Around Again Part 2
The next morning Pam woke up early and primped with a little extra care. She was almost giddy with excitement and had to remind herself that nothing had really been said last night, or even close to settled, but still she was met with light eyes and a broad smile when she looked herself over in the mirror by her front door before stepping out into the cold morning air.
She arrived a little earlier than usual just because she wanted to make sure she didn’t miss Jim coming in that morning. She wanted him to know that she wasn’t running this time; that she wanted this as much, if not more, than he did.
She straightened the pile of yesterday’s neglected product summaries and purchase orders, less than eager to begin the mind numbing process of sorting them into their correct piles for their inevitable delivery later that morning. Her head shot up when the door opened, but it was only Phyllis trudging through the doorway. Pam gave Phyllis a small smile and a “morning” and returned to straightening piles on her desk. She could only do this for so long, but her mind was racing so fast, she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle anything that even required the least bit of mental capacity, even sorting.
Each time the door opened, he heart skipped a beat, and her eyes shot to the person entering the office, and each time she was disappointed. By the time 9:10 rolled around, everyone but Karen and Jim had appeared in the office. Many of them were in the kitchen pouring cups of much needed coffee, but Pam stayed firmly glued to her desk, a pit growing in her stomach.
She tried to convince herself that it was probably nothing; that it was just a coincidence that both Jim and Karen were MIA. She started her computer, not willing to resort to a game of solitaire quite yet even though she knew it might calm her nerves.
At 9:13 the phone rang. As much as she wanted to let it go to voicemail, she knew there was a possibility that it might be Jim, letting her know why he was late.
After two rings she picked up with her usual greeting “Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam”
“Hey Pam,” it was Karen’s voice on the other end of the line, not Jim’s. “I just wanted to let you know that Jim and I are running a few minutes late.”
“Oh,” Pam felt like she had been punched in the gut. Hard. “Uh, right, okay.” She mumbled along with a hasty goodbye before she practically slammed the phone back down on the receiver. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dwight look up from his desk, curious as to the loud noise coming from reception. She didn’t bother to look at him, she knew it was better to ignore him; he’d more quickly go back to work that way.
Pam took in a few deep breaths, trying to steady herself with this new information. Karen and Jim were coming in together. Which normally wouldn’t have surprised her, but given yesterday, given the way Karen had stormed out of the office early, and given the conversation she and Jim had had, well, almost had, in the parking lot, she found it difficult to comprehend a scenario in which Karen and Jim would be arriving together.
She started running through the safe possibilities in her head. Maybe her car had broken down and she didn’t have anyone else to call. Maybe they ran into each other in the parking lot and were walking to the elevator right now. Maybe it was really nothing. Or maybe, more likely, it was everything.
Pam wanted to run to the bathroom, or to the stairwell, or anywhere she could be alone to think, but she couldn’t move. It was as if she was frozen in her chair. Some part of her, deep down, needed to know what was going on, even if it hurt. She tried to busy herself with the tasks on her desk, but she was completely unable to concentrate.
At 9:32, the door opened again, revealing not just Karen, but also Jim. And they were laughing. Together. Pam tried desperately to catch Jim’s eye, but it was like she didn’t even exist. Again. It was as if she had suddenly been thrust back into the cold civility of the past few weeks without any say in the matter.
Karen and Jim walked to their respective desks and sat, quickly pulling out their own piles of work. Jim felt Pam’s stare as he walked across the room and sat. He could feel her eyes practically boring a hole into the back of his head. He hadn’t met her eyes, mostly because he knew he couldn’t. Not after everything. He knew it was cowardly, that the whole thing was cowardly, but this was where he was. He was protecting himself yes, but he was also trying to be happy, albeit unsuccessfully at this point. Despite Karen smiling at him across the room, all he could feel was Pam’s look of disappointment that he couldn’t even see. God, he hated this torture.
He put his head down and focused his eyes on the papers on his desk. He was determined to avoid Pam and all his thoughts of her. He’d work harder today than he’d ever worked before just so that he could escape his own personal hell. What a sad existence his life had become.
Around lunch time, Pam got up from her desk and headed to the break room, eyes to the floor as she walked. He felt more than saw her go, but it was perhaps the most dejected he had ever seen her and he didn’t even have to look at her fully to see it. He had done this. She didn’t really deserve it. But he didn’t deserve the pain she had put him through either. Though that thought was meant to make him feel better, it only served to make him feel like more of a colossal jerk.
But this was who he was now. Who he chose to be. It was something he’d have to live with, like it or not.
Pam ate slowly in the break room, taking more than her usual 20 minute lunch. She sat quietly, blankly staring at the morning’s newspaper. There was some story about a local school that had raised enough money in a Read-a-thon to replace some of the old children’s books in the public library. The picture of the elementary aged children grinning up at her, new books in her hands, didn’t change the grimace on her face, or her morose mood.
Kevin and Oscar sat down at the next table, talking about something having to do with accounting, and Stanley sat quietly at the third table, eating his lunch. Karen came in and shoved something in the microwave, pushed a few buttons and walked out without a word or look to anyone. When the incessant beeping began, she returned, grabbing her lunch without a backward glance.
Pam was getting sick of feeling like she didn’t exist. Hardly anyone ever took notice of her. Sure, they said “hello” when they arrived in the morning and “goodbye” when they left at night, but other than that, she often didn’t have any human contact throughout the day, and when she did, it was with Michael, which she hardly counted as human.
As if wanting to prove a further testament to the truth behind her feelings of invisibility, Stanely, Kevin and Oscar filed out of the room a while later without so much as a glance at her. Here she sat, alone. Again. In moments like these, she fought the rush of memories of happier times when Jim would focus most, sometimes all, of his attention on her. She really felt like someone who mattered back then. She wasn’t invisible to him. In fact, she found out later, she was really the only one he saw. And he really saw her.
She didn’t realize how much that mattered until he was gone.
She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and she bit down on her tongue hard to stop them from falling. She wrinkled her nose a little, forcing the wave of memories back into the recesses of her mind where they were locked up; allowed out only when she deemed fit.
She heard footsteps, and looked up to find Jim had entered the room. Unlike the others, he looked at her immediately. Again she was struck by the difference between him and their coworkers. He looked a little sheepish, and even a little nervous to be alone with her.
“Hey,” he managed, his heart pounding in his ears. This is exactly why he had waited to buy his lunch; he had hoped to avoid being alone with her. He had discretely asked Karen if Pam was in the break room, and she had said that she hadn’t remembered seeing Pam there. He’d thought he’d be safe. Apparently, he was wrong.
“Hey,” she returned, her voice soft, injured. God he hated seeing her like this. As much as he hated the torture she had put him through, he hated seeing her in pain even more. Yet he was the one who kept inflicting it.
He quickly made his way to the vending machine, punching in a few numbers and inserting his money. While he waited for the whirring machine to spit out his selection, he searched for words to fill the otherwise silent space.
She felt the tension mounting with each second. She grasped for something to say, something to deflate the mood. But there was nothing. The small talk sounded fake and hollow to her ears, and she knew it would only increase the distance between them. Even if he didn’t want her, didn’t love her anymore, she at least didn’t want the gaping void between them to expand anymore. She desperately wanted to salvage what was left of their friendship. In that moment she knew, the only way to decrease, or stop the vast expansion of that void was to leap headfirst into it.
She took a deep breath, which, when he heard it, almost made him flinch. He wasn’t ready for this. Still he couldn’t help but glance back to where she sat, so small, so noticeably alone.
“Jim, about last night…” she began. She would get this out, it was the only way. If he would just let her, she would say what she’d been meaning to say for so long. She’d throw herself headlong into the unknown space between them just so that he might understand.
His eyes widened, and his self-preservation instincts responded before a coherent thought reached his head: “Uh, actually, sorry, I’ve gotta get back…Karen’s waiting for me.” He grabbed his selections from the vending machine, turned on his heel, and practically ran from the room. He thought he heard her say, “Oh…yeah, of course” quietly, but he wasn’t quite sure.
Safely on the other side of the door, he closed his eyes and cursed himself for being so callous, so rude. She deserved so much better than that. She had wanted to tell him something, and he had just slammed the door shut in her face. What he had just done bordered on, and was quite possibly worse than anything Roy had ever done to her. That thought made him feel physically ill. He looked down at the lunch in his hand and tossed it into the garbage can in the kitchen as he headed back into the main office. He’d just tell Karen he hadn’t found anything edible for lunch.
Pam sat, shell-shocked, staring at her hands. They were wobbly and distorted through her tear-filled eyes. She had a fleeting thought that it might make a really cool painting someday.
But she’d never get there to that elusive someday. She was stuck here for what felt like an eternity in a personal hell while an endless parade of somedays marched by right outside the doorway. She was so sick of being alone. Of being left behind. Of having no greatness expected of her. Of having the person she loved just outside of reach. Of being too scared to say what needed to be said.
She felt white hot rage bubble up in her. She had tried to be different, tried to be brave, for him, and he had thrown it back in her face. She guessed that his actions in that moment were her answer, that he didn’t want her anymore, but she needed him to know more than he would let her say. She felt the burgeoning need for honesty and clarity in her life. If he rejected her, so be it, but she needed to say it, if nothing else then for the preservation of her own self-worth.
But even in her resolve, she was terrified. As her cool, rational head began to regain its control over the pulsating red hot rage, she began to think about the possibility that regardless of what she said that it wouldn’t matter. She’d still lead the same life, in the same job, with the same unattainable hopes and dreams. She might even live that life alone. She knew she would need to build the courage to be able to face that kind of rejection. Deep down, she knew it was worth it to jump into the dark abyss ahead, even if it hurt like hell when she hit the bottom.
She peeled herself out of the chair, wiping her face with the spare napkin laying there. She wouldn’t show weakness to him, or to Karen. She had to act stronger than she felt.
As she strode back into the main office to face the afternoon, she thought wryly that today she might actually be a bit thankful for being invisible.
~~~~~~
More soon!
She arrived a little earlier than usual just because she wanted to make sure she didn’t miss Jim coming in that morning. She wanted him to know that she wasn’t running this time; that she wanted this as much, if not more, than he did.
She straightened the pile of yesterday’s neglected product summaries and purchase orders, less than eager to begin the mind numbing process of sorting them into their correct piles for their inevitable delivery later that morning. Her head shot up when the door opened, but it was only Phyllis trudging through the doorway. Pam gave Phyllis a small smile and a “morning” and returned to straightening piles on her desk. She could only do this for so long, but her mind was racing so fast, she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle anything that even required the least bit of mental capacity, even sorting.
Each time the door opened, he heart skipped a beat, and her eyes shot to the person entering the office, and each time she was disappointed. By the time 9:10 rolled around, everyone but Karen and Jim had appeared in the office. Many of them were in the kitchen pouring cups of much needed coffee, but Pam stayed firmly glued to her desk, a pit growing in her stomach.
She tried to convince herself that it was probably nothing; that it was just a coincidence that both Jim and Karen were MIA. She started her computer, not willing to resort to a game of solitaire quite yet even though she knew it might calm her nerves.
At 9:13 the phone rang. As much as she wanted to let it go to voicemail, she knew there was a possibility that it might be Jim, letting her know why he was late.
After two rings she picked up with her usual greeting “Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam”
“Hey Pam,” it was Karen’s voice on the other end of the line, not Jim’s. “I just wanted to let you know that Jim and I are running a few minutes late.”
“Oh,” Pam felt like she had been punched in the gut. Hard. “Uh, right, okay.” She mumbled along with a hasty goodbye before she practically slammed the phone back down on the receiver. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dwight look up from his desk, curious as to the loud noise coming from reception. She didn’t bother to look at him, she knew it was better to ignore him; he’d more quickly go back to work that way.
Pam took in a few deep breaths, trying to steady herself with this new information. Karen and Jim were coming in together. Which normally wouldn’t have surprised her, but given yesterday, given the way Karen had stormed out of the office early, and given the conversation she and Jim had had, well, almost had, in the parking lot, she found it difficult to comprehend a scenario in which Karen and Jim would be arriving together.
She started running through the safe possibilities in her head. Maybe her car had broken down and she didn’t have anyone else to call. Maybe they ran into each other in the parking lot and were walking to the elevator right now. Maybe it was really nothing. Or maybe, more likely, it was everything.
Pam wanted to run to the bathroom, or to the stairwell, or anywhere she could be alone to think, but she couldn’t move. It was as if she was frozen in her chair. Some part of her, deep down, needed to know what was going on, even if it hurt. She tried to busy herself with the tasks on her desk, but she was completely unable to concentrate.
At 9:32, the door opened again, revealing not just Karen, but also Jim. And they were laughing. Together. Pam tried desperately to catch Jim’s eye, but it was like she didn’t even exist. Again. It was as if she had suddenly been thrust back into the cold civility of the past few weeks without any say in the matter.
Karen and Jim walked to their respective desks and sat, quickly pulling out their own piles of work. Jim felt Pam’s stare as he walked across the room and sat. He could feel her eyes practically boring a hole into the back of his head. He hadn’t met her eyes, mostly because he knew he couldn’t. Not after everything. He knew it was cowardly, that the whole thing was cowardly, but this was where he was. He was protecting himself yes, but he was also trying to be happy, albeit unsuccessfully at this point. Despite Karen smiling at him across the room, all he could feel was Pam’s look of disappointment that he couldn’t even see. God, he hated this torture.
He put his head down and focused his eyes on the papers on his desk. He was determined to avoid Pam and all his thoughts of her. He’d work harder today than he’d ever worked before just so that he could escape his own personal hell. What a sad existence his life had become.
Around lunch time, Pam got up from her desk and headed to the break room, eyes to the floor as she walked. He felt more than saw her go, but it was perhaps the most dejected he had ever seen her and he didn’t even have to look at her fully to see it. He had done this. She didn’t really deserve it. But he didn’t deserve the pain she had put him through either. Though that thought was meant to make him feel better, it only served to make him feel like more of a colossal jerk.
But this was who he was now. Who he chose to be. It was something he’d have to live with, like it or not.
Pam ate slowly in the break room, taking more than her usual 20 minute lunch. She sat quietly, blankly staring at the morning’s newspaper. There was some story about a local school that had raised enough money in a Read-a-thon to replace some of the old children’s books in the public library. The picture of the elementary aged children grinning up at her, new books in her hands, didn’t change the grimace on her face, or her morose mood.
Kevin and Oscar sat down at the next table, talking about something having to do with accounting, and Stanley sat quietly at the third table, eating his lunch. Karen came in and shoved something in the microwave, pushed a few buttons and walked out without a word or look to anyone. When the incessant beeping began, she returned, grabbing her lunch without a backward glance.
Pam was getting sick of feeling like she didn’t exist. Hardly anyone ever took notice of her. Sure, they said “hello” when they arrived in the morning and “goodbye” when they left at night, but other than that, she often didn’t have any human contact throughout the day, and when she did, it was with Michael, which she hardly counted as human.
As if wanting to prove a further testament to the truth behind her feelings of invisibility, Stanely, Kevin and Oscar filed out of the room a while later without so much as a glance at her. Here she sat, alone. Again. In moments like these, she fought the rush of memories of happier times when Jim would focus most, sometimes all, of his attention on her. She really felt like someone who mattered back then. She wasn’t invisible to him. In fact, she found out later, she was really the only one he saw. And he really saw her.
She didn’t realize how much that mattered until he was gone.
She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and she bit down on her tongue hard to stop them from falling. She wrinkled her nose a little, forcing the wave of memories back into the recesses of her mind where they were locked up; allowed out only when she deemed fit.
She heard footsteps, and looked up to find Jim had entered the room. Unlike the others, he looked at her immediately. Again she was struck by the difference between him and their coworkers. He looked a little sheepish, and even a little nervous to be alone with her.
“Hey,” he managed, his heart pounding in his ears. This is exactly why he had waited to buy his lunch; he had hoped to avoid being alone with her. He had discretely asked Karen if Pam was in the break room, and she had said that she hadn’t remembered seeing Pam there. He’d thought he’d be safe. Apparently, he was wrong.
“Hey,” she returned, her voice soft, injured. God he hated seeing her like this. As much as he hated the torture she had put him through, he hated seeing her in pain even more. Yet he was the one who kept inflicting it.
He quickly made his way to the vending machine, punching in a few numbers and inserting his money. While he waited for the whirring machine to spit out his selection, he searched for words to fill the otherwise silent space.
She felt the tension mounting with each second. She grasped for something to say, something to deflate the mood. But there was nothing. The small talk sounded fake and hollow to her ears, and she knew it would only increase the distance between them. Even if he didn’t want her, didn’t love her anymore, she at least didn’t want the gaping void between them to expand anymore. She desperately wanted to salvage what was left of their friendship. In that moment she knew, the only way to decrease, or stop the vast expansion of that void was to leap headfirst into it.
She took a deep breath, which, when he heard it, almost made him flinch. He wasn’t ready for this. Still he couldn’t help but glance back to where she sat, so small, so noticeably alone.
“Jim, about last night…” she began. She would get this out, it was the only way. If he would just let her, she would say what she’d been meaning to say for so long. She’d throw herself headlong into the unknown space between them just so that he might understand.
His eyes widened, and his self-preservation instincts responded before a coherent thought reached his head: “Uh, actually, sorry, I’ve gotta get back…Karen’s waiting for me.” He grabbed his selections from the vending machine, turned on his heel, and practically ran from the room. He thought he heard her say, “Oh…yeah, of course” quietly, but he wasn’t quite sure.
Safely on the other side of the door, he closed his eyes and cursed himself for being so callous, so rude. She deserved so much better than that. She had wanted to tell him something, and he had just slammed the door shut in her face. What he had just done bordered on, and was quite possibly worse than anything Roy had ever done to her. That thought made him feel physically ill. He looked down at the lunch in his hand and tossed it into the garbage can in the kitchen as he headed back into the main office. He’d just tell Karen he hadn’t found anything edible for lunch.
Pam sat, shell-shocked, staring at her hands. They were wobbly and distorted through her tear-filled eyes. She had a fleeting thought that it might make a really cool painting someday.
But she’d never get there to that elusive someday. She was stuck here for what felt like an eternity in a personal hell while an endless parade of somedays marched by right outside the doorway. She was so sick of being alone. Of being left behind. Of having no greatness expected of her. Of having the person she loved just outside of reach. Of being too scared to say what needed to be said.
She felt white hot rage bubble up in her. She had tried to be different, tried to be brave, for him, and he had thrown it back in her face. She guessed that his actions in that moment were her answer, that he didn’t want her anymore, but she needed him to know more than he would let her say. She felt the burgeoning need for honesty and clarity in her life. If he rejected her, so be it, but she needed to say it, if nothing else then for the preservation of her own self-worth.
But even in her resolve, she was terrified. As her cool, rational head began to regain its control over the pulsating red hot rage, she began to think about the possibility that regardless of what she said that it wouldn’t matter. She’d still lead the same life, in the same job, with the same unattainable hopes and dreams. She might even live that life alone. She knew she would need to build the courage to be able to face that kind of rejection. Deep down, she knew it was worth it to jump into the dark abyss ahead, even if it hurt like hell when she hit the bottom.
She peeled herself out of the chair, wiping her face with the spare napkin laying there. She wouldn’t show weakness to him, or to Karen. She had to act stronger than she felt.
As she strode back into the main office to face the afternoon, she thought wryly that today she might actually be a bit thankful for being invisible.
~~~~~~
More soon!