title taken from: "Pretty Please" by Jamie Lenman

After nearly 2 weeks of complete silent treatment from his old friend, Jim decided it was finally time to actually seek Pam out and really talk to her.

The whole situation was really - getting out of hand. They hadn't spoken properly since before school started back, and sure, some of that was his fault, but he was going to amend that now.

Just, sometimes when they talked, it was hard to forget the way things used to be. And it was exceptionally hard to forget the way she sort of clutched at his sweatshirt and sighed last time they…

And, yeah - that was exactly why he had avoided speaking to her until now.

But now? It was going to happen. Definitely.

His hands were sweating a little as he approached her class. The professor was still lecturing, and presumably would be for the next 2 minutes or so, meaning he had some time to gather his thoughts and work out what he wanted to say to her.

Hi, how are you, long time no see, do you want to hang out sometime?

It sounded pretty lame even to his own ears, but it was all he had so far.

Really, the words and the phrasing of the questions didn't really matter. All he really cared about was talking to her, logging some time with her, even if it wasn't anything close to the sort of things they did together before the break. He was prepared for it to be awkward and messy and strange. He wasn't willing to just lose her friendship completely because of some stupid mistake he made.

All of a sudden, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He read the text without unlocking the screen:

sent 14:52

FROM: Karen

TO: Jim

HELP ME! i think im about to die of boredom. journalism is officially THE WORST major in the world

Ignoring it made him feel sort of guilty, but he slid the device back into his pocket nevertheless. Conversations with Karen usually began in some innocent way like this, but, more often than not, eventually turned into a lengthy talk about nothing in particular. Right now, he needed his attention to be focused somewhere else.

Just as he was wondering exactly how creepy it would be to press his ear to the door and try to listen in to the lesson (seriously, how long was this class? It was supposed to have ended by now) the sudden flare of chatter alerted him to the fact that the professor had likely just dismissed her students.

He dutifully stepped out the way of the door as people pushed through, talking and laughing and going their separate ways.

He really missed having a good friend in class.

The last few people stumbled out. It appeared that Pam was last.

When there was still no sight of her, Jim peered round the doorway to the classroom.

Ah. She seemed to be speaking to her professor about… Something.

Well. He could wait.

He watched as the professor scribbled something down on a sheet of paper. Watched the bounce of pam's hair as she nodded. Once, she admitted to him that she kind of found her hair a nuisance, and he wondered whether she still felt that way.

(At the time, he'd probably just rolled his eyes and made a comment masking as a joke about how she really didn't need to be self-conscious. Privately in the moment, he had wanted to tell her that she always looked beautiful.)

Of course, that was pre-I'm-in-love-with-you thinking.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he barely noticed the door swinging open. If she saw him, she said nothing, merely walking past and continuing down the corridor.

"Hey, wait!"

She stopped walking, but paused for a short moment before turning to face him. "What?"

"I was just…" He had completely forgotten what he wanted to say to her. "I mean."

"I have a bunch of studying to do, so…"

"No, no. I. I thought we could hang out, y'know? It's been a while."

Pam shot him a small smile. It was a strange mix of pity, confusion, and resignedness. "Sure, but I don't have long."

"That's fine. Great!" Suddenly realising how far away they were, he took a few tentative steps towards her. He couldn't really predict her reactions to anything, nowadays, and he certainly wouldn't be surprised if she was wary of him coming closer.

"So… What did you want to talk about?"

Right. That. "I just thought, like, ever since me and Karen, you know… Started dating, or whatever… We haven't really hung out."

"Well, you have been spending quite a lot of time away." The last word was punctuated with an emphatic quirk of her eyebrows.

"Yeah, but… I don't know. I just wanted to make sure we're okay."

Pam downcasted her eyes, staring fixedly at the white rubber tips of her shoes.

"We're okay, right?"

"Yeah, yeah." She finally turned back up, but appeared to be looking anywhere but his eyes. "Of course we are."

"Okay."

"Yeah." She ducked her head once more. "I actually have some studying to do, like I said earlier, so I kind of have to…"

"Sure, sure. Go ahead. Um." In a last ditch effort to try and salvage… Whatever the conversation had become, he added: "See you around?"

"Um, yeah. Maybe."

She was halfway down the corridor when what she had said finally sunk in.