Step 11: Admittance

Is the first step to acceptance

He left.

Pam couldn't believe it; refused to believe it.

Jim had actually left.

It seemed as if it were only yesterday when they met on his first day of work. He had walked in, smiled at her, and asked her if she knew where Michael Scott was. She noticed, even back then, how incredibly cute he was. His eyes were bright, and his grin mischevious. It was everything that just made up Jim.

And now he was gone.

The whole office just seemed darker and the air seemed thicker, as if it were purposefully making it harder for her to breathe. Pam sighed slightly as she pulled a stack of papers off her desk and walked over to the shredder behind her desk, thinking. She began feeding the machine pieces of paper, one at a time, and tried not to focus on her shallow breathing. She imagined that each piece of paper was every piece of her heart that had been mistreated by Roy, broken by Jim, or self-mutilated by her own choices.

Because she knew it was her fault he left.

The guilt was terrible, and she had been doing anything and everything just to avoid admitting what she had done. He had put everything on the line for her, and she rejected him. She rejected him even though, deep down, she knew she felt the same way he did. She just wasn't smart enough to let him know before it was too late.

And of course she had to come right out and say he had misinterpreted things. And not just a few things: she insinuated he had misinterpreted everything. There was no way she could have screwed it up any more than she already had...

Pam practically shoved the last piece of paper into the shredder, getting a little satisfaction from how she heard the machine clunk and whir annoyingly as it sucked in the crumpled sheet.

"Can you keep it down?" Angela peeked her stern face over the partition between their desks. "Some of us are trying to work."

"Sorry Angela," Pam mumbled wearily. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and turned to sit back down. If Jim had been there, Pam and him would probably be exchanging little glances and giggling at Angela's ridiculously stoic demeanor right now. But he wasn't here.

Everything reminded her how much she missed Jim.

Pam looked out at the entire office and watched everyone at work. The normal noises of clicking mouses and ringing phones and printing paper were the same as usual. Nothing had changed; yet everything had changed. Nothing felt the same, but everything still was. Meredith still sucked away at her overlarge gas-station fountain cup, Kevin and Oscar were still playing hateball in their little corner, and Ryan...

Ryan looked up from his computer and she caught his eye.

They stared at each other for a second before both looked away, a pink tinge to their cheeks. Pam's heart rate went up, and it beat uncomfortably hard against her ribcage as she busied herself with straightening her little area. She wasn't entirely sure why she was reacting like this to a stupid little glance in her direction. Maybe it was because Ryan was sitting where Jim used to. Yeah that must have been it.

Pam looked up at him again, and caught Ryan peeking at her again too. He grimaced politely and turned back to his work.

But Pam still looked at him.

She began to wonder, just a little bit, if she had, in fact, made the right choice. That she was supposed to say "I can't" to Jim and he was supposed to leave for Stamford, never to be heard from again. That in his old desk should now hold a man who had been so sweet to her over this past year. The man who had comforted her when she needed it, and made her laugh when she wanted to. Maybe things would be different now. Maybe Ryan would now be the one who came up to her desk and joked with her, eating her jelly beans and pulling pranks.

Maybe Ryan could be her new Jim.

Pam still watched him work, an odd feeling in her stomach: a feeling she hadn't felt since around mid-May. A feeling of acceptance, I guess you could describe it as. But she didn't think that was quite it. It almost felt like...

Pam felt a small, silent laugh laugh escape her lips, and shook her head. No, there was no way she felt that way. That was ridiculous.

The phone next to her rang, and she quickly got back to work.

***

Pam had been sitting in the same spot in the uncomfortable conference room chair for over an hour now, and she desperately wanted to just stand up and walk around a little. Michael wouldn't allow any of them to move though, so she suffered through it.

Ryan was sitting right next to her, and he looked just as uncomfortable as she did.

"We are all Homos..." Michael suddenly announced, and Pam felt a giggle build up in her throat. "Homosapians."

Pam turned to look at Ryan, a smile curling on her face. Ryan would definitely laugh with her on this one. She trusted he would make her feel better.

"What?" he looked at her, a small frown etched on his face. Her face fell, and she looked away.

She would never admit to anyone how hurt she really was by that. She looked up at the camera, then back at Michael, absolutely sure that she did not make the right choice.

Step 11: Check