It isn’t June 10th, but it may as well be. 

She hadn’t really missed Roy on what would have been her wedding day. The breakup was still so fresh, and she’d been more focused on missing Jim; on missing an opportunity with him she was certain wouldn’t come around again.

Today, however, she’s somewhat nostalgic, surrounded by memories of her discarded wedding, the one she’d been looking forward to for years. The same flowers, the same place settings, the same dress. Now, enough time has passed that she has the luxury of remembering.

It’s such a strange feeling knowing that, had she not ended it, today she would be married to Roy. She’d be attending this wedding on his arm. She might even be happy, or at the very least, happier than she is right now.

What would have happened if Jim hadn’t said anything at all? If he hadn’t made her believe she deserved something better?

You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Upon the fields of barley

You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky

As we walk in fields of gold

The ballad playing in the rec room isn’t exactly a Police song, but apparently Sting’s solo career falls within Scrantonicity’s weirdly specific catalog. Pam’s eyes land on Jim and Karen, swaying gently on the dance floor. It’s an intimate moment, the kind of which she hasn’t really seen between them before. They look happy together. She can’t pretend they don’t.

She’d wanted to believe he’d been flirting with her at the bar earlier, playfully jabbing at her lack of dance skills, calling her cute. But she couldn’t ignore the two glasses he held in his hands: one for him, one for his waiting girlfriend. 

She’s just so tired. She’s tired of this hot and cold Jim who pays her attention one day and pretends she doesn’t exist the next. His actions may not even be intentional, but it doesn’t make them hurt any less. And she’s been teetering between expectation and disappointment ever since he returned, holding on to that tiny glimmer of hope in the back of her mind that one day he’ll wake up and decide to give her another chance. 

It’s that hope that’s killing her, that’s wearing her down. She’s so sick of the hope. It’s like being trapped alone inside a dark room with the door open just a crack, allowing a sliver of sunlight to creep through; if she’s not allowed outside to feel the warmth on her face, she’d rather the door just stay closed.

So here she stays in her dark, dark room. She watches Jim and Karen some more. They’re talking quietly and she wonders what they’re talking about.

Jim told me about you guys. That you kissed.

After her conversation with Karen in the kitchen last week, something changed inside Pam. Something felt irreversibly broken. Because for weeks and weeks it was her secret, hers and Jim’s: this private, forbidden moment they’d shared together that belonged to them and no one else. Now, it belongs to Jim and Karen. It’s completely out of her hands, just like everything she thought they had together, just like all of their potential.

Before, her daydreams about that kiss felt safe. They were like this secret place she could go anytime to be with Jim whenever she wanted, to be brave and free and the truest version of herself, even if it was only in her imagination. 

Now, it just feels wrong to go to that place.

Will you stay with me?

Will you be my love?

Upon the fields of barley

We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky

As we lie in fields of gold

Tonight, she sits alone at an empty table with her empty glass of champagne and tries not to feel empty. She tries not to think about that kiss, that night. Tries not to be horribly jealous of Karen and how her road to Jim had been so obstacle-free. 

Jim glances over Karen’s shoulder just then, his eyes meeting Pam’s. She’s embarrassed she’s been caught staring, but to make matters worse their eyes lock in that same way they always do, and a thousand missed opportunities from their past flicker across her mind like one of Michael’s stupid slide shows. 

This is all just so unfair. How many times had Jim been the one she’d caught staring? How many times had he quickly looked away; to spare her feelings, probably, but mostly his own, embarrassed by how often his glance fell upon her? 

She isn’t stupid, she was never stupid. She was only afraid.

I never made promises lightly

And there have been some that I've broken

But I swear in the days still left

We'll walk in fields of gold

She hasn’t heard the song in a long time but as she listens to Kevin’s sultry crooning it jogs another memory: freshman year. The year she fell in love with Roy. 

Their families knew each other, so there had already been a casual acquaintanceship. But it was at a high school dance – one that felt a lot like this wedding – when she truly fell for him. She’d had her heart set on Paul Kettleman that night, a junior with sandy hair and scruff on his chin. But as “Fields of Gold” echoed across the gymnasium she watched him spinning around on the dance floor with Amy Watson, gazing into her eyes the way she wanted him to look into hers. It was her first real heartbreak. Real, as in “of the high school brand,” but real to a fourteen-year-old nonetheless. 

That particular heartbreak only lasted for a couple of minutes before Roy Anderson swooped in. Even now, she doesn’t really know if his timing was intentional; if he’d seen her in distress and come to the rescue, or if he’d simply been in the right place at the right time. But in any case, he’d asked her to dance, and the rest was history. Their history.

He was different back then. They were different. 

She can’t take watching Jim and Karen anymore and decides she’s had enough torture for one evening, so she gets up and makes her way out of the main hall, fighting back tears. And it’s at this moment – one of her very lowest – that Roy shows up once again, exactly when she needs him most. 

It doesn’t come out of nowhere. She’s noticed his attentiveness over the past few weeks, his desire to make things right, to start over. She’s been hesitant up until now to even acknowledge it because she’s been trying so hard to be strong. But his attention makes her weak. Attention of any kind has always made her weak.

Tonight, she’s weaker than she’s ever been.

He asks her to dance and she accepts, because he paid twenty bucks for Scrantonicity to play their song. Roy hasn’t done a genuinely romantic thing for as long as she can remember, so for a brief moment she allows herself to wonder if perhaps he’s truly changed.

He takes her just outside the building to dance and she falls against his chest, letting him hold her. He smells so familiar, like their old bed, and it reminds her of the way it was before: when things were actually good. On a night like this, when she’s feeling so alone and invisible, it’s easier to remember the good times they had, the way he used to make her feel. So they sway together like they did at their junior prom, when she was sixteen and wore out two copies of the Pieces of You album. 

You were meant for me, and I was meant for you...

She tries not to think about Jim, if he’s been the one meant for her all along. How she should have just told him so when he’d kissed her but instead she’d said no, and now he’s meant for Karen instead.

Dreams last for so long… even after you’re gone…

The lyrics had no resonance while she was with Roy as a teenager, young and devoid of all the problems and worries of adulthood. It was a pretty song, a popular song, and for some reason it became their song. Now when she listens to the words she’s only laden with regret. 

I go about my business, I'm doing fine

Besides, what would I say if I had you on the line?

Same old story, not much to say

Hearts are broken every day

“You want to get out of here?” Roy asks. 

She considers this invitation, but only for a moment. She does want to get out of here. It’s all she’s wanted to do since she watched Jim and Karen dancing together. So she nods. Yes.

And then Roy leans in and kisses her. It feels good, and she wants to feel good so badly that she lets it happen. She thinks of all her missed opportunities: with Jim, the way he’d given up on her. The way she’d given up on Roy. Her mind and heart are all over the place tonight. 

After a moment he leans back, perhaps sensing her preoccupation. “No pressure, Pammy. I’m not putting the moves on you, I swear.”

Put on my PJs and hop into bed

I'm half alive but I feel mostly dead

I try and tell myself it'll all be alright

I just shouldn't think anymore tonight 

“No, I want to leave,” she says, needing this distraction. “Just take me… away from here. Okay?”

He nods. “Sure. Let’s go get your coat.”

She doesn’t see Jim again before leaving, and she’s glad. If she had, she might have lost her nerve.

Roy takes her back to his place, which used to be their place. It’s only been a few months since she ended their relationship, and somehow she’s back here again. As far as she can tell, it looks remarkably indistinguishable to the way it was when she’d left it. Messier, perhaps, but not too much. It’s still decorated the way she’d done it when they were together, and she wants to believe it’s because Roy misses her, but knowing Roy, it’s more than likely just laziness.

She looks around at the apartment for a few moments, letting the past wash over her: the good, the bad, the ugly. Right now, she wants to see the good. Only the good.

Roy doesn’t wait. He moves to kiss her again, and again she lets him. It’s a weird feeling, like she’s on a first date, but with a person she’s been intimately intertwined with for a long time. He kisses her the same way he always did, runs his fingers from her shoulders down her arms the same way he always did. Her head is screaming stop, you left this for a reason but her heart is so numb she doesn’t even care. She just wants to feel something – anything – that will make her stop missing Jim.

Predictably, Roy’s hand wanders to her breast, and this is when she grabs his wrist, pushing it away.

“Stop,” she says, and to his credit, he does immediately. She can’t remember the last time she didn’t have to say it at least twice to get him off her when she wasn’t in the mood.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he sounds like he actually means it. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. I just miss you, Pammy, that’s all.”

There had been moments over the years, even when it was good between them, she’d look into Roy’s eyes and know he was bullshitting her. She supposes that sort of thing can happen when you’re with someone long enough; you start to see right through them. But she doesn’t see that now. She only sees guilelessness, vulnerability. 

Maybe he really has changed. Maybe he deserves a second chance. Maybe he really does miss her.

Maybe she misses him, too.

Maybe.

“Do you want me to take you home?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “No, I want to stay.”

“Okay. I want you to stay, too.” He nods, and smiles at her in a very familiar way that immediately makes her regret giving him the wrong impression.

The old Pam might not bother setting this boundary. The old Pam might just give in, give him what he wants because it’s easier. But if this is going to happen, if she and Roy are really having another go at this, it’s going to happen the way she decides it will. 

“I’m not having sex with you,” she says firmly. She feels a flame erupt within her, just a tiny spark, but it’s powerful.

Roy takes a step back from her and shakes his head a bit. “That’s totally fine,” he says. “Whatever you want.”

Whatever she wants. She wishes she knew what she wanted anymore. She wants things to be different this time, that’s all she knows.

He leads her into their old bedroom and she slips her dress off, tossing it over a chair. He roots around in his dresser and hands her one of his T-shirts, which she puts on, making no effort to hide her body from him. He’s seen it all before, and she’s too exhausted to play games anyway.

She takes the bobby pins out of her hair, letting it fall down across her shoulders, feeling such relief to be out of that rec room, to be somewhere familiar and comforting. 

Roy looks at her in a sort of confused way, like he’s desperately trying to understand something that may be entirely beyond his comprehension. “You want me to take the couch?”

It eases her mind that he’s offered, but that’s not what she wants. Not tonight.

“Will you just… hold me?” she asks. And to her great relief, he nods. It’s a nice feeling, telling him exactly what she wants and getting it. It’s like she’s inside that chrysalis again, only this time she’s twitching against the branch in her struggle to break free.

They climb into the bed together and she scoots back into his waiting embrace. He wraps his arms around her from behind and she takes a deep breath, trying hard not to remember the things that were, but to think instead of what might be.

Roy isn’t who she wants. He could be again, someday. But right now, maybe he can be what she needs: someone to hold her and tell her everything will be okay. 

He doesn’t tell her that, however, and she falls asleep with “Fields of Gold” still echoing inside her head as she lay in Roy’s arms. She can’t help but feel like she’s gone home with silver.

***

“Pammy?”

His voice is soft and slurred. She blinks her eyes, still waking up from a deep sleep, holding her phone next to her ear.

“...Roy?”

“Don’t hang up, Pammy, please.” 

She looks at her bedside clock, the digital readout says 2:02. “It’s two in the morning. Why are you calling me?”

“I’m…” he sighs. “I’m in jail.”

Her eyes bulge in alarm. She’s fully awake now. “Why are you in jail?”

“Me and Kenny went out drinking, and… well, I thought I was okay to drive home. Guess I wasn’t.”

She closes her eyes, not wanting to deal with this crap. Part of the reason she broke up with him in the first place was not wanting to have to deal with this crap. 

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Did you hurt anyone else?”

“No, Pam. It’s fine. Just… caught swerving a little much, I don’t know.”

She sighs heavily, her hand at her temple, her dark bedroom coming into focus in the soft moonlight. “Roy…”

“Can you please come bail me out? Please. I can’t call anyone else now.” 

She’s pissed he’s put her in this position, and she really doesn’t want to get involved, but there’s a part of her that will always care about Roy, and that part knows that no matter how tired she is, no matter how annoyed she is, no matter how done with him she is, she could never let him sit in jail if she had the power to help him.

“Yeah. I’ll be right there.”

He tells her where he is and she rolls out of bed, slipping on her shoes and throwing her peacoat over her pajamas. Her own drive is uneventful and when she walks into the police station and asks for Roy Anderson she has a jarring, alarming vision of what her life might have been like had things played out differently.

“Pam!” She hears his voice from down the corridor as she approaches. It’s not dark and scary like she expected this to be from movies, it’s bright and the lights hurt her eyes. All she wants to do is take him home and go back to sleep.

Roy is standing inside a holding cell, his meaty fists clutching the bars, peering out at her in a pathetic sort of way she doesn’t really recognize. He looks like total shit. It’s more than drunk, it’s quite clearly disorderly.

“You look awful,” she says. “Did you get into a fight?”

He shrugs. “It was nothing. Just a stupid scuffle.”

It always is.

She handles the bail and they collect Roy’s belongings, then walk out into the warm Pennsylvania night. She says nothing, and he follows her silently to her new blue Yaris. He’s never seen it before.

“You got a new car?” he asks.

“Yup.”

“It’s nice.”

“Thanks.” She unlocks his door, then walks to the driver’s side and gets in. They drive back to their old apartment in that same awkward, sustained silence until he finally breaks it.

“So, how have you been doing?” he asks, like they’re meeting up for coffee.

She sighs. It’s way too late and she’s way too tired for this. “We are not together anymore, Roy.”

“I know that.”

“Then why did you call me?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Yours was just the first number I thought of. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d dialed.”

She peers over at him, and even in the darkness under the syncopated flash of streetlights, even through the enormous shiner on his eye and the days-old scruff, she can see his humanity peeking through. It was something her friends never understood, something she could always find somehow, some way, even at their very worst.

He sounds so sad, it doesn’t feel like a ruse. Maybe he’s telling the truth.

She doesn’t know what to say, but thankfully they soon reach his place. She puts the car into park, sighing again loudly, turning to face him.

“Please tell me you can get together that money by the end of the month.”

“No, of course. I will, I promise. Thanks, Pam.”

She waits for him to get out of the car so she can leave, but he doesn’t. He looks at her with that expression she’s so used to seeing when he’s trying to get out of something.

“Can you maybe come up? Just for a minute, like… to talk?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

He unbuckles his seatbelt and turns to grab the door handle. With relief, she’s sure he’s going to open the door and get out, but instead he turns back to her, looking into her eyes. Then he leans towards her slowly. She knows what he’s doing as it’s happening, like the entire world is suddenly moving in slow motion, and her body freezes as he reaches out, touching her knee.

For a moment she thinks she might just let him, just let this happen the way she always had, because it was always easier that way. But things are different now. She is different. At least, she wants to be. 

“No, Roy,” she says. He doesn’t listen, and his lips touch hers. He smells like smoke and tastes like whiskey and all she wants is to burrow underneath the covers of her new bed in her new apartment and get back to her new life without him.

She places her hands on his chest and shoves him, hard. “Roy, no!” she says more firmly. He looks surprised, and she can hardly blame him. Other than the very last time they spoke, she can’t remember the last time she told him no.

He blinks. “I just… I just want to know why,” he says with a desperation in his voice she’s never heard.

Their breakup had been swift, like tearing off a band-aid. One night, only a few days before their wedding, she sat up in bed and just knew she couldn’t go through with it. “I can’t,” she’d said to him. And with the very same words she’d broken Jim’s heart, she’d ended a nine year relationship with Roy and took the first step towards her independence.

It was because of what Jim said to her, of course, but not because she still thought she had a shot with him. It was because marriage – for Pam, at least – was supposed to be forever. It was supposed to be the rest of her life. And after believing for so long that Roy was the right person for her, Jim’s declaration had shaken that belief completely loose from its foundation. 

Maybe Roy wasn’t her forever after all. And if she even had that “maybe” in her mind, that tiny gnawing bit of doubt, how could she look him in the eyes on their wedding day and promise him that?

She hasn’t spoken in several long seconds. He looks at her with bloodshot eyes and asks again. “Don’t I deserve to know why?”

She’d never told Roy about Jim’s confession. What would it matter, anyway? He’s gone forever, and admitting to Roy she had feelings for someone she’s never going to be with anyway wouldn’t make him feel any better. Nothing she could possibly say will ever make him feel any better about any of it.

“I wasn’t sure anymore,” she says. “And that’s the god’s honest truth, Roy. I can’t marry someone I’m not sure about.”

He sniffs loudly, but not from crying. It’s more of a knee-jerk reaction to what she’s revealed, a blow to his pride. She glances over to find him staring at the glove compartment.

“You said yes, Pam,” he says, shaking his head. “You told me yes when I asked.”

She feels a tiny flickering blaze deep inside her belly, an opportunity at last presenting itself to throw back in his face the very thing that had caused her so much pain for so long.

“You asked over three years ago,” she says. “A lot can change in three years.”

He looks annoyed, and she knows he still doesn’t get it. “What changed, exactly?”

She looks down at her hands resting on the steering wheel. The tan line around her ring finger is still there; faint, but she can still see it. 

“I guess I just… stopped feeling special. And it’s not even all your fault. It’s mine too, because I’d been feeling that way for a long time and I never said anything.”

She wonders where they’d be today if she had. If she’d told him something was missing long ago, if she'd found the courage to face it, might he have woken up? Would he have changed for her?

Would he have fought for her the way Jim had?

“I am sorry, Roy,” she says, because she is. “I’m sorry I hurt you, and I’m especially sorry I did it when I did. But forever is a big deal. And I couldn’t just… fake it anymore.”

Roy doesn’t speak. He was never very good with words, so she isn’t surprised. But one thing she knows for sure is that she’s sorry everything played out this way. Roy wasn’t always the straightest shooter, but he was never an actual fuck-up. It hurts to see him in such a low state.

He’s quiet for a long time, concentration etched across his features. She can tell he’s going over it in his mind now, every moment he’d taken her for granted, all of the times he’d made her feel unworthy. And she can’t help it; now, she’s thinking about all of the times Jim did the exact opposite. And she’d taken him for granted, the same way Roy had done to her.

“I hope you believe me, that I’m sorry,” she says. “But it’s over.”

It’s over.

Roy nods, and gives her one last sad look. He then opens the car door, slams it shut, and just like that, she’s alone again.      

She wants him to be okay. Hopefully in time, he will be. They will move on and forget. He will forget all about her.

Just like Jim did.

***

He tries to forget her, but forgetting Pam is proving to be impossible. 

He thinks about her every day, every hour, every minute. With every heartbeat he remembers something else that he will never have again: her smile, her laugh, her sense of humor. He misses her so much all the time it’s hard to breathe. 

He wishes he could blame her for what happened between them but he knows he can’t. None of this is her fault. He can’t make her feel something she doesn’t.

Regardless of what she’d told him in the parking lot that night, he’d refused to believe he’d “misinterpreted” the spark between them. And when he made the decision to kiss her, he’d known he was being selfish. But after three years of restraint he decided to permit himself this small act of defiance; this ethical, moral breach. He didn’t care anymore about Roy, about his own pride, about any of it.

Oddly enough, as he walked up the stairwell, opened the front door to the office and saw her, advice from Michael buzzed through his brain:  

Never, ever, ever give up.

She was standing at his desk. Kismet, it had to be, almost as if she were waiting for him to come find her. He couldn’t leave without knowing what it felt like to press his lips against hers, he just couldn’t. Kissing Pam was something he simply had to experience, if only once. 

Well, he got the experience. Once.

But now he has nothing. 

Most days now, he buries himself in his work. When he gets home he walks, usually a different route each time, seeing her face in every puddle he steps over on the sidewalk. He’s walked every street in his beautiful Connecticut neighborhood and nothing around him feels like home. But surrounding himself with the unfamiliar makes pushing through the final stretch of each day feel like some kind of tangible, achievable task. Any victories, even small ones, are worthwhile these days.

Most nights he winds up at a local bar and has a couple too many. He’s never been much of a drinker and this seems like such a pathetic cliché he wants to not be doing it, but he likes the way the liquid amber burns when he throws it back. It makes him feel something. He’s so numb on a daily basis that feeling anything will do. 

By the time the paper convention in Philadelphia rolls around, he isn’t really sure how to feel. Michael crows gleefully about “the prodigal son” returning, but he feels so far removed from everything Scranton, his old boss’s words fall flat.

Seeing Michael and Dwight is only a further reminder of everything he left behind. And even though they weren’t the best parts of being there, they were something he shared with Pam: an eye roll, a laugh. A horrified expression that only she could relate to in her own special way.

“Say hi to Pam,” Michael says offhandedly as he holds up his cell phone, as if the mere prospect of saying hi to Pam isn’t the first time he’s actually felt alive in months. He wonders if she likes married life, if she’s happy. If Roy is a better husband than he was a fiancé.

“Hi, Pam,” he says quietly to Michael’s phone. There’s no way she actually hears him. 

But he definitely hears what comes next.

“Good luck on your date,” Michael says to her on the phone. And Jim’s heart plummets into his stomach like a stone into a freezing cold lake.

Date. 

His brain skips like a record. He can practically hear the skeeeratch as he stares at the phone in Michael’s hand that has just dealt this incomprehensible blow.

Date? 

He tries to control his reaction to this news, something Michael had let roll off his tongue so casually. Like nothing was wrapped up in that word, as opposed to absolutely everything. 

Pam is going on a date? With whom?

He tries to put the pieces together as quickly as he can. Pam wouldn’t be going on a “date” with Roy, that makes no sense. There’s only one explanation – that they're no longer together – and at any other moment it would be welcome news. But right now, the timing couldn’t be worse. 

He hasn’t had much contact with anyone back at the Scranton branch besides Kevin, but even if he had, it doesn’t surprise him no one had told him. Surely everyone assumed Pam had told him herself. 

They were such good friends, after all.

He instinctively glances up at the camera for Will or Delilah or someone else he recognizes, but it’s a new guy he doesn’t really know. It’s not the crew’s job to deliver this kind of news to him, but he still thinks Will might have told him if he’d been part of the skeleton crew at Stamford. 

Maybe that’s the reason Delilah sent a different crew in the first place, he muses. To keep him as separated from Scranton as possible. 

He wonders when and why this happened. It couldn’t have been long after he’d left, since the wedding was only a couple of weeks away. Had his confession had an effect on her relationship with Roy after all? 

And more to the point, why hasn’t she told him about it?

There’s only one answer, really, and he hates it: it’s because it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. What happened with Pam and Roy has nothing to do with him, and that much is obvious from her clear intention to move on from all of it. 

Good luck on your date.

Before this moment, he could have at least convinced himself she’d said no to him because she was engaged, because her hands were tied. That perhaps she did feel something for him, but out of respect and loyalty and duty she’d chosen her fiancé. 

Now he knows for certain that isn’t the case.

He excuses himself from his company, finds the bathroom mercifully empty and leans against the wall, closing his eyes. He never wants to open them again. It hurts to have them opened to this painful reality: that any what-ifs he’d still clung to, any hope he’d previously held on to, are now completely gone. 

She doesn’t love him back. She never loved him back.

There are moments now, every once in a while, when he wishes he’d never said anything to her at all. Maybe he could have been content with just her friendship, just to be near her every day. Maybe that could have been enough. But then he imagines her in a beautiful white dress, walking down the aisle towards someone else, her eyes shining and her smile dazzling. 

It doesn’t matter that it won’t be Roy. It doesn’t matter who it is. It won’t be him. And he can’t live the rest of his life wishing it had been.

***

He’s almost afraid to admit it, or to jinx it, but things have been going really well with Karen. She keeps telling him they’re “better than ever” and he can’t deny it. They’ve been more honest with each other (although not entirely, he has to admit) and ever since the whole thing with Pam came out, she seems much more relaxed. 

Before, he was skeptical about whether or not Karen could actually help him move past all of this. But now, he really thinks if there's anyone in the world who could, it might be her. 

It’s amazing what being fought for can do for one’s self-esteem.

He’s grateful she gave him another chance at all, really, and he owes it to her to behave. Behave, as in “try not to think about Pam so much.”

He stands at the bar in the reception hall, waiting for his drinks. As if his thoughts manifest her, Pam approaches.

“Hey,” he says in a friendly greeting.

“Hey!” She smiles at him. Everything feels pretty normal. 

“So when are we gonna get to see some of those famous Beesly dance moves?” he grins. He hasn’t seen her dance much, actually, but does remember a night last year, on the booze cruise, when he should have been focused on his date Katy and instead couldn’t stop watching Pam. 

“Oh... I'm pacing myself.” 

“Come on. Get out there. Give the people what they want.” 

She looks down, embarrassed. “No. I'm such a dorky dancer.”

“I know,” he chuckles, and suddenly realizes he might have made her feel self-conscious and that wasn’t his intent. “It's very cute,” he reassures her, and while he’s telling her the absolute truth it comes off as flirting. He shouldn’t be flirting with Pam, dammit. Must be that second beer talking.

“You think so?” she asks.

“Well, yeah. I can’t dance either, so you’ll get no judgment from me.”

She smiles. The bartender sets down his beer and Karen’s wine, then turns to Pam. She orders champagne, and the bartender turns around again in search of a fresh bottle. Kevin’s dulcet tones belt out Police lyrics behind them.

A year has passed since I wrote my note

I should have known this right from the start

“How are you doing?” Jim asks. “I feel like we haven’t really talked in a while.” 

He’s pretty much avoided Pam all evening. Not purposefully, or in a mean way, just in the way a diabetic would avoid sugar, or an alcoholic might steer clear of the bar. He has no desire to be cruel to her, or cut her out of his life. He’s just… pacing himself.

“Oh, I’m fine,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. They’re bare again, just like on casino night. She looks gorgeous and he really wants to tell her so. “Been busy with my art classes and stuff.”

“That’s cool,” he says. Then, like a disease has taken over his tongue, he blurts it out. “You look really pretty.”

Pop! The bartender pops the cork. 

She looks up at him again, and while he feels stupid for having said that, she seems genuinely pleased by his compliment. “Thanks. You look really nice, too.”

“It’s weird,” he then covers. “We don’t really get to see each other all dressed up like this very often, you know?”

“Yeah,” she says in a sort of distracted way, and he wonders if she’s thinking about the same thing he is: the last time they were all dressed up like this. 

The bartender starts filling Pam’s glass. Their time is running out. She looks up into his eyes and won’t look away, again. He hates when she does that. It always feels like she’s waiting for something to happen, some deus ex machina to sweep through and fix everything. He’s vaguely aware of the sounds of her champagne being poured, but his head feels fuzzy. Maybe it’s the alcohol, or the loud music. It’s probably just Pam.

“So where is Karen?” she asks, and even though he doesn’t want to talk about Karen with Pam, it feels like the universe has rewarded him with just a few more seconds with her.

“Oh, she’s… out on the dance floor.”

“Ah.” She then reaches over to grab her drink and starts to step away from the bar.

“See you out there?” he says, which is stupid because of course he will.

“Not dancing?” she grins. “Yeah.”

He gives her a little wave as she walks away, and watches her go. The back of her dress dips down into a V shape and he can see her shoulder blades.

Only hope can keep me together

Love can mend your life

Or love can break your heart

“Ahem.”

Oscar is behind him, clearing his throat, and Jim wonders how long he’s been standing there, how much he saw. 

“Oh, hey,” he says to Oscar, grabbing his two drinks and moving out of the way. “Sorry.”

As he heads back over to the dance floor, he notices Delilah and Will standing about twenty feet away, clearly having captured his and Pam’s entire interaction. Karen is still dancing, so he sets the drinks down on the table. He slinks away to the bathroom, not really wanting to be interviewed at the moment. But of course, on his way back out to the dance floor, Delilah and Will intercept him.

“You and Pam seem to be getting along,” Delilah says. Will, as usual when Delilah is around, just stays silent and keeps the camera pointed at Jim.

“Well, we’re friends,” Jim shrugs. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

He’s not stupid, and he knows the crew isn’t either. He’s lied to them a lot over the past couple of years in order to hide his inappropriate feelings for an engaged woman, and even more so since he returned to Scranton, but they’d be fools to not see the truth. Still, he’s with Karen now. He needs to be careful about what he says.

‘Well, it just seems like maybe there’s something else going on,” Delilah says. “Something more.”

“Um… no?” he replies, genuinely confused. “Not that I know of.”

“But what if there were?” she asks. “You know, hypothetically.” 

Delilah is rarely so forward with him about Pam. He wonders if maybe she’s been drinking tonight. 

“What do you mean, hypothetically?”

Delilah looks at him intently. “I mean, if you thought Pam was interested in something more, what would you do?” Her expression is odd: almost manic, desperate.

Will’s eyes shift over to Delilah, clearly clocking this questionable behavior as well. 

Jim hesitates. “Why are you asking me a hypothetical question? You guys never do that.”

“We’re just observing. From what we observed, it seems entirely possible.”

This is the very last thing he wants to hear. Possibility with Pam is precisely the thing he’s trying to avoid right now.

He feels backed into a corner, but if he doesn’t answer, will he appear too defensive? 

“Hypothetically, if I thought Pam was interested, then…” 

Both the producer and the cameraman look at him expectantly. It’s slightly unnerving, like they’re trying to catch him in some kind of “gotcha” moment. And for what? Why are they playing this little game? What is he supposed to do with Pam’s mixed signals? He’s got a pretty good thing going on with Karen. He doesn’t want to throw it away based on signals he’s misinterpreted for years. 

“No, it's totally hypothetical,” he says. He’s not going to play today. He turns to leave them behind.

“She was flirting with you, man,” Will calls after him. “That’s not hypothetical.”

Delilah twists her head to glare at Will, which Jim finds somewhat unfair, considering the lines she’d been crossing herself. But Will is right. Pam was flirting. She was flirting with him in the break room at work the other day, too, actually. Pretty badly. He didn’t even know what to make of it at the time because her behavior was so unusual. 

Jim turns and storms off, annoyed. It doesn’t matter what Will or Delilah think, or even what he thinks. Because he and Pam have been engaging in what any average person would consider to be ‘flirting’ for years. He knows it, and the crew obviously knows it. The only person who doesn’t seem to know it is Pam, and he isn’t prepared to misinterpret her signals again, especially since he has much more at stake now.

When he gets back to their table, Karen is there waiting for him. She smiles and stands up, looking really happy to see him. It makes his insides warm.

“You wanna dance?” she asks, and he nods, allowing her to lead him out onto the dance floor.

Karen puts her arms on his shoulders a bit awkwardly, and he puts his hands at her waist. They haven’t been in a situation before this evening where they’ve danced together, or really even behaved like a couple in public. It’s a little strange, but he has to admit it’s nice.

“So… that wedding went well,” she says with a chuckle.

He groans. “Just be glad you missed Michael’s toast.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

They laugh together and dance as best they can with his two left feet. He feels content, actually happy for the first time in a long time. Just when he thinks this, he glances over Karen’s shoulder and sees Pam staring directly at them. For a moment – just a moment – their eyes lock in that same way they always do that gives him butterflies. 

Delilah's words bounce around in his head. From what we observed, it seems entirely possible. 

No, it's not possible. It's obviously never going to be possible, and he hates the way Pam's presence always has the power to displace any and all feelings he has for Karen. Why can’t this just stop? Why does it all have to be so difficult?

Pam looks away and gets up, seemingly embarrassed to be caught staring. He can’t help but wonder if she’s jealous, even a little bit, that she’s the one who’s alone this time and he actually has someone. At least, by now, these thoughts feel less like wishful thinking and more like human nature.

He and Karen finish their dance and sit back down, sipping their beverages and people-watching. Well, he people-watches. Karen is more interested in her new phone, which she’s had her face buried in for much of the night. He doesn’t mind, mostly, although it does make him think how, if Pam were sitting next to him instead, they’d be discussing the origin of Toby’s date, or watching Creed dance, or judging Kelly for wearing a white dress to someone else’s wedding. 

“I’m gonna go get another drink,” Jim says. “Do you want anything?”

“Uh-uh,” she shakes her head no, typing away. 

He gets up, heading across the room back to the bar, and it’s here again where he realizes things are not as okay as he thought they were. In fact, they’re worse than ever before. Because as he turns to look over his shoulder at the assembled crowd he sees Pam, walking out of the rec room, hand in hand with Roy.

Roy.

Hand in hand. 

With Roy.

He can feel his Chilean sea bass from earlier in the evening swirling around in his stomach until he’s afraid it might actually come up. She’s going back to Roy? After everything? All of it? If he’d seen Pam leaving with someone else, anyone else, it still would have stung. But this is adding insult to an already agitated injury. 

Suddenly, he’s pissed as hell. Talk about a deus ex machina: it now feels like the universe is deliberately tormenting him, like an ant squirming beneath an enormous magnifying glass. If Pam is getting back together with Roy, what does that mean? Despite his disappointment that her breaking up with Roy hadn’t yielded the results he’d wanted, he’d certainly reached a point now where he could at least be glad that Pam had extricated herself from what he’d always determined was a bad situation for her. Now, she’s willingly throwing herself back into that very situation. Right in front of him.

He tries his best to not betray his emotions, to show how upset he is, how this turn of events has upended everything positive he was feeling. But he fails miserably, and at this precise moment turns back and catches the eye of Will, who’s sitting at a nearby table nursing a Heineken.

Will follows his gaze, but Jim knows the cameraman doesn’t even have to do so to know who he was watching. They always seem to know. 

Every breath you take

Every move you make

Every bond you break

Every step you take

I'll be watching you

No words pass between the two men, but Jim feels that deep discomfort rising within him of being seen through, of being called out. Of being known more intimately than he wants to be by someone he isn’t prepared to share any of this with.

He takes a few steps over until he’s standing right in front of Will, who, like a reflex, reaches down to grab his camera. 

“You got any more questions for me, man?” Jim asks. 

He doesn’t mean to sound threatening or angry but he can’t help it. He’s so fucking done with all of this, and the documentary crew in particular have pushed him too far tonight. 

Will looks slightly alarmed by Jim’s het up demeanor and stops himself, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights.

“No, it’s fine. Turn the camera on,” Jim says, like a challenge. “Go ahead.”

Will’s eyes dart around for someone – anyone – to take direction from, but no one else from the crew is around. So he does what he does best: he picks up the camera and points it at Jim.

Jim stares into the lens, remembering what he’d almost said to them in his last interview, what they’d almost tricked him into saying. He’s fully prepared to course-correct the evening.

“Here's a 'not hypothetical',” he says. “I'm really happy I'm with Karen.”

Just uttering it out loud has a soothing effect, almost as if the words themselves have their own magical power. He feels better after saying them.

Will isn’t Delilah, and Jim knows he won’t handle the situation the way she would. He doesn’t push, and he doesn’t press any further. But that’s fine with Jim. Because tonight has been the biggest wake-up call of all wake-up calls. He's gone on record now as not caring who Pam’s with and what she does and it’s not his place to care about those things anyway. 

It’s none of his business and it never was, and tonight she’s made that clearer than ever.

With one final glare, he leaves Will to go look for Karen, finding her up by the stage arranging an impromptu performance of “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” with Kevin. As Jim watches her, it amazes him how this person he’d been so close to writing off a couple of weeks ago continues to pleasantly surprise him; how lucky he is to have found her when he did.

Tonight, right now, Karen is a very good thing.

He says nothing to her about Pam and Roy – why should he? – and actually enjoys the rest of the reception. The loud music and Pam-less crowds are a good way to distract him from the things he no longer wants to think about. But when the party's over and they walk to his car hand in hand, the silence is louder than everything else.

Since you've gone I've been lost without a trace.

I dream at night, I can only see your face.

I look around but it's you I can't replace.

I feel so cold, and I long for your embrace.

I keep crying baby, baby, please...

“Can we go to my place tonight?” Karen asks. “I don’t have any makeup remover at yours.”

“Um, yeah, sure,” he replies. He actually prefers it there. He’s still in the process of allowing Karen to ensconce herself fully into his space. 

Now that they’re out in the parking lot, now that they’ve been thrust back to reality, he can’t help himself: he wonders whose place Pam and Roy went to. Did they go to her new place? Or back to their old one? What are they doing right now?

Oh can't you see

You belong to me?

How my poor heart aches with every step you take.

He squeezes Karen’s hand and she looks up at him with a smile. 

“So, I finally understand why you never wanted to go out dancing before,” she teases. 

“Oh you do, do you?”

She laughs. “You’re such a dork, Halpert.”

“Easy.” He tries to smile but he looks at the ground, distracted. 

“Hey, is everything okay?” she asks, for the first time noticing he’s a little off.

He looks over at her as they reach his car and stop. “Everything’s great,” he says. “I had fun tonight.”

“Me too,” she agrees. “Well, I could have done without pretty much all of Michael, but I suppose that’s true every day.”

He chuckles, and then she looks up at him again with every bit of sincerity he’s come to expect from her. “You make me really happy, you know?” 

It’s not I love you, thank god – he’s not ready for that – but it’s the closest she’s come. 

He won’t kid himself. Tonight was rough. But having her around really does ease the blow. He grins back at her. 

“You make me really happy, too.”

It’s such a relief to not have to lie for once.