At first he can barely remember to breathe. Every time he inhales, he smells her perfume. Every time he swallows, he tastes her. He sees her every time he blinks. One night he wakes up and she isn't there, and he feels a rush of anger that she never will be, that the ring on her left hand will never be one he bought for her. He imagines her as Mrs. Pamela Anderson, and although it usually makes him laugh, it doesn't now. He decides to leave and never come back.

It isn't long before he is telling himself that she was just startled, that she needs time. He remembers how often he forgets that she doesn't process personal things quickly, forgets because she's so quick at other things, like coming up with prank ideas or catching one of the desert-dry jokes he likes to utter offhandedly in a meeting just to see the spark in her eye and the subtle tightening of her mouth. He remembers she isn't so quick to process personal things, like the way he looked at her for years; or the way he just barely reacted when she would brush against him casually; or the way, he still hopes, she felt when they kissed each other. But he's driving to Stamford with all his earthly goods in the small trailer behind him, and his new landlord is waiting for him.

Days pass, then weeks, with no word from her, and he is not surprised, but he still catches his breath every time the phone rings, every time a new email pops up and he hasn't seen yet who sent it, every time his phone beeps with a text message. Then one day, when he least expects it, he calls Scranton and hears her voice, and for a while it's as though they can just go back to the way things used to be, before he stupidly told her the truth. A few times he even thinks he hears her want him back, but she never actually says it, and it's on the drive home that night that he starts to wonder how much of her he's made up.

Every new day that she doesn't contact him, he sheds a part of his past. He stops comparing the woman who sits behind him now to her. He stops avoiding the yogurt aisle in the supermarket and that mannequin in the department store that's always sporting some kind of cardigan. He spends long minutes in a row without thinking of her at all, and each time he remembers her it's from a little farther away. One morning he doesn't think of her at all until after breakfast.

When he hears the branches are merging, it's like all of his internal organs have come loose and are jostling around trying to find new places to fit. He's too busy feeling sick to think about why, he tells himself, but that's just what he tells himself. The truth is he doesn't want to think about why. Feeling sick is easier.

As he packs up his things, he sees how she's looking at him. And he thinks about how that other she will look at him when he comes back. Or not look at him. He doesn't like either choice, now. He wishes he had some kind of buffer, some way to keep her at a distance, some way to let her know he was as okay without her as she obviously was without him. He remembers seeing her with Roy, and his stomach churns as it hasn't for a long time, and he curses himself because he hasn't stopped thinking about her, not really. Even though she hasn't contacted him. He wonders if the word masochistic is too strong.

On the way back to Scranton, he calls Karen and asks her out.