The Screening

By Teala373

Chapter 3: The Card, Silence & Confessions

Pam was barely drinking the beer she had so desperately wanted only moments ago as her mind drifted. She had just watched the rooftop "date" she and Jim had, and the awkward conversation they had about it the next day. She watched the doting smile Jim bestowed upon her as he watched her sitting on his bed, flipping though his yearbook.

She sighed. She had suspected that Jim liked her when she first started, but she just thought it was because she was new and the receptionist, it was par for the course. After a while, they had formed a friendship and alliance against Michael and Dwight that kept each others' sanity throughout each work day. She didn't know how she had deluded herself so badly into thinking that friendship was all it was for either of them.

'How could I have missed this?' she thought to herself. 'How am I going to face Jim each day now, especially after Roy and I are married?'

A little voice popped up in the back of her head, telling her she didn't have to marry Roy. The little voice told her to stop settling, to stop playing it safe, to stop sacrificing...

She shook her head to clear the thoughts. She didn't want to think right now. The rational part of her told her to stop watching the DVD and to go make something sensible for dinner. The impulsive part of her, the part of her that seldom won, told her to keep watching, and then to call Jim. Pam teetered back and forth. She knew if she kept watching the video, she would make some sort of move with Jim. She would justify that the last 10 years of her life were a waste. She would never see Roy's family again, whom she had grown to love. Her parents would be disappointed in her and think she was being immature. She would be lost, floundering, and vulnerable. She couldn't go back to that. Not again...

Reason winning, she picked up the remote and prepared to turn off the DVD. She was just about to hit the button when she caught sight of a very special scene.

"So this year, for the first time ever, I got Pam in Secret Santa, and I got here this: a teapot, which I know she really wants so she can bring tea to her desk, but I'm also going to stuff it with some inside jokes… like… this is my high school yearbook photo. She saw it at the party, and it really makes her laugh. Not sure why. Um… what else… ooh, this is a hot sauce packet. She put this on a hot dog a couple years ago because she thought it was ketchup, and, uh, it was really funny so I kept the other two. This would take a little too long to explain, so I won't, and this is a card… because Christmas is the time to tell people how you feel."

Tears began to well up in Pam's eyes. She knew that Jim put a lot of thought and effort into her gift, but she hadn't really thought about how much until now. She had never known anyone, outside of her mother, who was ever so thoughtful towards her as Jim was.

Her bow knotted together slightly as she watched the Christmas party scenes continue. She watched Jim dejectedness as she took the iPod, his frustration at trying to win it back for her, and then, his triumph... in which he stole back the card he had written for her.

At this point, the scene switched to one of Jim in his bedroom. He was babbling on about not knowing why the crew wanted to show him getting ready for work.

"Well, this is the point in the morning when I go over to my roommate's room and choose a tie. It's not that I don't have any of my own, I actually have several ties, but for some reason, they all end up in Mark's room. Weird."

Jim left his room, but the camera was slow to follow him. The camera panned down to his top desk drawer. An ominous hand reached out and opened the drawer.

Pam gasped as she realized that the cameraman was showing her the location of the card.

Jim sighed before popping the last M&M in his mouth. Although he was determined from the footage that Pam did have feelings for him, he didn't know what the camera crew thought he was going to do about it. He was almost positive that she wouldn't leave Roy. She was too afraid to let go of what was comfortable and known for something new. She had no guarantee that he would be what she needed. Although it was obvious to him, it may be less obvious to someone as insecure as Pam.

Although she put up a good front, he had seen the delicate lining that was always threatening to crack. He could see her pain, her doubts and her fears written plainly on her face. He had wanted to be the one to take it all away, but he knew now it was a fool's errand.

'I don't even know why I'm still watching this,' he mused as he picked up the remote and began fast forwarding through the next few scenes, all of which were too embarrassing to watch.

"You know what? I would save the receptionist. I just wanted to clear that up."

Tears flowed down Pam's cheeks as she watched Jim struggle through the evening on the cruise Michael had forced them all on. She had tricked herself into thinking that it was one of the happiest nights of her life, but as she watched the specific scenes that the film crew had cut together, she realized it was a miserable night.

Roy had only proposed to her because he was trashed and he was listening to the idiot captain of their ship. Jim was clearly devastated by the news. And as Pam watched herself, she felt that she was pathetic wretch – overlooking all of Roy's faults just because he said one of the many things she needed to hear from him. She was embarrassed at the way she had watched herself smile and tear up and ring her hands before leaping into the arms of her drunken fiancé.

Pam then rewound the DVD and then timed the scene in front of her.

"What does love sound like?" she asked herself, "27 seconds of silence..."

It was ironic because she knew Roy's silence on how he felt about her drive her crazy, but Jim's silence was different.

She continued to let the tears falls as she watched Jim talk to Michael while watching Dwight "steer" the ship. She then laughed as Jim was forced into spending time with Michael so his secret wouldn't reach Pam. She cried when he sucked up his pride and told her for himself. She cried as she watched the horrible day he had, all because he was unable to spend time with her, and the joy he got when he received her messages. She cried when he showed such support about the internship. She cried when they had the argument in the break room.

"Pam and I? No, no. It's not like that... it could be, but... it's not. I mean, she's great. She's so wonderful. We just... there's something about when we're together, but... her life is going to be different now. It shouldn't be. She could really do great things and be happy and free and not have to be afraid anymore, but she won't let me... I mean, she won't... well, you know life is about compromises, and she's always been with Roy and she wants it to stay that way, so she compromises."

"And what do you think Roy compromises?" the cameraman's voice drifted onto the screen.

Jim frowned and his eyes glazed over. "I... don't... know..."

"What do you think would be different if you and Pam were together?"

Jim's eyes were still glazed over, as though his mind was really far away. "Well, it would be great. We would hang out all the time... watch all our favorite shows, go out... you know, Pam is a really good artist, so I would take her to all those nice parks so she could sit and draw... and there's this nice restaurant that I think she would really like... and I don't think she's ever been to the new gallery that opened downtown... she could, like, network and stuff with the other artists... we could take trips to New York because the internship she wants is there, so we could go scope it out... and well, there's lots of stuff. We still have to go play miniature golf again, and I totally need to take her back to Chili's to see if they will really kick her out... and some nights, when the sky is clear, we could lay outside and watch the stars... that would be nice... to watch the stars with Pam..."

And with that, the DVD ended. Pam sat for several moments, tears running down her face, as a blank screen stared back at her.

"Dreams are just that. They're dreams. They help get you through the day. Like the thing about the terrace. It's nice. But, um… I don't know. It was just something I read in this book when I was twelve. Uh, the girl in the book has a terrace outside of her bedroom. And she planted flowers on it. And I just loved that. Just always kind of stuck with me. It's impractical. I'm not gonna… try to get a house like that. Um, they don't even make houses like that in Scranton. So I'm never gonna…"

Jim watched helplessly as Pam broke down in front of the camera. "Roy is such a..." he caught himself before he finished the sentence. Cursing out loud at Roy didn't solve anything. Despite the fact that Pam was too good for him, Roy wasn't the problem, Pam was. It wasn't Roy keeping her down, Pam wasn't ending things. She wasn't walking away. She was just letting her life crumble in front if her.

Jim was about to turn the TV off, but there was one final scene.

"Jim? Oh yeah, Jim's great... he's like my best friend. We, uh... we kind of haven't hung out as much, because, you know, I've been busy with, um, the wedding, and... You know, I'd really like Jim to be in the wedding party, but he's not close with Roy... Roy's kind of... sometimes he's just... I don't know... It's just easier to talk to Jim and hang out with Jim and be with Jim... I don't feel this pressure to be anything but myself. He makes me feel happy and special and... I mean, Roy does, too... sort of... they're just different...

A cough was heard off-camera as the cameraman broke Pam's rambling train of thought. "If you weren't with Roy, do you think you and Jim would get together?"

Pam looked like a deer frozen in headlights, but finally looked down into her lap. "Yeah, um yeah... definitely... we'd, like, be really good together... but, you know, Jim's got a lot of potential, so he could go anywhere and be with anyone... he wouldn't be happy with me, a dowdy little receptionist that doodles... he could have totally taken that job in Maryland and been awesome and, you know, Baltimore has this great vibe... a lot of culture, so like, he could visit all the galleries and parks and restaurants and be living this fabulous life... he... doesn't... he doesn't need me... I mean, I want a house with a terrace and flowers... he probably would think that was... dumb..."

"Do you really think that?" the cameraman probed.

There was a moment of silence before Pam responded. "No." She was looking down in her lap, a pained look on her face.

And then Jim's DVD ended.

Pam sat up all night on the couch, her mind reeling as she dared to think that she actually had a choice. At around 3 a.m., Roy stumbled in.

She barely heard him ask her about why she was still up, but he stumbled off to bed without really waiting for an answer. He hadn't even noticed that she had been crying.

That's when it hit Pam like a ton of bricks: if she truly married Roy in June, her life would always be like this. She would never be truly happy.