thanks again to idnaoj80!

sorry for the shorter updates recently - we are reaching the end, which is strange on its own, but currently I'm actually writing applications for Uni, so thats something.

title taken from: "Small Poppies" by Courtney Barnett

Usually Jim didn't go out on these sorts of nights.

Or any nights, at all, really. Ever since college started last fall, he was always either too busy with class or too preoccupied with friends to even consider leaving campus for any large amount of time during the week.

But Karen had insisted, and she'd been so nice about the whole thing that he had eventually just given in.

Which was how he ended up at the local cinema, viewing The Revenant with an ever-increasing sense of boredom looming over his head.

His - what, girlfriend? - 's words kept rattling around his mind, so loud he could hardly focus on any of the dialogue in the movie. (Not that he particularly wanted to; honestly, he didn't really care whether Leonardo DiCaprio made it back to civilisation or not.)

"What are you, agoraphobic?"

It wasn't even that it was insulting. Not exactly. And she hadn't intended it to be mean; it was just a throwaway comment, but. It was just weird. To hear. He wasn't the type of person to go out on a Thursday night to see a movie when he could be hanging out with friends or listening to music or - God forbid - studying.

(Though maybe he should scratch the former option. Everything was weird in their friendship group since he got back. He hadn't been showing up to the former table at lunch very often, and Pam never arrived at all, and Ryan and Kelly were always either fighting or making out obnoxiously in the corner, and Dwight was, well… Dwight. So.)

Karen shifted beside him, drawing him out of his reverie. She glanced up with a smile tinted with confusion, complexion washed out by the flickering lighting of the screen in front of them. It was only then that he realised he hadn't been really watching the movie the entire time he was lost in his thoughts - his gaze had drifted to the left corner of the room instead.

He shot her a smile back and trained his eyes to the screen.

Apparently over the break Karen had become much more popular within their class.

Or maybe, Pam mused, watching from her usual seat as the small group gathered around the other girl, she had always been this well-liked by their classmates, and it had just never occurred to her to pay any attention to it.

It just seemed as though, ever since she started her - thing - with Jim, Karen Filipelli was appearing on Pam's radar much more often.

All of a sudden they were running into each other in the hallways, bathrooms, and even the cafeteria.

Then of course there was Art - damn Art - where for a good few times each week, she was forced to remain in the same room as her for an hour, sometimes more. Which of course was just great.

Presently she appeared to be fawning over her new relationship. Pam couldn't really help but listen in, considering the professor was already late.

"Oh, I'm just so happy for you, sweetie, honest." Phyllis Lapin-Vance enthused, clasping her hands together in front of her.

Karen smiled and thanked the older woman, ever polite.

The other two girls - Pam didn't quite know their names - nodded and agreed and said similar things - they were happy for her, she deserved this, Jim was lucky to have her, et cetera.

The only other female in the class who seemed to be absolutely uninterested in the whole affair was, of course, Angela Martin. She was sat primly in her seat, back ram-rod straight, dutifully staring at a point just above the professor's desk.

Pam sidled up to the other girl, figuring it'd be nice to speak to someone in the class who, like she, couldn't care less about that relationship.

(And she didn't care. Honestly. Truthfully. Seriously, she couldn't care less. Okay?)

Her faint illusion of striking up a friendship with the girl was shattered, however, as soon as she opened her mouth.

"What?" Angela snapped, stubbornly refusing to take her eyes off hr spot on the opposite wall.

"Um." Suddenly self-conscious, Pam tried to take a different, more nonchalant route. She was determined to speak to someone who would talk about something other than Karen Filipelli. "The teacher's crazy late, right?"

"Yes."

"And, uh… Oh, hey, you stay on the same floor as me, right? In the Dunder-Mifflin building, I mean?"

"You don't remember me?" Her tone was a curious mix of offended and middle threatening.

"No, no, of course I - I do! I was just, um…"

"You know, I'm kind of busy right now."

She clearly wasn't, but Pam could take a hint. "Oh. Okay, then. But, uh, we could hang out sometime, right?"

"Perhaps."

Unsure of what else to say, Pam retired to her old seat. So, she and Angela seemed destined to not be friends. That didn't mean she couldn't get to know other people, right?

Because ever since Jim and Karen started…whatever…nothing in their old friendship group had been the same. Pam hadn't been meeting the others at lunch all that much since school resumed. According to Kelly, Jim was also increasingly skipping out. And Ryan and Dwight were hardly permanent fixtures in the group, anyway, so…

Perhaps the old group was dead, and she needed to find more people.

People that weren't going to randomly confess their love for her and then go radio silent for over a month.

People who, after confessing their love and going radio silent, wouldn't return to school with a completely new girlfriend. People who wouldn't act as if she didn't exist.

(Yeah, maybe she cared a little bit.)