"You Sonofabitch!" Pam screamed as we got home.
The kids were not home, and we had a very tense ride home.
She fell on to the couch and her face was red.
"Pam, I'm so sorry!"
She shook her head. "What... what are you sorry for?"
I sighed.
"You cheated on me!" She stood up, tears running down her face.
She went over to me suddenly. "Why does it have to be... Dwight?" She sneered.
"Pam... please, I didn't want this is happen! Please believe me! Not to you, to us... to our family..." I cried.
I didn't tell her anything. She must be psychic, because as soon as I went back inside the office, she told me she knew.
"But you wanted something, didn't you Jim?" She angrily asked, a sarcastic tone shining through the words.
"Pam... don't do this... please. My heart has been torn to shreds this whole time. I swear this is so hard... and you're perfect... this isn't about you. I love you. I am... going through something that has ripped the very fabric of my sanity and my sense of identity. I can't believe it. I can't explain it. I just fell into this madness and now I cannot escape it."
She noticeably calmed down.
"Is this about you realizing you're gay?" She said softly.
I shook my head.
"I'm not gay."
"Did you and him do something?"
I looked down.
She scoffed, laughing with a bit of hysterics and anger, and she looked at me accusingly.
"Oh... great! My husband is leaving me for Dwight! What the fuck did you two do?"
"We... we kissed."
She looked at me with a ferocity I felt would've killed me if looks could kill.
"Kissed?"
"And... kinda fooled around."
She punched the coffee table.
"Get out! Get out of here, Jim! Go fuck him for all I care!"
"Pam... please... I'm so sorry!"
"Leave! Don't come back!" She sat on the floor and sobbed.
I went over to her and tried to sit down next to her.
"I'm... still in love with you." She cried. "I'm not thinking... I'm sorry I said that. I'm so angry."
"You have every right to be angry. I fucked up."
"But... I can tell... Jim, I can tell you and him are ... God, do you love him?"
We looked at each other and her eyes widened and then softened.
"I do."
"We need space." She said.
"I know."
"Jim, what is it about... him?"
I shrugged.
"I feel... it's... I feel safe. I feel refreshed. New. And taken care of. He makes me feel that way."
She sighed sadly. "And I don't?"
"You make me feel like... I'm dreaming yet I'm never awake. And its beautiful, and its wonderfully perfect in so many ways. Yet, when you're in a dream... there's always that nagging sense of dread... an edge of truth sometimes slips in and you start slowly waking up, and you realize the truth of the perfect dream. It was hazy and full of holes, and you just can't see those cracks until you finally wake up."
"Does it feel better to be awake? Are you calm? Are you really understanding what this new, wide awake thing will do to you? To us?"
"Yes. I think it'll be possibly the most important type of feeling. Serenity."
"Peace?" She said weakly.
"Yes."
We hug goodbye and I leave with a few things.
She holds onto my wedding ring.
Its beginning to feel like madness and peace can coincide.
And my serenity is breaking.