She's been trying for weeks to find her friend Jim again, the one she’s lost. But he’s been nearly impossible to reach.

Some days he’ll actually appear; as fleeting and indiscriminate as a shooting star, giving her a quick smile or a “Beesly” or something else that makes her insides warm. On those days she feels extremely lucky. But most of the time it’s as if he’s regressed to the role of just another co-worker: another Phyllis, another Stanley. It seems unless she has some reason or excuse to talk to him, she really can’t. Not the way she used to.

She doesn’t know how to find him, but maybe she should stop searching for now. She decides to continue working on finding herself a little for a change.

Her art classes have been going well. It’s been fun and sort of thrilling to rediscover a skill she’s been neglecting for so many years, something she enjoys. And she’s pretty good at it, too. At least she thinks she’s pretty good. Jim always said so, anyway. He was really the only person who ever did besides her parents and her tenth grade art teacher.

Stop it. Stop thinking about Jim.

It’s been so difficult not to, as thinking about Jim is basically an uncontrollable impulse. Now that she doesn’t have him in her life anymore – that old Jim who used to love her – what might have been permeates her every thought, their every interaction. And she needs to figure out a way to make it stop. The Jim she used to know is gone, the friendship they used to have is finished, and she has to find a way to make peace with that.

Old Jim, New Jim. Whoever he is, he’s nowhere to be found all morning. Maybe that’s why Karen walks into the kitchen alone at lunchtime. 

“Hey Pam, is it cool if I sit with you?”

Pam is a little taken aback but nods. Ever since Christmas they’ve been pretty friendly, and she has to admit it’s been nice. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” Karen pulls out the chair across from Pam and sits down, opening her packet of vinaigrette and sprinkling it daintily across her salad. For the first time Pam really examines this person Jim is dating: her clothes are tailored, her makeup looks perfect. She's wearing a nice watch. Pam immediately wonders if Jim gave it to her.

It’s unfortunate, really, that there’s this insurmountable thing between them that might never go away. In another circumstance – another lifetime, really – she thinks she and Karen could actually be friends.

“Where’s Jim today?” Pam asks, unable to help herself.

“He’s coming in late, he had a dentist appointment I think,” Karen says. “We have a bunch of sales calls lined up for tomorrow though, so that should make up for it.”

“I don’t know how you guys do it,” Pam admits, shaking her head. “Putting yourself out there like that, talking to strange people, trying to sell them something.”

Karen shrugs. “It is a little weird when you put it like that. But you get used to it, I guess.”

“Jim’s always been really good with people. I’m sure that’s why it comes so easily to him.”

Karen eyes her curiously, sizing her up. “You two are pretty close, huh?”

Pam immediately regrets having brought up Jim at all. Twice.  

“Oh, well, I mean… he’s one of the normal ones,” she backpedals fast, lowering her voice. “I don’t know if you've noticed, but the options are pretty limited around here.”

Karen laughs. “Yeah, very true.” She takes a sip of her Diet Coke. “So, what do you do when you’re not forced to listen to Michael’s nonsense all day? Are you dating anyone?”

“Oh, um… no. I actually broke up with someone kind of recently, so…” she trails off, still feeling reluctant to share anything specific about Roy. The last time Karen broached this topic it was just as awkward. “It was pretty serious. So… not seeing anyone right now.”

“I get it. It’s a good thing though, that space in between boyfriends,” Karen says. “Gives you a chance to figure out what you want.”

Pam nods. In between boyfriends. It’s sort of a weird way to put it, and even weirder hearing the exact thing she needs to hear from the last place she’d expected to hear it. But “in between boyfriends” is probably where she needs to be right now. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She nods and smiles.

“I broke up with my boyfriend about six months ago and was in no place to be dating anyone either,” Karen continues. “But then Jim came along, and it just felt perfect, you know? It was the first time I actually wanted to go out with someone. So that must mean something, I guess.”

Perfect.

Pam feels herself nodding, but every word out of Karen’s mouth jabs at her like a needle. She wants to kick herself thinking about the domino effect of her choices. How saying no to Jim somehow led them to this point, creating the perfect timing for him to meet the perfect woman who isn't her. 

Just as she wonders how quickly they can stop discussing this topic, the bathroom door opens and Stanley emerges, first glancing their way, then ignoring them entirely to go back out into the bullpen.

“So... how’s the new apartment?” Pam asks, using the fortuitous interruption to change the subject. 

“It’s good,” Karen nods. “It’s a little more than I should probably be paying, but I found some pretty cheap furniture.”

“Oh, me too!” Pam says, clinging to this crumb of non-Jim commonality like a starved church mouse. “I moved into a new place a few months ago and I swear it looks like the IKEA catalog.”

“Right?” Karen asks, smiling.

“Although I've spent pretty much all of my free time putting together furniture. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have a social life at the moment.” 

Living on her own has been really nice, but there are moments when she misses Roy, wishes she had a guy around to take care of the stuff she doesn’t want to do. At the same time, she feels an odd sense of victory whenever she looks at the furniture in her apartment. If that’s the trade-off, she’ll gladly take it.

“Jim is terrible at putting together furniture from IKEA,” Karen remarks.

Pam has to bite her tongue from commenting that she already knows how terrible Jim is at putting together furniture from IKEA.

“Well, men are pretty useless sometimes,” she says instead with a playful smirk. “My ex was good at furniture-building, but couldn’t boil a pot of water, for example.”

Karen smiles. “Jim can’t cook either. Not a thing. Remind me again why I’m dating him?” 

They laugh, and while she knows Karen is teasing, she also knows this to be false. Jim makes a mean grilled cheese, and with a microwave to boot. She wonders what it means that he’s obviously never made one for Karen.

Or maybe he has. Maybe she’s just not as impressed as Pam had been.

They chat for a few more minutes, as long as Pam can reasonably withstand being in the presence of the woman who apparently stepped in at the perfect moment to make Jim forget all about her. She takes the last bite of her turkey sandwich and makes her exit with as much grace as possible.

When Jim does eventually arrive at the office, he gives her a friendly wave, and once again she feels that stab of regret that she’d ever taken his interactions with her for granted. More than anything else, it’s been incredibly lonely at work as of late with no one to really talk to. She isn't exactly sure what she's waiting for, but she can only hope she doesn’t feel this way for too much longer.

The loneliness continues into the next day, when all of the sales people leave on their sales calls. With no one around, there are so few distractions that she finds herself unable to concentrate on anything but Jim again: Jim. Jim and Karen. Karen and Jim. Karen’s watch. Jim attempting to put together furniture for Karen while she pokes fun at him, then the two of them probably rolling around on the floor, laughing together.

God. Stop it.

She goes onto her computer, in need of some mindless distraction, anything to get her thoughts off this and onto something else. For one rare, solitary moment she wishes Michael was around.

She scrolls through entertainment news websites, peruses her neglected Myspace page. She plays Solitaire for a while and checks her email. But then, completely unexpectedly, she receives a phone call informing her that the art contest she’d entered on a whim last week wasn’t for naught: she’d won. 

I won.

It’s been so long since she’s felt like a winner in any respect. Maybe it’s silly and unimportant, maybe it’s just a bunch of sixth graders choosing her instead of Jim, but… she won. 

She looks excitedly around the bullpen for someone to share her victory with, but most everyone is gone. Kevin is a no-go. Her interaction with Angela ends so poorly it erases any good feelings she might have initially had. And even though Delilah and the camera crew are excited for her, it isn’t what she’s looking for. Not quite.

But Jim. Jim. The Jim she used to know, the Jim she remembers... he would be happy for her. If she tells him of her triumph, would it be enough to get through to him, even for a moment?

Karen and Phyllis return first from their sales call, and as Karen passes by reception she gives Pam a very odd look. Pam wonders why, but then realizes a bit too late that she was probably staring at Karen’s overly teased hair and ridiculous makeup; lost in a memory of herself and Penny scrounging up every last dollar of their allowances to get Glamour Shots at the mall. 

Soon enough Jim returns as well, and he grins at her as he hangs up his coat. There's a small flutter deep in her belly and it feels like a sign — just a tiny one — that her old Jim might be in there somewhere today.

She sees Karen stand up and begin to approach reception with purpose, Jim turning to look at his girlfriend's new makeover with the same amount of incredulity Pam had. They turn to go for coffee, and just as Pam resigns herself to keeping her exciting news to herself, Jim turns to her.

“Beesly? Coffee?”

It’s the Beesly that does it. It’s a sign, it must be. 

She declines the coffee, but seizes her chance. “Hey, Jim... I won an art contest,” she tells him a little hesitantly. 

She isn’t sure what to expect, but his reaction is so immediate, so pure and genuine, she’s relieved, if only for this moment. He can’t seem to control the enormous grin that breaks out across his face and he gives her a high five, just the way he used to. Even though Karen is rushing him out the door, he asks Pam to show him the winning art piece when he gets back. He’s happy for her, genuinely happy, and his happiness is contagious. 

When the door closes behind him she can’t help but throw Delilah a satisfied grin over her shoulder, which the producer returns, and it's clear to her now what she was after. Seeing Jim smile at her is even better than winning the contest in the first place.

This is what she wanted. He gave her exactly what she wanted. That old Jim, when he shows up, can always be depended upon.

***

“Dunder Mifflin.”

“Uh… hey,” comes a familiar voice on the line. It’s the same one she’s been hearing in her mind for months, only now it’s real and in her ear.

“...Oh my god.”  

She’s been waiting for weeks to talk to Jim again, actually speak to him. It’s hard to believe it’s even happening. Her blood pressure instantly rises, she feels warm all over. She’s unable to hide her lack of preparedness for such a momentous event. 

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” she replies. 

“Sorry, I forgot Kevin's extension,” he explains quickly, as if he needs some kind of excuse to converse with her. “It's a fantasy football thing… and I was just going to go through the system cause I didn't think you'd be there.” She doesn't know what to say. Does he mean he was actively avoiding her? “Why… are you still there?” 

“I had to work late,” she tells him. “Jan's making me keep a log of everything Michael does all day.”

“Wow,” he says, and she can see it in her mind: that enormous smile she adores so much spreading across his face like a flower unfurling beneath the sun’s glare. It’s almost as good as the real thing. 

Almost. 

“Do… you think you could send me a copy of that?” 

“Yeah, totally,” she says, and for just a second everything feels so comfortable, the way it did before last May. Before The Kiss. 

“So…” 

“So…” 

“Do you…” 

“Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.”

They’re clearly out of sync but she tries to brush past it. They’re talking, and that’s what’s important. She honestly wasn’t sure if it would ever happen again at all.

“Uh, no, I... everything's pretty much the same here,” she manages, answering a question he hadn’t asked.

“Oh, good.”

“A little different.” 

She’s minimizing the truth, but her meaning is clear. It’s very different without him here. 

“What time is it there?” she asks. It sounds like something someone says when they have nothing else to say. Or maybe when they’re avoiding saying something they should. He seems to know this too because he pauses. 

“What time is it here? Um, we're in the same time zone,” he chuckles gently.

“Oh, yeah. Right.” She laughs a little.

“How far away did you think we were?” 

“I don't know. It felt far.” 

He isn’t here, that’s all she knows. He may as well be on the moon.

He’s quiet for a moment, but then says, “yeah.” She loves it when they seem to understand each other without having to say anything. She wishes they could do that all the time.

They sit with the silence for a few seconds, and it’s difficult to comprehend why, but it feels okay. Safe, even. As if his mere proximity, even over the wire, soothes her. Babysitting Michael all day had been tedious without Jim there to bring some levity.

“So… how’s Stamford?” she asks.

“It’s okay, I guess. Imagine Scranton, but… if it were efficient.” 

She laughs, and he laughs, and for the next several minutes it feels the same way it always did: their familiar back and forth, this dance they do, two-stepping around the very large elephant in the room. It’s always there and she knows it, but now it’s so large it fills every possible empty space, squeezing against them more tightly than ever. 

Still, they dance.

She tells him about Phyllis’s engagement, about Oscar being forced to come out to the office and his subsequent sabbatical. Jim listens to the tale of Michael’s kiss heard round the office with a barely restrained combination of cringe and delight. He tells her he’s pretty convinced Dwight had a prostitute sent up to his hotel room at the paper conference in Philadelphia and she refrains from dropping the bomb that it was most likely just Angela. 

At one point she pulls her chair out and sits, not really aware that she’s made herself comfortable. While she’s disappointed they aren’t discussing the one thing they should be, her insides are on fire from conversing with him at all, just from hearing his voice again.

Jim doesn’t tell her too much about the Stamford branch, which she wonders about, but he does mention his new apartment full of half-assembled IKEA furniture.

“I don’t have a single flat surface that isn’t a countertop,” he laments. “I’m not sure where I went wrong but those directions are impossible.”

She smiles, wondering if there had been a night when they’d been sitting alone in their respective apartments 150 miles away from each other at the very same time, inserting bolt A into slot C with varying degrees of difficulty.

“I suppose you have to be sort of visually-minded to do it,” she muses.

“That must be the reason I suck at it and you’re a pro.”

She smiles at his easy compliment. Jim always did have a way of making her believe he really means the things he says.

“So… what else is new?” he asks. “Are you doing anything with that, by the way? I mean… the art stuff?”

A rush of excitement runs through her at his interest in that particular aspect of her life. “Yes, actually, I started taking classes at night. It’s been pretty cool.”

“That’s awesome,” he says, and again, he sounds like he genuinely means it. 

“It’s been easier now, you know. Since… it’s just me.”

It’s the first mention of her single status all evening. He doesn’t respond right away, and she inhales a bit in anxious impatience. The back of her neck prickles with gooseflesh.

Ask me, she silently pleads. Ask me why I called off the wedding.

But “I’m really glad to hear that, Pam,” is all he says. 

She doesn’t know if he’s really glad to hear she’s taking art classes or really glad to hear she’s single and she’ll probably never know because she’s too fucking scared to ask him. He knows it too, he knows it. If there’s a path forward for them, he will not take the first step. While she desperately wants him to, she knows it has to be her turn.

But “Yeah, me too,” is all she says.

She doesn’t know what else to say so she waits, absently reaching over to touch the turquoise teapot he’d given her as a Christmas present. It still sits on her desk, a constant reminder of the feelings she’d so handily squashed last May. 

She wants to just tell him, to say what’s on her mind, what’s been on her mind since he left. It's the only thing she wants him to know.

I miss you. 

But she can’t. Her mouth won’t form the words. And even if she could say it, what would it matter anyway? He’s so far away now, it feels beyond her reach to get him back.

She's frustrated by this feeling of uselessness. She rests her fingers against the curve of the teapot, stroking the smooth porcelain with an affectionate reverence. Perhaps if she wishes hard enough, the piece of pottery could act as a sort of talisman; imbue her with some magical power that could correct every mistake she’d made, somehow arm her for the reckoning she hopes awaits them someday.

***

He hasn’t talked to her in so long. He wasn’t ready for this. And he can feel the stretch and pull of those long weeks now, as if the cadence of her voice alone has the power to turn back the clock, to erase all the time he spent trying so hard to get over her. He senses her everywhere: next to him, in his ear, making the tiny hairs stand up on the back of his neck. A Pam specter that’s been haunting his memory, now very present and oh so real.

He wants to hate the way it makes him feel but he doesn’t. 

God help him, he doesn’t. 

They make mindless small talk at first, which is exactly what they need to do to bridge so many days filled with nothing at all. And for a while, it feels okay. But at one point when they’re talking about her art classes, the casual conversation takes a turn. She mentions the fact that she’s living alone; throws it out there like chum to a hungry shark. 

He isn’t sure if she’s baiting him or if she’d simply assumed he already knew. He wants to ask. He wants to know everything; what happened, why she called off her wedding, all of it. But he will not ask. He’s done taking risks with Pam. As much as he’s been trying to convince himself otherwise over the past few weeks, he’s still not over her, and he knew that for certain the moment she picked up the phone and uttered the words “Dunder Mifflin.” If there’s going to be any revisiting of that stolen moment on casino night, he will not be the one to initiate.

“I’m really glad to hear that, Pam,” he says. It’s the safe answer.

It isn’t just one thing he means. He’s glad she’s taking art classes. He’s glad she broke up with Roy, even though it hadn’t led her back to him. He’s glad she doesn’t have someone holding her back anymore: dead weight in a warehouse jumpsuit callously crushing her dreams. 

He’s glad to hear her voice, period. 

“Yeah, me too,” she says. 

She, on the other hand, probably just means the art classes. But he isn’t sure about anything when it comes to Pam anymore.

“I have a question for you,” he then says, becoming so adept at changing the subject tonight he probably deserves a medal. “How many words per minute does the average person type?”

“I type ninety.”

“Shut up. Mavis Beacon doesn’t even type ninety.”

“It’s true!” She’s smiling, he can tell. He hasn’t pictured it in a while but he’s thinking about her smile now and feels that familiar pang he’s been wishing away for weeks. Still, as much as he yearns for her, as much as he desires something more, he truly just misses this: just talking to Pam, his best friend.

She’s still his friend, at least. That doesn’t seem to have changed one bit. 

“Okay, I said average.”

“Seventy? How many do you type?”

He scoffs. “Forget it, I was just about to brag. Forget it.”

“Come on, tell me.”

“No.”

“You have to tell me now!”

“Sixty-five.”

She giggles, and he sighs heavily. “Okay, no need to laugh.”

“No, it’s… that’s respectable.”

“Respectable?”

“What are you typing so slowly, anyway?" she asks. "Is it a novel? A screenplay? Are we due for another table read?”

He smiles, and his cheeks hurt. He supposes that's what happens to muscles you don't really use anymore. 

“Yeah, I’m working on a sequel to Threat Level Midnight. Don’t tell Michael I’m infringing on his intellectual property.”

“Oh my god!” she says excitedly. “He’s still filming that, you know.”

“Really?” he asks. Michael had recruited everyone in the office to help with his pet project. Jim had no objections to being cast as Golden Face, since they were doing it on company time anyway. Most of his scenes were with Pam, who played one of his hostages, and she even had to kiss him on the cheek, so he could hardly complain. Still, he always wondered if that footage would ever see the light of day.

“I don’t think he’ll ever be finished,” Pam giggles. “Michael doesn’t really know the meaning of ‘less is more.’”

“Is Dwight still his assistant director?”

“You mean assistant to the director.”

He grins. “Of course.”

“Like he’d give that job up.”

“Did you know that Assistant Regional Manager is a real job here?” he then says.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I guess when you actually perform work in that role, it sort of manifests.”

“Like Santa’s elf at Michael’s Christmas parties,” she giggles.

“Exactly. How is Dwight doing, anyway?” 

“The same,” she says. “I thought he might ease up without you around but that hasn’t been the case.”

“Sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s giving me a challenge, you know? What would Jim do?”

He laughs. “Nice. I’ll have to send you one of those rubber bracelets.”

“No need,” she replies. “I’ll just steal the one on Angela’s desk. Same initials.”

They share another laugh, and it’s music to his ears. He doesn’t know when it happened, but he’s kicked his feet up onto the desk.

“Well, it’s nice to know you’re there to pick up the slack.”

“I’m doing my best,” she says. “How about you? Any new victims over there?”

He chuckles to himself. “Not really. Well, there’s this one guy here, but it sort of went…  awry.”

“Oh yeah? What did you do?”

“It was nothing, just… put his calculator in Jello.”

“Very original,” she says, her sarcasm evident. “It's nice to see you’re branching out.”

“What can I say? I dusted off an oldie. Had to test the waters.”

“So, what happened?”

Jim looks at his feet. “He sort of… kicked a trash can. Screamed a little. Said he was gonna lose his frickin’ mind.”

“That’s… intense.” 

“Yeah, well, suffice it to say there hasn’t been a whole lot of pranking since then. It’s sort of a different vibe here anyway.”

They keep talking for what feels like hours, about all of the things that don’t matter and none of the things that do. Just like old times, he thinks.

Eventually, the conversation steers back around to her new apartment. It feels nice being invited into her personal space. 

“…I have one bedroom, one bathroom, and a closet,” she explains. 

“And how many kitchens?”

“I have one kitchen.” 

“Wow, you got totally taken for a ride, Beesly!” he laughs, officially never wanting this phone call to end. “Most apartments these days have like three.”

“Three kitchens?”

“Yes! How are you going to cook every meal of the day in one kitchen?”

It’s nonsense and they both know it, but this is one of the things he’s always loved most about Pam: their shared ability to turn the mundane into something wonderful. It seems like whenever he’s with her, everything feels extraordinary. 

Just then, he hears her mumble something, but can’t make out the words.

“Pam?” No answer. “Pam?” He looks down at his phone, worried maybe the line went dead or something. But then he hears her again.

“Um. Okay, bye,” she says rather abruptly. 

He’s confused for a moment; he thought they’d been having a pretty good time. He thought they felt like themselves again. Why is she hanging up already? 

He looks at the clock: it’s 7:04. They’ve been talking for almost two hours. 

“Oh, yeah, I should- I should probably go too,” he says as nonchalantly as possible. As if he has anything to go home to.

Pam suddenly sounds like she’s backtracking her goodbye. “No, I was, um... you have to go?” 

The energy between them is deflating faster than Dwight’s old exercise ball. “Yeah, uh, well.”

“No, I should probably go too,” she says.

“Okay.”

It’s dumb, but letting her go is making his heart ache all over again. She’s suddenly going to be gone and he has no idea if or when he’ll ever get to talk to her again.

“Bye Pam,” he says. It feels so final.

“Bye Jim,” she replies.

And that’s that. He hangs up the phone, staring at it. He isn’t really sure what to think. For the past couple of weeks he really thought he’d been making progress, that he was moving on. Her persistent presence in his mind was starting to fade, even if only a little bit.

But tonight that changed. The office is quiet, but her specter remains. Even though they talked about nothing, just hearing her voice on the other end of the line was enough. 

And maybe that’s a really bad sign.

***

He’s been trying to quit, honestly he has. But he's starting to realize the pranking must be an addiction, promotion or no promotion. 

He could blame Andy for being so goddamn irritating. He could blame Ryan for being a no-nonsense bore. He could even blame Karen for refusing to participate. But none of those are the real reason for the prank, because the reason is the same as it’s always been: it’s a surefire way to get Pam to smile. That smile. Her smile is like oxygen; when he sees it he suddenly remembers how to breathe properly. 

His initial response when he’d returned to Scranton had been to ease up on the pranking with Pam, because he knows exactly how it will go: just like a drug, it’s a hit, a rush, and no matter how amazing it feels while he’s doing it, he’s well aware of how low he’ll feel after it’s over. But Pam’s smile makes him feel so good that, when it’s happening, he forgets about everything else. 

An addiction, the pranks. It has to be.

After he’d admitted to Karen over coffee that he and Pam have a history, he was surprisingly relieved. The secret had been almost as burdensome as the feelings themselves, and even though Karen still hasn’t gotten the full story, it was a huge load off to relinquish at least one of those burdens.

Do you want to pull a prank on Andy?

His question to Pam is loaded. He’s giving in, letting himself fall back into his old patterns. But the craziest part of it all is how she doesn’t miss a beat. For her, it’s back to business as usual. He doesn’t have to explain to her what he needs when he places Andy’s cell phone on her desk, she already knows what he wants. She figures out his number discreetly behind her desk, IMs it to Jim immediately, and they’re off to the races.

Just like before.

He has yet to develop anything approaching this with Karen, this unspoken understanding, this dance they do. He’s been cultivating it with Pam for so long he hadn’t even properly appreciated how practiced their steps are.

The prank goes smoothly until it doesn’t. Smoothly, in that he’s treated to Pam’s delighted grin more often in a couple hours than he has since he’s been back, but not so smoothly in that Andy ends up punching a hole in the wall of the office. 

Later, Pam stands near the scene of the crime, looking at the wall curiously, a margarita in hand. 

“Sombrero?” Jim asks as he sidles next to her wearing one of the ridiculously-sized hats himself. He holds it up, raising an eyebrow.

She grins indulgently and leans towards him a bit, allowing him to place it on her head. He can’t help but reach out to instinctively tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, but then jerks his hand away like he’s touched a hot stove. Pam doesn’t seem to notice, instead turning to face the tell-tale cavity on the wall again. They stand in a comfortable silence, the murmurs of the office and cheerful mariachi music bouncing all around them.

“So let me guess,” she says. “Andy was the trash can kicker?”

He’s surprised she remembers something they discussed months ago, but pleased nonetheless. “Oh. Um…” He doesn’t answer right away. As amusing as the incident was, there’s obviously an element of seriousness he can’t help but feel responsible for.

“Jim,” she says in a playfully accusing tone of voice.

He grimaces, which is all the reply she needs.

“I knew it,” she says. 

“What can I say? Old habits die hard.”

“You know, they say doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity,” she points out.

“What are you implying, Beesly?” 

She shrugs, giving him a smile. “I’m implying that we have enough crazy in this office, Jim. Please don’t leave me here all by myself.”

“I’m not sure what you’re so worried about,” he smirks. “You’ll always have Creed.”

She smiles widely, the kind that extends all the way to her eyes. Suddenly every bit of Andy’s bullshit today was totally worth it.

“This is nice,” she then says quietly.

“What is?”

She shrugs. “I mean, I know the outcome was a little much but… it was fun, you know?”

He nods. “Yeah. It was.”

She looks up at him with the same eyes he remembers from last year as they stood on the deck of the booze cruise: those beautiful eyes that always seem to search his for some answer to a question he hadn’t asked. Sometimes he feels like if he just gazes into them long enough he can figure out what’s going on inside her mind.

The moment passes, however, and they both turn to look back at the wall.

“My god,” he mutters, inspecting it. “That’s half-inch drywall.”

“I think we broke his brain,” Pam says, turning to look at him with an air of solemnity. They then burst into laughter.

He puts on his best Andy impression. “It’s not frickin’ funny!” 

They continue laughing together, because even things that are somewhat tragic have a way of circling back to comical around this place. And perhaps laughing with Pam about this ordeal is what seals his fate, because he hasn’t felt this good in months. He can’t deny it.

Maybe Pam is right: he does keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. Maybe he is insane. And when she walks away and he’s left by himself again, exactly as he’d anticipated, the high wears off and he feels like absolute shit.

I think we broke his brain.

It’s the we that did it: the we that makes him feel like he’s done something wrong, that he’s dug himself deeper than ever before.

That he’s right back where he started.

To make matters worse, he turns to see Karen staring at him, having clearly witnessed their exchange. He isn’t sure how much she saw, but it probably doesn’t matter. Pam is no longer his secret, and if he thought he could hide his feelings before, he has no chance of it anymore.

He trudges into the mercifully empty conference room with his margarita and waits for the inevitable. Karen will confront him, it’s the one thing he knows for sure about her. She will ask. And he doesn’t know what he will say.

Eventually she comes into the conference room and sits down next to him quietly. He can feel the anxious energy radiating off her and he’s never cheated on anyone in his life but this must be exactly what it feels like.

She lets out a heavy sigh and asks him the one question he’s known the answer to for months, the only genuine constant in his life: 

“Do you still have feelings for her?” 

He isn’t ready to admit it aloud, even to himself. But he won’t lie to Karen again, not after what happened  today. Not after feeling that rush again.

“Yes,” he says, so softly he can barely hear it. He can’t look her in the eye. And yet, with the single word, he can feel his final burden lifting up off his shoulders.

As much as he doesn’t want to have this conversation, he admires Karen's straightforwardness. It’s not something he’s used to. But it doesn’t seem as if there will be any conversation at all. He sees her nod vaguely out of the corner of his eye, and she gets up to leave the conference room. La Cucaracha rings in his ears pervasively, almost violently. He sits still, alone, and his mind reels. 

It was the prank that started all of this, and he wants to blame it for his current situation. But he knows the truth; deep down he’s always known. The pranks aren’t his addiction, they’re just his enabler. 

His real addiction is Pam.