It was Tuesday, February 14th, 2006.
Valentine's Day was one of Pam's favorite holidays.
She loved love. She loved celebrating love. She loved seeing people in love.
She loved all of the reds and pinks, the frills and flowers, the chocolates and candy hearts.
So why in the world was her frickin' fiance out to ruin her day?
Her morning at Dunder Mifflin had dragged, and bouquet after bouquet whisked right past her desk into the arms of her assorted coworkers, causing a mounting annoyance to stir within her.
Sure, she and Roy had said they weren't going to do big gifts this year, but he could have at least tried.
A card would have sufficed. Some cheesy, three-dollar card from Rite-Aid, with a message that was more heartfelt-and had a wider vocabulary-than Roy Anderson ever would. That would have pleased her. But no. She got the promise of, "the best sex of your life." What was worse was that he had believed himself when he made that vow.
And it, for sure, was not the best sex of her life.
Then again, what did she have it to compare to?
She had only ever been with Roy.
As a late-teen and young adult, she definitely thoughthe knew what he was doing when it came to pleasing her. He touched her in ways that she had never before been touched, and most of the time it felt pretty good. As she matured into a young woman, though, she had a sneaking suspicion that he really, truly didn't have a clue. At this point in her sex life, she wasn't even completely sure he knew what a clitoris was.
To top it all off, after a less than satiating half an hour in between the sheets, Roy had gone out.
Yes, out.
After a, "Damn, baby, that was amazing," a few more sloppy kisses that left her feeling like an owner being welcomed home by her dog, and about 10 minutes of cuddling up with his rough stubble chafing against her neck, his lips vibrated fighting words against her skin.
"So, baby, I know it's Valentine's Day and all, but since we already got to spend some amazing time together, would you mind if I headed out for a little while?" He sounded drunk already, words slurring from his lips and burning the skin of her throat. "Some of the guys are having a little 'singles night out,' kinda like a 'fuck Valentine's Day' thing, and they asked me to join 'em."
He was almost cute when he was begging. Now shifted so that he was leaning on his side-facing Pam who remained on her back-his pleading eyes twinkled down at her in the low lights. Pam could only guffaw at his request.
His pretty please, puppy-dog pout turned into a frown, his eyes turning downward, at her reaction.
"Wait, you're kidding, right?" she managed between bursts of laughter.
"No, Pam, I'm being serious." The way his eyebrows knit, his entire expression shifting, told her that her laughter was misplaced, and her demeanor began to mirror his.
"Roy. Roy Anderson, you have got to be kidding me right now!" She pulled herself into an upright position almost immediately after the realization that Roy was actually planning to leave her alone on Valentine's Day.
She had pulled the comforter up around her chest. Why she felt the sudden need to shield her body from him, she didn't quite understand.
"I don't get why this is such a big deal!" He was speaking with his arms-something, she'd noticed, he only did when he knew he had no true grounds to stand on.
"Don't get why this is a big deal? Roy. It's Valentine's Day. And you just asked me if you could leave me-your fiance-to go to a boys' night out?! A singles night?! We're engaged!"
He was grappling.
"Pam, come on! We just got to spend time together! It's not like we were going to do anything else tonight anyway!"
She was fuming. Eyes wide, skin glowing red hot, fists balled into the comforter that covered her bare body.
"And whose fault is that?! Just because I said I didn't want big gifts this year doesn't mean I don't want to spend time with you! That's what this whole goddamn holiday is about!"
Now her arms were waving. But not because she was forging excuses-no, because she was truly passionate about standing up for what she wanted. As she spoke, she repositioned her body so that she was kneeling, now eye level with the man who claimed to want to spend forever by her side.
"You're supposed to spend time with the person you love, not go get drunk with your buddies who are too dysfunctional to hold down their own relationships! God!"
"You know what, Pam? If you really want me to stay in tonight, then fine! I'll do what you want. Damn."
He flopped over-exaggeratedly onto his back, arms crossed, lips pursing into a pout. She remained kneeling, clutching the comforter around her body as if it was a life support. Angry tears welled in her eyes, threatening to spill out.
"No. If you don't want to be here, I don't want you here." She took a deep breath, wishing, praying for the tears to defer. "You clearly have your priorities set. So go. Have your little "fuck Valentine's Day" party. Drink until you blackout. I don't care."
She spat the words, tasting the bile as they stung past her lips.
"C'mon, Pammy, you don't have to be like that." He was reaching for her, but she pulled away, turned her body to face the end of the bed instead of him. His touch frightened her. No, he hadn't done anything violent. But his intentions spoke volumes. She was laying in bed with a man whom she would marry, and he couldn't even put her first.
A mumbled, "Fuck this," escaped into the early night air, and he rolled out of bed, immediately heading for the bathroom.
She stayed buried underneath the covers, the comforter pulled right up under her chin, trembling like a child who was afraid that there were monsters under her bed.
He wasn't under her bed, but rather, he shared it.
It took him ten minutes to change his clothes and freshen up for the bar, far more time than he spent when he took her out for the night.
When light cast a glare on the floor to their bedroom, the bathroom door cascading open, she wasn't sure what was about to happen. Would he apologize? Storm out of the room without a passing glance? Pick up right where they had left off? There was no ideal option.
He approached his side of the bed, the side closest to the bathroom door, not quite touching the mattress, but whispering against it. His eyes didn't meet the floor, but they didn't meet hers either. They were lost somewhere in the dark shadows that danced around their bedroom.
"Well, I guess I'll see you later then."
A small wave from where his hands rested near his thigh was all he gave, and all she returned were two curt nods.
Then, with the click of the front door, he was gone.
Her tears began flowing like the Nile, ugly sobs blubbering uncontrollably. Her sobs were irrepressible, constant, racking. She struggled to breathe, heaving large quantities of air, her lungs screaming almost as incessantly as her voice. Her body was convulsing savagely. She had never experienced a pain like this in her lifetime.
Her fiance had ditched her on Valentine's Day, but was that the true, underlying cause of her severe mental breakdown? Her mind was in no state to plore through rationality at this moment. As she shook, sobbed, released all that she had, her body eventually gave in, pulling her into a pitying, dreamless sleep.
She was awakened, not by Roy coming home, not by the screaming of her alarm the next morning, but in the throes of darkness, by her growling stomach.
Roy's body had been craving sexual release upon their return home from work, and between the terrible excuse for sex, and the fight that followed, she hadn't even realized that they had never eaten.
Well, she hadn't. He was probably onto his second order of wings by now, she observed, as the blinking LED lights flashing 8:32 came into focus.
It was Valentine's Day.
Her fiance had ditched her to hang out with his friends.
She was lying in bed naked, unsatisfied, and hungry.
All of the expected emotions that should have surfaced upon her awakening all blended into a numbness that encased her body and protected her heart. She didn't know what she was feeling, but whatever it was, she wasn't sure if she was ready for it.
She needed to focus on something-anything-else.
Twirling her now disheveled curls between her fingertips, she let her mind wander to the one part of her day that had made her smile.
Jim had been kind of quiet all day, she had noticed. Did the holiday have anything to do with his sudden somber mood?
She knew that he and Katy had broken up shortly after the Booze Cruise, but he hadn't ever gone into detail as to why. Was it mutual? Had she dumped him? Was the romantic holiday unearthing memories that he had just so recently buried?
These were the questions she pondered as she finished the details on her wedding invite list. There was truly no time to prepare for the wedding other than during her down time at work. But as she compared lists and jotted down notes, she was reminded of the previous Valentine's Day that she had shared with her floppy haired coworker.
Obviously they didn't ever get each other "gifts," but they had always exchanged cards that were personal to Jim and Pam as a pair of close friends. Last year, Jim had doodled her a handmade card featuring the giant head of one Dwight K. Schrute. His forehead, seeming to bulge out like a mad scientist, appropriately had the message, "I'm MAD About You, Valentine," scribbled across its wrinkle lines. She treasured it even more so than she had the one that Roy had given her ("Pam, I woof you. Love, Roy," with a cartoon dog on the cover).
Fingering the top drawer in her desk, she wondered if he had forgotten about their tradition. She decided she wouldn't press the subject, and kept her card and accompanying gift tucked inside.
They didn't speak much that day, but she did overhear a phone call with, what she assumed to be, a friend who was calling in to cancel plans, and eventually she deciphered that he was having a guys' poker night later on. As the day dragged on, and flowers that weren't intended for her came and went, she had this nagging desire in the back of her mind to go to Jim's poker night instead of catering to whatever Roy had planned for her.
But she and Jim barely spoke that day. On his way out the door, he had wished her a friendly "Happy Valentine's Day" and disappeared. She felt deflated, like a piece of her day was missing. All was righted when she found his card tucked behind the jelly bean jar. How had she missed it?
Almost instantaneously, a dead weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
The card made her giggle. A bowl of ice cream next to an upright spoon, both with cartoon eyes and smiles. The message read, "Wanna spoon?" and there was, in fact, a plastic spoon attached to the back.
Really, how had she missed this?
Printed on the spoon was a Sharpie-drawn arrow, indicating a message on the back of the card. Turning it over, she found a shoddily drawn map of the office with a path for her to follow.
Classic Jim. Her smile stretched so wide, her face could barely contain it.
When she reached the freezer, she was met with a pint-sized container of rocky road labeled with a "Beesly" Post-It. Turning it over, she found his scrawled printing:
Hope the road to your Valentine's Day isn't rocky.
Happy Valentine's Day, Beesly.
-Jim
She clutched the note to her chest, her cheeks now matching the pink shade of her sweater.
Before meeting Roy in the parking lot, she tucked both notes, the spoon, and the ice cream into her purse for safe keeping.
Drifting out of her memories as the rolling pictures ended, she recalled her earlier desire to spend her Valentine's Day with Jim and his friends.
At least Jim had cared enough to get her a card.
At least Jim had wished her a sincere Happy Valentine's Day, his words not underlined with the return of sexual favors.
Jim had brought more light to her day in the two minutes that it had taken her to read his notes than in the hours she had spent that day with Roy.
The tingling urge spun inside her to reread his note, to have her fingers on that silly little pink paper that he had gone out of his way to personalize just for her. Wrapping the comforter around her body, she floated in a dream-like state to her where her purse lay on the kitchen table. The ice cream had been safely deposited in the freezer hours ago, but the note brought a new warmth to her fingers as she carefully plucked it from the bag, rereading the message several times over. Her lips curled up, cheeks tinting pink as she ran her fingers over his message. She wondered what he was doing right now.
Was he having fun at his poker game? Had he won a lot of money? Was he missing Katy?
Was he missing her?
Her trance was broken by the faint sound of buzzing coming from her purse. She hadn't turned the ringer back on upon returning home.
Suddenly, her body went numb.
Jim.
With hands and cheeks red hot, she flipped open the device and pulled the plastic to her ear.
"Hello?"
"BEESLY! Oh my god, what's UP?!"
