on inside his head. The shift is subtle, but it’s like she can actively see him transforming from one Jim into another, depending upon the moment, depending upon the day. So much of him feels like a mystery to her. She can only hope he can continue to let her in, even as slowly as he has been.

“Thanks,” he finally says after a minute or so. He still won’t look at her, just stares up at the stippled ceiling. He sounds far away again. “For being so upfront about everything. For not making me wonder.”

It’s sort of a weird thing to say, but she isn’t really sure what she expects, anyway. “You’re welcome?” she says with a little uncertainty, then she giggles.

Only a few seconds pass, but the silence is oppressive. She’s had enough first times to know that sometimes this is just the way it goes, but she’d really been hoping it wouldn’t feel like this with him.

“Do you… want to stay?” she asks him. 

She prays he doesn’t leave, hopes to god he doesn’t turn what should be something special and wonderful into something awkward. But mercifully, he doesn’t. He twists his neck to face her, finally, and the Jim she recognizes seems to reappear in his eyes. 

“Okay,” he says with a smile, then leans in to kiss her.

***

Jim hasn’t used the word “girlfriend” yet to describe her, and it’s starting to make her anxious. It’s not like this is a difficult conversation to have, and she isn’t necessarily nervous about having it. The amount of time they’ve spent together over the past month is a pretty clear indication they’re already exclusive. But she still wants to hear it, and to be honest, she wants to hear it from him first. As great as Jim is, as much as she likes him and is really enjoying being with him, she can’t help but feel like she’s been the one driving this relationship. It might just be obliviousness on his part – she has no reason to think he’s dragging his feet – but he’s been getting away with quite a bit of it. 

Over Christmas, her parents give her a really hard time about her decision to move to Pennsylvania. She can tell they’re mostly upset they don’t get to see her as much anymore, but she also gets the distinct impression they’ve decided she moved there for a guy, and are uncomfortable with that. Karen hasn’t had the best track record with men. 

She gets defensive, but probably because she’s uncomfortable with it, too.

She didn’t move to Scranton for Jim. Yes, he was a factor, but she moved to Scranton for an opportunity.

…right?

Her parents’ disapproval stays in the back of her mind, though, and it’s all she can think about upon her arrival back at work. And although she and Jim have now at least acknowledged to each other their relationship is official and exclusive, he seems to take another step backwards when he freaks out about her moving in down the street.

They’ve only been dating for a month and she’s already feeling a sense of rising panic that she’s losing him. There are times she has to stop herself from pointing out that she moved here for him, as an excuse to move them forward, to progress their relationship. But every time the thought enters her head she thinks about her parents, and knows that she cannot say this to Jim, because it’s far too much pressure to put on someone she’s only been seeing for a month.

Besides, it isn’t even true.

…is it?

She can’t really explain it to her own satisfaction, so instead of worrying too much about what's going to happen, she’s going to try to relax and enjoy what they have right now. 

There will come a time when they discuss the future, but that day is not today.

***

Things have been going well with Jim.

It’s what she tells the camera crew because it’s the truth. The first few weeks at Scranton have been nice, the Michael Scott Saga notwithstanding.

Yes, there had been that little hiccup with Jim and the apartment building. If she liked him less, she might have let it upset her more. But he was just being a guy, that’s all. Just a typical guy a little freaked out by commitment. And they’d only been dating for a few weeks. She could hardly be upset over him having an honest reaction. A temporary freak out. And ever since, he’s been opening up a little more each day. She’s starting to feel like he’s getting more comfortable with her, more at ease.

Today they’re going on sales calls, and she’s disappointed she can’t go with Jim. But Phyllis hand picked her, which was nice. It might be fun to spend some time with someone else in the Scranton branch who seems relatively normal. 

They’re in the car headed back to the office after closing the sale. She’d been a bit skeptical of Phyllis’ bizarre sales tactics – spending the entire day with a bad makeover isn’t ideal – but the sale was a big one, so the end sort of justified the means.

“I'm so glad you're with Jim,” Phyllis suddenly says. Which is a nice thing to say. But then, “He was hung up on Pam for such a long time. Never thought he’d get over her.”

A chill passes through Karen’s body. She can’t quite comprehend what she’s just heard.

Pam? As in, the receptionist? That Pam?

This bit of information is so unexpected she doesn’t even know how to process it. She wants to ask Phyllis to repeat herself, but her immediate concern is keeping her cool. She doesn’t want to freak out, or make this into a bigger deal than it is.

“That's nice,” she says as calmly as possible, because indicating she has no idea what Phyllis is talking about would make it seem like she doesn’t know Jim as well as she thought she did.

And then it hits her. She doesn’t know Jim as well as she thought she did.

In an instant, all of the little moments between her boyfriend and the receptionist she’d wondered about since they arrived in Scranton shuffle through her mind, one after the other, like a puzzle she didn’t realize she’d been putting together this entire time. And Phyllis has just handed her the final piece.

Suddenly everything makes an alarming, heartbreaking amount of sense. She curses that tiny voice in her head that told her something was up with Jim from the start– that she hadn’t listened to it, that she hadn’t heeded her own gut.

I never thought he’d get over her.

She can’t be upset that Jim had feelings for someone else before they met. She has no right to be. But she is upset that he never mentioned a thing about it, especially if it was obviously something that affected him.

Maybe even something that’s still affecting him.

“You can pay me back later for the makeover,” Phyllis says. Karen barely hears her, because she’s now trying to figure out what to do next. She wants to be straightforward about this, but she also doesn’t want to appear jealous or clingy. It’s entirely possible Phyllis has this wrong, or partially wrong. Maybe it isn’t a big deal at all.

In any event, Jim doesn’t like signals, he doesn’t like games. She will approach him swiftly and honestly, and hopefully squash whatever this is right away. There are two possibilities: it’s not a big enough deal for him to have mentioned it, or it’s a big enough deal that he’s avoided it. And she doesn’t intend on sitting back and guessing which is the truth.

***

“So, let me ask you a question.”

“Okay.” 

“Did you ever have a thing for Pam?” 

His ears turn pink, and she knows immediately it’s true.

“Pam? Did I ever have a 'thing' for her?” He chuckles a little bit in that way he does and tries to cover it by taking a sip of his coffee. “No, why? Did she say something?”

Karen does not chuckle, however. “I moved here from Connecticut,” she says, and refrains from saying ‘for you’ even though it’s all she’s thinking. 

Luckily, he seems to understand the gravity of the situation immediately. She sees the pretense crumble around him and he appears genuinely prepared to level with her.

“Yeah. Okay, here's the…” he looks around the coffee shop, as if the way out of this little pickle is written on the menu or something. “I had… a crush on her before I left. And I told her about it and she didn't feel the same way. So, it didn't amount to anything, and I left.”

The look on his face is very final. Maybe he genuinely didn’t believe it was a big deal. Maybe Phyllis doesn’t know the whole story.

More concerning to Karen, however, is his reasoning. Pam didn’t feel the same way? Really? She’s assumed from the beginning Jim and Pam were good friends, simply from the way they behave around each other. And what, exactly, is not to like about Jim? She hates to admit it, even to herself, but the two of them seem perfectly suited for each other in every possible way. It doesn’t make any sense. Despite Jim’s version of the story, she finds it very, very difficult to believe he’s got his facts straight. 

She must still have a concerned look on her face, because he continues. “I'm really glad you're here. Okay?”

He looks at her with those eyes and his smile is so warm, she can’t help but nod. It makes her happy to feel validated. This conversation could have gone in a completely different direction, after all. Whatever his reasoning for why he and Pam didn’t work out, he’s here with her, and that’s what matters.

Jim, for his part, looks somewhat relieved this is out in the open. “What made you ask me about this, anyway?”

She has no reason to lie to him. “Phyllis told me. On our sales call.”

His eyes widen and his brow furrows. “Phyllis?”

“Yep.”

“What… what did she say?” He looks absolutely perplexed that Phyllis was the source of this bit of information.

Karen takes a sip of her own coffee, eyeing him carefully. “She said you were hung up on Pam for such a long time she was worried you’d never get over her.”

Jim’s eyes sort of shift from confusion to introspection, and she can see him begin to retreat inside himself. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Well, that was pretty presumptuous of her to say, is all. I’ve never exchanged two words with Phyllis about Pam.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She believes him. Her deskmate has definitely struck her as a bit of a gossip over the few short weeks she’s known her. Besides today’s doozy, she’d also “happened to mention” Meredith’s drinking problem, Stanley’s irritable bowel syndrome, and plenty of drama about Kevin and his fiancée. None of which Karen had asked about.

“She is a bit of a drama queen, isn’t she?”

Jim laughs, looking relieved again. “Totally.” He looks at Karen for a moment. “I like this new look on you, by the way.”

“Courtesy of the drama queen herself.”

“I figured as much.”

“It was a really big sale. So… worth it, I guess. Although I apparently have to pay her back.”

He shrugs and flashes her that grin that makes her forget everything else. “Cost of doing business.”

He reaches out and takes her hand in a comforting way. All of her worries about Pam seem to flutter out the window when he does that. Maybe everything is going to be fine.

***

Everything is not fine.

She leaves Jim alone in the conference room with his “feelings,” grabs her stuff and bolts out the door. She can still hear the mariachi music from Oscar’s party as she waits for the elevator, cheerfully discordant with the way her heart is breaking.

She drives home, her mind in turmoil. It only takes ten minutes – the real reason she picked this place, not because it’s two blocks from Jim – and pulls into the driveway.

She sits, unable to make herself move. And then she cries.

She cries because right here, right now, for the first time she’s realizing she’s in love with Jim. And how can he love her, how can he do anything approaching loving her if he’s still thinking about someone else?

After a few minutes, she stops crying, feeling absolutely drained. She doesn’t like crying over men. She hasn’t cried like this since Derek, and she doesn’t want to fucking think about Derek.

She grabs all of her stuff and takes it into the house, collapsing onto the couch. A stack of files sits on the coffee table: Jim’s. A baseball cap is on the floor: Jim’s. In fact, her living room even smells like him. She didn’t even get the opportunity to make this place her own.

She sighs. It’s her own fault. She doesn’t mean to, but she can’t deny she tends to jump from boyfriend to boyfriend, leaving precious little time in between to just be alone. Monika told her this once: that she’s codependent. She hadn’t believed it, because she’s always considered herself independent. She just happens to like having a boyfriend.

But maybe Monika is right. Maybe she rushed into this thing with Jim, and maybe he rushed into it, too. And because they weren’t honest with each other from the beginning, everything seems to be falling apart. 

Suddenly, she’s resolute. Jim hadn’t been honest with her, but she hasn’t been very honest with herself either. And regardless of how they got here, she does love him. Maybe, just maybe, if they wipe the slate clean and start over, they can salvage this thing.

She’s already invested so much time and energy and emotion into Jim, she wants to see this through. She can either give up, or fight for this relationship. 

Karen hates giving up.

She wipes her eyes, locks her front door, and walks the two blocks to Jim’s place. When he gets home, they’re going to have a long talk.

***

There’s this way Michael starts his day sometimes that drives Karen absolutely insane. Well, everything Michael does drives her insane, but some mornings he comes into the office and immediately starts yelling “Pam! Pam! Pam!” while slapping the edge of the reception desk. She’s pretty sure it annoys Pam more than it does her, but it still always feels like some kind of sick and twisted alarm bell, a reminder that Jim’s past is never far away. 

It’s a shame, too, because she was really starting to like Pam. They’d been becoming actual friends; at least that’s what she thought. While she understands why Pam hadn’t mentioned her history with Jim, and knows she has no right to be upset about it, she can’t help feeling just a tiny bit betrayed. She didn’t really lose a friend, but she feels like she lost a potential friend, and weirdly it’s just as upsetting.

She already feels isolated out here. She doesn’t really have any friends other than Jim, and trusting him lately has been an uphill battle. It’s been incredibly lonely.

The saddest part is that she was actually starting to like living in Scranton. It was beginning to grow on her, just as Jim had predicted. But that was before she became aware of the reason he likes it so much.

I don’t know this place as well as I thought I did.

It’s what she’d said to Delilah in her interview, but it’s not the whole truth. The truth is she doesn’t know this place at all, and she doesn’t really care to, not anymore.

She and Jim are enjoying a moment of solitude in the break room. They rarely sit here for lunch – she prefers to go out to eat – but Michael has been doing safety training all morning and Jim is convinced he has more up his sleeve. For some reason, he doesn’t want to miss it.

“How can you find that guy amusing?” she asks. “Honestly.”

“How can you not?” He takes a bite of one of his baby carrots. “I mean, sure, sometimes he’s awful, but you can’t say he isn’t entertaining.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that. No wonder you feel right at home here.”

A funny look comes over his face, the same one she’s been seeing more and more ever since the day Roy nearly clobbered him. Before she can ask about it, however, they are interrupted by Oscar and Kevin mid-conversation as they head into the break room.

“Double or nothing,” Kevin is saying.

“Kevin, no,” Oscar says, clearly irritated. “You need to stop.”

“But I’ve already lost sixty bucks, I may as well try to get it back.” 

“That’s a classic sunk-cost fallacy,” Oscar says as he puts his dollar into the vending machine. “Also, I think you might have a gambling problem.”

Kevin ignores the latter part of the sentence. “What's a sunk-cost fallacy?”

Oscar’s Diet Coke tumbles down the chute and he leans down to grab it. “Are you serious? They pay you here, actual money, to know these things.”

Kevin glances over at Karen and Jim, clearly embarrassed. “Well, I’m so sorry that not everyone here is as smart as you are, Oscar.” He turns to Jim and Karen. “Do you guys know what it is?”

Jim eyes Karen and furrows his brow. “Um… something about lost causes, I think?”

Kevin harrumphs and starts to leave the room, but Oscar, rolling his eyes, stops him. “Kevin, wait.” Kevin turns around with a pout, arms crossed, and Oscar explains. “It’s when you keep pursuing an investment only because you’ve already invested so much into it. Even though that has absolutely no bearing on the outcome.” 

Something about what Oscar has said makes Karen uncomfortable, and she shifts in her seat. 

“Oh, I get it,” Kevin says slowly, appearing as though he doesn’t get it at all. “But wait… if I put enough quarters into the slot machine, eventually I’ll get a jackpot.”

Oscar shakes his head, eyes closed in exhaustion. “No. That is categorically false.” 

A crease appears on Kevin's forehead as he gives a petulant frown. “Oh yeah? Well, screw you!” He leaves the break room in a huff. Karen idly wonders just how many quarters Kevin has lost in slot machines.

Oscar rolls his eyes. “He’ll be fine,” he says of Kevin, as if he’s a five year old child. “You guys should come place your bets, though. Toby has a running pool going for how many times per minute the air conditioning unit makes that fart noise.”

He exits the break room, leaving Jim and Karen alone with thoughts of sunk costs and lost causes. They don’t say anything to each other, but she knows it’s what they’re both thinking. And it’s not exactly encouraging to realize your relationship can be reduced to a fallacious economic principle.

***

They’re in a local Walgreens one afternoon, and Jim hangs out near the front while Karen goes to find tampons and Midol. When she heads towards the checkout, he’s holding up a pair of double rimmed glasses proudly.

“Check these out. Four dollars.”

She wrinkles her face in confusion. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

“I don’t. But don’t they look exactly like Dwight’s?”

“I guess so,” she muses. “What are you going to do with them?”

“Not sure. But I’ll think of something. I wonder if they have clothes here?” He turns and starts searching the aisles, finding the one crammed full of various articles of clothing. It’s a mish-mash of all kinds, and she rolls her eyes, certain he will not find anything Dwight would wear at this drug store. But it appears to be Jim’s lucky day, and after only a couple of minutes, he triumphantly pulls out a mustard-colored button down. It’s eerie how much it looks like Dwight’s.

“Oh my god. This’ll be great,” he says excitedly, taking the shirt off the rack. “This one time, me and P-” he stops himself and tries that again, “I took all of his things off his desk and put them on mine, and did the same thing to my stuff, then I sat at his desk. He accused me of stealing his identity.”

“This is a waste of money.”

Jim walks over an aisle, pulling a child’s digital watch off the shelf. “You can’t put a price on the look on Dwight’s face when he realizes what’s going on, trust me.” 

“Yes you can,” she says flatly, adding up his price tags. “Eleven dollars. That’s eleven dollars you could be spending on your girlfriend, by the way.”

He shrugs. “What can I say, Filippelli? Priorities.” 

She narrows her eyes, unamused.

“I’m kidding, Karen. Come on.” He reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be funny, I promise.” He grins, the same way he always does when he’s trying to get away with something. For the first time she isn’t charmed by it. 

“I’ll be in the car,” she says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his keys. “Have fun collecting your contraband.”

Before he can say anything, she turns and heads towards the cash register. Jim doesn’t follow, instead continuing his search for anything else that might piss off Dwight.

When she’s done paying, he’s nowhere to be found, so she heads out to wait in the car, thoroughly annoyed. She hasn’t admitted it to him yet, but she’s getting pretty tired of all this pranking stuff. It was fun at first when she thought it was something he did to amuse himself, to simply pass the time. Now she can’t help but associate it with Pam; with his past, something he used to do long before they started dating. When he was someone else. Even the times he’s recruited Karen to participate, she only did it to feel close to him. Nearly six months into this relationship, it’s just starting to feel childish. 

She doesn’t know how long she sits in the car stewing, but after a few minutes he comes up to the window next to her, tapping on it. She rolls it down.

“Why aren’t you just getting in the car?” she asks, annoyed.

She can’t see his face, because he’s standing up straight. But suddenly a tiny gray stuffed animal wearing a purple T-shirt is thrust in front of her face, and he wiggles it around.

“Don’t be mad, Karen,” he says in a silly, high-pitched voice. “Jim bought me for you. I cost eleven dollars.”

It works. She chuckles, taking the little plush from him, and Jim leans down to put his head into the window, resting his arms on the edge, flashing his perfect fucking smile. That goddamn smile will be the end of her, she knows it.

“What… is it?” she asks. She can’t quite tell. The ears are too small to be a bear, but it’s too gray to be a chipmunk. It’s cute, whatever it is.

“Um… a squirrel maybe? Or a koala?”

“I think it’s some kind of weird rodent.”

“Shh! You’ll hurt his feelings,” Jim frowns.

“Shut up,” she laughs. “Get in the car already.”

He walks around to the driver’s seat and gets inside, throwing a Walgreens bag in the back and slamming the door. “Are we okay?” he asks.

“Yes, we’re okay,” she says. She looks down at her little rodent. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

They don’t say much on the drive, but he reaches out to take her hand. They go out to dinner, then head back to her place. He doesn’t mention the Dwight prank to her again.

***

Karen leans against the cold bus window, her dark hair framing her face. Pam the receptionist is somewhere in the back, gone from her sight but not from her thoughts.  

Pam, Pam, Pam. 

The name has rung in her ears for weeks. Ever since she learned of their history she’s been on edge: like a trapped animal, this ‘other woman’ a serpent ready to strike at any moment. And that moment has finally arrived tonight. On beach day.

Jim is sitting next to her, silent as a sentinel. The vibrations from the bus wheels on the pavement hurt her forehead and are making her teeth chatter, but she can’t turn to face him. If she does, she might break down.

Eventually they’re alone in his car, headed back to her place. 

“Are we gonna talk about it?” she finally asks quietly. 

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“You think I don’t want to?” She turns to look at him. “Of course I want to. The question is, do you want to?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah. That’s what scares me.” 

He doesn’t say anything else, his mouth forming a thin line. He still has his baseball cap on from the beach, even though it’s pitch black outside, and she figures it isn't accidental. She can barely see his face. She tries to get a read on him but with Jim, when he goes silent his walls go up. She absorbs nothing. 

She waits for him to offer something, anything, but he doesn’t. He grips the steering wheel and stares straight ahead, deep in thought. 

“You guys were talking for a pretty long time,” she says.

“You don’t have to worry, Karen,” he says quickly. Too quickly. “Nothing happened. Nothing is going to happen, either.”

I called off my wedding because of you.

You were my best friend.

I really miss you. 

“I’m sorry, I just find that hard to believe,” she says quietly. The streetlights whip past them, orange streaks of light going by every second, a visual reminder of all the time she’s potentially wasted on this man. 

He sighs. “What happened with me and Pam… it’s in the past, you know? And I think it’s best if we all just leave it there.”

“Sure, except that it isn’t, Jim.” She pins him with a fiery gaze. “It isn’t in the past. It’s five feet from your desk every day, it’s making overtures at the beach.”

He’s quiet, again. It’s the same silence she remembers from after Andy punched the wall, when she learned the real truth about his feelings for Pam the receptionist. The same silence that always makes her feel like she’s on the outside.

“We agreed that we’re going to just be friends,” Jim says. 

He’s still looking at the road, not at her, and reaches over to take her hand. She wonders which one of them he’s trying to convince. 

“You didn’t tell me she was engaged, Jim. That she called off her wedding. Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“I didn’t know what happened with her wedding. I stopped talking to her by then. I didn’t find out about it until later.”

Once again, he’s cleverly avoided answering her question and she’s sick of it. She’s so angry she wants to slap him. “When you told me she didn’t feel the same way and you left, you failed to mention she was the reason you left.”

It’s a shot in the dark, a guess, but she has a feeling her aim is perfect. Jim shifts uncomfortably in his seat. 

“That’s not…” he sputters. “I left because I got a promotion, Karen.” 

“Can you just stop lying?!” she shoots back, frustrated. 

She can tell he’s trying. But Jim “trying” is basically all this has been, and she’s seeing it clearly for the very first time. It feels like they’re back in that coffee shop, and she’s watching him hopefully – desperately, even – through thick goopy mascara, heavy blue eyeshadow and overly teased hair. Only this time she can’t pretend he’s telling her the truth.

“What do you want me to say?” he says, just as frustrated.

“I just want you to be honest with me, Jim.”

“I fucked up, okay? I didn’t tell you everything and I’m sorry about that. I really am. But when I came back to Scranton I thought everything was resolved between me and Pam. That it was over and done with. And I didn’t want to make you feel weird about having to work with her. I had no idea she was going to say what she did tonight. And that's the god's honest truth.”

Karen shakes her head. She wants to believe him but she doesn’t know how. “We talked for hours about this. I just don’t know why you left me in the dark.”

She leaves the part that hurts the most unsaid: that if he truly cared about her more than he cared about Pam, he would have been completely honest. He would have fought for her. Even if he couldn’t then, he should right now. And the stark reality of her situation right here, right now, is staring her right in the face in a way it hasn’t before. 

Maybe he doesn’t want to fight. 

He pulls into the driveway and puts the car into park, turning to look at her for the first time. 

“I’m sorry, Karen.” he says again. “I really wish you’d believe me. I’m with you now. I want to be with you.”

He appears absolutely exhausted, but in his eyes she can see a spark, a desire for something. She doesn’t know what it is, but she isn’t prepared to let go. Not yet.

“I just want all this Pam stuff to be over,” he then says, and his eyes lock onto hers in that way they do, that way he can always make her forget.

She doesn’t know what he means, exactly, and perhaps she never will. But it’s the first time all night she’s believed him. 

***

“Hey,” she greets him cautiously, approaching the fountain. The street behind them is full of New Yorkers honking their horns at each other for no discernible reason, and while she wishes there were somewhere a little more quiet he could do what she knows he’s about to do, she doesn’t want to go inside either.

“Hi,” he says. “I blew my interview.”

She’s thrown by this. She hadn’t expected him to bring up the job at all. “What are you talking about? I’m sure you did great.”

“No, I mean… I left. I turned down the job. I can’t move to New York.”

 “Why?” she asks him, even though she already suspects why.

He sighs heavily. “Last night was… perfect. You’re perfect, everything was perfect. And it got me wondering... if everything is so perfect, why do I still feel this way?”

She can feel her expression hardening, along with the shell she’s carefully constructed around her. She thinks of last night in the hotel room when she slid her hand underneath his shirt, against his shoulder blades, and he pretended to be asleep.

“What way?”

“In the interview, Wallace asked me where I see myself in ten years,” he says. “So I pictured it. And… it wasn’t here.”

Her jaw clenches. She can feel her tenuous grip on him slipping. “It wasn’t us, you mean,” she says for him. 

The look on his face tells her everything she needs to know. It isn’t that there’s one too many people in Scranton. There’s one too many people in this relationship. 

“This isn’t about the job. It’s about her,” she continues, ice lacing her voice. Her. “She said something to you that night, didn’t she? When you guys were alone down by the lake.” She shakes her head. “I should have known. You were so quiet last night. And you haven’t been acting like yourself all week.”

“That’s just it, though,” he says. “That’s why this feels all wrong. Because ever since the beach, it's like... I’ve been feeling more like myself than I have in months.”

She doesn’t know how to respond to this. Months is all she knows of him, it’s all she has of him.

“I don’t understand.”

He looks at her sort of helplessly, like he doesn’t quite understand himself. “I just… I’m trying to tell you the truth. It’s not even about Pam, at least not entirely. All I know is that I haven’t been myself – my real self – for a long time.” 

She bites her lip hard, so hard she’s sure she’s drawn blood. “So, all this time with me, you’ve... what, been faking it?”

He shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I’ve been doing.”

She’s pissed now. Every minute of their six months together feels like a huge fucking lie. “Then what, Jim? What is the ‘real’ you? What is it I haven’t gotten from you all these months?”

He looks her right in the eye, and a horrifying chill envelops her entire body, because she knows. She knows exactly what she hasn’t gotten from him, and it’s the only thing she’s ever wanted.

Jim looks at her sadly, then shakes his head wearily. “It’s the part of me that… I know... is still in love with her.”

It’s the thing she’s dreaded the most for weeks, and it isn’t unexpected, but hearing the words out loud hurts more than she ever imagined. He hasn’t told her I love you but she’s wanted him to. Now she knows exactly why. At the very least, she can be grateful he’s never lied to her about that.  

She looks at him, unsure if she’s upset or just sad. Part of her is angry at him, and at herself. But the part that loves him — even though she’s never told him so — just aches.

…in love with her.

“So, that kiss you told me about, when you said it was just a kiss…” she trails off, unable to finish the sentence.

He looks at her sadly, the guilt on his face his answer. 

“It wasn’t just a kiss,” he says, and finally, the biggest of all the lies he’d told her morphs into truth.

The things she’s been actively avoiding examining too closely finally all slide into place: the way he was when he first arrived at Stamford, how withdrawn, how quiet. Why it took him so long to go out with her, even though she could sense there was something between them. And that he’d never mentioned Pam to her, not once… 

The fact that Jim encouraged her to come to Scranton only after knowing he was headed back himself never struck her as odd at the time. But it seems so clear to her now what he’d been doing. He knew he would be facing Pam again, he had to arm himself. And she was never going to be someone he could love when she was essentially just Kevlar. 

She thinks of his assurances at the beach, just before he disappeared down by the lake to talk to Pam.

“You said everything was going to be okay,” she says evenly. “Was that a lie too, then?”

“No, it wasn’t,” he says, to her surprise. “I think everything would have been okay. But… I think we both deserve more than ‘okay.’ Don’t you?”

She knows he’s right, as much as it hurts. She can’t make him feel things for her that he’ll only ever feel for someone else. And if that’s the case, she certainly deserves more than he can give her.

They stand in a silence of their own making, as the sounds of the city continue creating unrelenting chaos around them. Her heart is heavy with the knowledge that this is probably going to be the last conversation she ever has with him.

She finally takes a deep breath and summons up her last remaining scrap of dignity. “Can I just ask you one more question?”

He nods. 

“Did we ever stand a chance?”

He pauses, considering how to answer. It looks as if he’s trying to imagine such a possibility.

“I wanted us to,” he says. “I really tried.” 

Though she’s had a hard time believing a lot of the things he’s told her over the past few months, she does believe him now. But it doesn’t make her feel any better.

“You shouldn’t have to try so hard, Jim.” 

To his credit, he looks properly ashamed. “I never wanted to hurt you, Karen,” he says. “I hope you can believe that. And you deserve better than this, than everything I’ve put you through. You deserve someone… who knows what they have when they have you.” It’s the kindest thing he’s uttered thus far.

Jim tilts his head a bit as he waits for her next question, her next defense, her next plea. She looks at him, and thinks about how happy she was at the beginning: the excitement she’d felt when they’d first kissed, whenever he’d hold her hand, when she moved to a new city with only hope on her horizon. But suddenly she realizes she’s been guilty of the same thing he has. And to her own great and unexpected relief, she finally does what they both should have done months ago. 

She stops trying. 

“You’re right, I do deserve that,” she says. And believing it makes everything a little bit easier.

He nods, and they just stare at each other for several long seconds. 

“Are you mad?” he finally asks stupidly.

She shakes her head, breaking eye contact and staring past him at the fountain. Even though she’s pissed as hell, she doesn’t want to admit it. “Not at you,” she says. “I’ve never settled for being second best. I’m mad at myself for letting you take that away from me.”

She can sense the end of this conversation is rapidly approaching, and while she’s relieved it hadn’t gone worse, she’s not at all looking forward to seeing him back at the office tomorrow.

“I’m sorry, Karen,” he says. “I should never have let this… us... get this far without dealing with… everything.”

Despite how maturely she feels she’s handled this breakup, her stare now turns cold. Letting him go isn’t the hard part anymore. Feeling like a complete fool is what finally tips the scales. 

“Well, don’t expect brownie points from me for trying, Halpert.”

There’s an expression in his eyes now she can’t identify. It’s jarring; in all their time together it’s strange to see something new at this juncture. He takes a step back, and she can tell he just wants to get away from all of this as fast as possible. 

“I really hope you get the job,” he says. It’s the exact same thing Pam said to her yesterday before she left, as if they share a fucking brain or something. She wonders if Jim “really hopes” she gets the job for the same reason Pam did.

She turns away from him, now knowing if she doesn’t stop seeing his face she will definitely start to cry. And she does not want to give him the satisfaction. Luckily, there’s a cab passing with its light on and she hails it, getting inside without so much as a goodbye. 

When the door slams behind her, she bursts into tears. She continues sobbing for a few moments, but the cab driver waits. She eventually gets control of her emotions and apologizes.

“You don’t have to apologize, hon,” says the cab driver, who she now can see is female. “Take your time.”

Karen nods, taking advantage of this reprieve, and puts her hand against her head, taking several long, deep breaths. She stares out the window at the fountain, hardly able to process that she and Jim are truly over now for good.

“You okay?” The cab driver turns around.

“I’m okay,” Karen sniffles. “I mean… I will be.”

“Fucking asshole,” the woman says, lowering her window and flicking her cigarette. Jim is too far away now to hear her, and she obviously has only a hint what went down between them, but still, it makes Karen feel a little bit better.

She takes a few more calming breaths and gives the address of their hotel to the driver, hoping Jim has already taken all of his shit out and packed it into his car. Maybe she’ll stay at Monika’s tonight.

Just when she feels like she’s finally got control over her emotions, however, she sees the last group of people she wants to see: the Scranton camera crew, piled into a van right in front of them. Jim is gone, she’s uncertain where he went, but she’s glad. They’ll probably follow him, anyway. Not her.

She tells the cab driver to go in case they change their minds, because the last thing she wants to do is talk to a fucking camera crew about getting dumped. But before the cab can pull away from the curb safely, she sees Will, the camera guy, getting out of the van.

Without his camera.

It’s so odd to see him without it, she has to take a second to even absorb what he’s doing. The fact that it’s only Will and not Delilah is strange enough in the first place, but she assumes the producer must be back in Scranton.

Will approaches her cab, and when he reaches it, he leans down to look through the window at Karen. She can tell her eyes are puffy but does not break eye contact, almost daring Will to interview her. But he just looks sort of sad.

Are you okay? he mouths, much to Karen’s surprise. There’s no hidden agenda in his eyes, no ulterior motive. He looks genuinely concerned. Karen has never been a huge fan of the camera crew being around but they’ve always been kind to her, at least.

“Should I go?” the cab driver asks, her hands on the wheel, at the ready.

“No, it’s okay,” Karen says. She rolls down the window.

The look of pity on Will’s face isn’t something she was prepared for. But what it does indicate is that he was very much prepared for this.

“I’m sorry,” he says to Karen, which is a weird thing for him to say. But it makes her wonder: has the crew known all along something like this would happen? Have they been waiting for it, biting their tongues, unable to say anything?

“Did you know?” Karen asks.

She isn’t entirely sure what she’s even asking: did they know Jim was still in love with Pam? Did they know Jim planned to dump her? She isn’t necessarily accusing Will of anything either, because it’s not their job to interfere; in fact, their job is to do the opposite. But there’s a part of her that hates him right now, even more than she hates Jim. She hates that maybe he could have done something, anything, to spare her the pain she’s feeling.

In any event, Will doesn’t ask her to elaborate. He bites his lip guiltily and sort of shakes his head. “No, we didn’t know,” he finally says. “But we’ve always suspected. And for that, I am sorry.”

Karen simply nods, and stares at the back of the headrest in front of her.

“I hope someday you can understand how difficult this has been for us.”

“Well, it’s over now,” she snaps, ice on her tongue. “I’m sure he’s chasing after Pam now. You’d better go and follow him. Get your story.”

“Can I just say one more thing?” Will asks, and even though Karen has hit her limit for the day, curiosity wins out.

“What?”

Will looks at her closely, and puts his hand over the edge of the door.

“I just… hope you find someone someday who’s going to chase after you, that’s all.”

For a moment, she wonders if he's making a poorly-timed proposition. But she shakes that off quickly. In his eyes she sees only kindness, something she really needs, something she's desperate to hold onto. She isn’t going to miss much about Scranton, but she’s grateful for a small reprieve in the midst of her sorrow. 

She then tells the driver to go, and it doesn’t take long to forget that tiny bit of kindness. Right now it hurts too much to think about anything but the very immediate pain of this loss. To dole out blame; to Jim for his chronic dishonesty, to herself for being such a fucking idiot. To feel nothing at all but regret for all the time she’d wasted on him, but more infuriatingly that despite what he’s told her, there must be something she’d done wrong, there must be something more she could have done. 

Months later, however, when Jim is behind her, and all of this is behind her, she will meet someone else. Someone whose smile is just for her, whose heart is just for her. She will feel the love Jim had told her she deserved; a love that will change her, in all of the right ways. A love that isn't just second best. The dull ache for her ex will fall away, and she will finally understand what he meant when he’d told her his heart had always belonged to someone else. 

Jim Halpert won’t cross her mind very often after this. But whenever he does, she won’t think of the times they spent together. Instead she will only think of that undefinable faraway look he'd given her by the fountain, because she can now define it: it was the moment he’d left her completely to return to Pam, the person he truly loved.

And she will hope he’s happy.