-1"Do you remember when you kissed me?" the voice at the other end of the phone said.
"When?" Pam asked, even though she knew. She knew she was being coy, but she couldn't help it. Sometimes the words just wouldn't come out.
"Come on Pam." He knew what she was doing too. Sometimes she thought he knew her too well. "The night of the Dundies…with Ping. And Roy left you, and you were sad, so you kept drinking. That's not a good habit to get into, drinking when you're sad."
Pam swallowed at the not-so-subtle connotations of that sentence. He wasn't subtle when he was drunk. But apparently, he was sad. "I remember." she said quietly.
He continued anyway. "And you had just won the award for whitest sneakers. Cause your sneakers are always so fucking white."
Pam smiled a little. "I remember I was just so happy he didn't give me the 'Longest Engagement Ever' award."
"That was because of me." He said suddenly.
"What?"
"He didn't give you that award because I asked him not to…cause I saw you in the meeting room. Watching all the tapes. And I remember your face every damn year when you got that award. And how much you hurt. So I told him not to."
Pam felt her eyes watering for what felt like the millionth time that night. "You…you asked him to not give me that award."
"Yep." He said with a childish pride. "Because of me. That night, Roy made you sad, but then you were happy, because of me. But you didn't know it." His words were soft and slurred. "But it worked out for me anyway. Do you remember what happened next?"
"I gave my acceptance speech." Pam curled the phone cord around her finger, feeling like she was in high school. She wouldn't get a wireless phone, because then she felt too aimless, walking around talking about nothing. She needed to be grounded.
"You thanked God." He snickered. "And Michael. And Dwight. That was nice." He sighed. "You were always so god damn nice."
"Not always." She remembers. I can't…
"What happened next?" His tone is accusatory, like a child asking for a story. But at the same time his voice is so old and sad that she can't stop her lower lip from quivering. She always hated how she looked when she cried. She's glad he can't see her.
"And then…I hugged you. And I kissed you."
"Fucking right you kissed me!" His voice is so loud and victorious that it shocked her. "You kissed me full on the lips. And you didn't act like it was a mistake either. It was just so natural, how we just fell into each other." His voice grows rough. "I stayed up at night sometimes, just analyzing those two seconds. Just those two seconds. I lived off of those two seconds."
She doesn't know what to say. She couldn't claim the kiss had been accidental. It hadn't. Or it had, but in that ultimately natural way that he had picked up on. It was just the right thing to do at that moment. Just to throw her arms around his neck, just that once. And the way his arms had snaked around her waist to hold her, protect her. For the first time in God knows how long, she had felt at home. But something had ripped it away. And she just had to blame it all on being drunk.
He fills the silence again, rambling. "But you were just drunk. Fuck, you probably would have kissed Dwight if he had been the one standing there. I was just always the one standing there. Fuck." He coughs, and it worries her. It worries her that he's drunk alone. "And you left me standing there. The cameras saw everything too."
Pam wonders what it would be like to see that footage. She knew it would make her stomach twist, like in that way when you jump off the high dive and leave some part of you way up above. It would make her laugh and cry at the same time. "I'm sorry." She says, not knowing what else to say. I'm sorry for torturing you and torturing myself. I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm so sorry,
But he doesn't know what she's saying sorry for. "Don't be sorry." He scoffs. "That kiss kept me alive for months. Kept me hoping. Hoping for nothing, but hoping." His voice becomes strangled again. "You can't live without hope."
It hurts to hear him like this. But she feels like she owes it to him. To accept his drunken confessions at night, and pretend that nothing happened the next morning, when he's himself again. She isn't positive which is the real Jim; the honest, broken one that calls her at 1:30 every night, or the apologetic one that calls at noon the next day.
"He didn't know you like I did. Like I do." Jim's still mumbling. She hopes this helps him, because it hurts her so much. She hopes it's worth it. "I know your favorite yogurt…I know what you hate. I know what you love." He pauses. "You didn't love him. You loved freeze tag when you were a little girl, and you still wish you could play it. You love indie music, and you love the snow even though you know it's cliché. You love Sudokus and staying up late. But you didn't love him."
Pam wishes Jim had told her, even though she knows she wouldn't have believed him. It scares her sometimes, how well he knows her. "Jim?"
"I have to go."
The conversations always end the same. Abruptly, when he gets in too deep over his head. When he can't handle it anymore, despite the fact that the alcohol numbs the receptors in his brain.
She's already in over her head.