Chapter 2
He beat the traffic and thankfully Pam's car was in the DM parking lot. The lot was empty except for her car. She must be staying late. By six o'clock, Jim decided to use the hide a key Michael kept in a fake rock. He didn't know what he was going to say but he needed to say something.

She didn't hear him come off the elevator. It was crazy, but just seeing the back of her head made his heart race. He could hear her clicking her mouse as all of her attention was on the computer screen. She picked up a tissue and blew her nose. Jim couldn't see the entire screen but it looked like a graphic drawing of him. She was working on a computer generated imagine of him. When he was about six feet away from her, she spun around in her chair.

"Ahhh! You scared me." Pam spoke before she registered to whom she was speaking. "Jim." She quickly turned and closed the screen. It was so embarrassing. Everything was so embarrassing! Pam had spent a good part of the day trying to retract the emails she had sent him over the past two weeks. It mortified her to know he received them. As if that isn't enough he comes in to find her mooning over a rendering she made of him. She made it just to feel closer to him.

"Hey." His voice gave his usual greeting but it seems to be laced with a tenderness one might use with the words "I love you". They simply stared at each other. Their eyes were just drinking other in for one final moment. He watched her carefully hide her love for him under a fake little smile. It was her smile that made him want to rip things apart. It was the same one she would use when Roy did something completely hurtful.

Say something! She wasn't sure who she was talking to but she knew someone needed to fill this very loud silence. Anything she thought of sounded completely assassin but it couldn't be helped. He must already think of her as an idiot. How could she have let her guard down? How could she have assumed he still loved her? She rejected him. She was getting married. She had no claim to him. Screw that! He kissed her down to her soul. He said he loved her. She didn't know that it would expire so soon. He was supposed to be hers. How dare he betray her this way?

As he looked at her, he was filled with such pain and loss he could barely stand. He knew her so well; he could almost hear her thoughts working. She faked a smile when she realized it was him. Then a blush washes over her, probably as she thought of the emails she sent to him. Then a flash of anger and bitterness that scared him. He had never seen such hatred wash over her beautiful face. Finally, a mask of practiced indifference that carefully covered all her clashing emotions was the final consequence of her thoughts.

He needed to say something. Say anything but what? It was supposed to be easier with Pam. She beat him to the punch. "So did you enjoy Australia?" Her voice was tight and sounded foreign but at least a coherent sentence emerged from her lips.

"Pam?" How could she ask that? Was she going to try to pretend none of this mattered?

"Yes?" She affected a perfect almost giddy tone with him. He knew it was phony but this was how she was going to play it.

"Why?" It was a simple question that belied the complexity of the real question. But he deserved an answer.

"Why? Why, what?" Her voice was strained. The pretense of normalcy she was trying hard to embody was quickly slipping out of her reach as she was forced to speak to him. "Why did you come here?"

Jim shook his head and looked at her with pure love. "You know why I came. Why?"

She snapped. How dare he give her that look that said he cared? He didn't. He couldn't otherwise he wouldn't have... "Why what Jim? Why didn't I get married? Why did I send you those stupid emails? Why was I on your doorstep last night? Why did I love you? Which why Jim?" Her voice rose progressively with each question.

She loved him. Her admission gave him none of the happiness he had dreamed it would bring. It was like a knife stabbing him in his heart. How could life suck this bad? "Why didn't you get married?" It was the question that mattered the least so it was the easiest to start this verbal hell.

Pam laughed. She sounded bitter and a bit hysterical. "Oh, don't worry; I didn't break it off with Roy because of you." That was mostly a lie. It was that kiss that touched her heart and soul that had woken her up. After that she could no longer believe in the fantasy that she could make herself and be happy with Roy if only she tried hard enough. "I didn't marry him because I wanted to be me again." And he wasn't you! "Next question." She was acting like an uncaring bitch.

"Do you still love me?" Jim could stop the question. It was the most important one.

Pam gasped. He had no right to ask that. No right at all. "It doesn't really matter Jim." It came out more like a sob. She hadn't realized but she was crying. So much for trying to be less pathetic then I am.

Taking her trembling hands in his he told her, "Yes it does matter. It matters very much to me."

She looked at him with all the love in her heart that was trying to escape the crazy maze it was in. Her eyes told him how much and how deeply she loved him. She closed her eyes so her mouth could lie. "I loved you more than anything. I did love you Jim." Her heart disagreeing with her use of the word did.

"Did?" Jim voice cracked. The word pierced his heart. Did meaning as in past tense not currently. Did as in never again? He lost her. He had the one person he lived for finally return his love but then lost her. His own stupidity and sorrow made him abandon his quest hours prior to succeeding. Misery swept through him. His agony and hurt settled on his face.

She was a terrible person but it made her happy to know that she could still cut him. It was a swallow victory but she was glad to know that he hurt too. "I hope that makes you happy because all loving you have ever given me is pain. There has never been any pleasure in loving you. It has just been a pain of wanting something I could never have. I am so tired of never having what I want or need ever."

Jim winched. He wanted to stop her angry words. He needed her to stop and just be Pam again. But that was never going to happen. "I know exactly how you feel." There was nothing left to say. He destroyed the one thing that was most precious to him. He turned and left.