Title: Hate.

Continuity: Anytime between 'The Merger' (Season Three's 8th episode) and 'The Negotiation' (Season Three's 18th episode.)

Song: -.

Feedback: Of course, reviews are highly appreciated.

Warning/Comments: Slightly A/U. Pam's POV. I just had to write about this- I love the way we can all see Pam's internal struggle (no matter how hard she tries to hide it) to decide between what she should do and what she wants to do, like for example, whether she should be polite about Karen or not; whether she should fight for Jim or not; whether she should confess her true feelings or suppress them and try to move on. That struggle is one of the season three's constants features, and I love writing about it - in all of its different aspects. (Oh, and sorry for the weird metaphor at the end of the story.)

You greeted her with a smile and you thought that she seemed the kind of girl who could be your friend.

When you first met her, you truly felt like you might have found someone that you would like a lot. So you acted friendly, not only because you are a friendly person, but because she seemed nice and you wanted her (as well as all the other employees from Stamford) to feel welcome.

(Okay, maybe deep down you only cared for making one of them feel especially welcome, but you still wanted to make everybody else feel appreciated and respected. )

Yes, you greeted her with a smile and you thought that she seemed the kind of girl who could be your friend. But that was before, on her first day.

You were so wrong.

Had I known who she was, I would have probably greeted her with a bucket of cold water.

Now you just can't believe you once thought that way. Now that you know what you know, the idea just seems completely ridiculous. Just the thought of it would make you laugh - if you didn't feel like crying, of course.

(Because lately you always feel like crying, whether it is out of sadness, heartbreak or frustration. You wish you knew how to make it stop, but you don't.)

Now, you can't stand her. It's not that she's a bad person – in fact, you're sure she's a decent, funny, smart and caring girl. As much as you would like to blame her for everything that's happened and say that she's the "wicked witch" in this story, you know that you can't. It wouldn't be fair. That woman's not a bad person, and if the circumstances were different, she would probably be your friend.

Karen Fillipelli, my friend? I'd rather die.

But there are reasons of force majeure making you hate her.

It's not that you just dislike her.

It's not that she just has some things that bother you.

You hate her.

Every time you have to talk to her, you have to hold yourself back from yelling at her. And if looks could kill, you think she'd be already six feet underground because of the cold glares you keep sending in her direction.

You're not used to feel this way. You're a quiet, peaceful, passive person. It seemed impossible that someone like you was capable of hating someone, much less hating someone this fiercely. You personally didn't believe it, until it happened, and you discovered that you were capable of that and more.

But of course, deep down inside, you know she's not really the problem. You don't hate Karen Fillipelli, that nice girl who you thought could be your friend.

It's Karen Fillipelli, Jim's girlfriend, the one that upsets you, drives you insane with jealously and fills your body with an incredibly huge amount of silent, unnoticeable yet omnipresent hate.

The mere thought of them together makes you want to scream, cry, throw things and hit something really hard, all at the same time. The simple idea of your best friend – the man you love, your heart reminds you all the time as if you could forget it - dating someone, makes you feel miserable and invisible and empty and pathetic.

(You think you've finally understood what it means when people say that they have nothing to live for.)

But overall, seeing them together makes you feel jealous.

It's jealousy what's in the the center of all this. It's jealousy what's pushing you out of that comfort zone in which you usually live; it's making you act irrationally, impulsively, foolishly, in a way that's completely foreign for you.

So, we better rephrase all this.

When you first met her, you greeted her with a smile and you thought that she seemed the kind of girl who could be your friend.

Soon enough, you started feeling jealous of her.

Because, let's make it clear, you don't hate Karen. You are jealous of her.

If you hated her, you could at least ignore her, and everything would be easier. If you hated her, you could pretend she doesn't exist, and the problem would be solved.

But you don't hate her.

You envy her.

You wish you were her.

You wish you were the one he tells jokes to, the one he hugs, the one he cares about and takes out on dates.

You wish you'd been given the opportunity she's been given.

You wish you were as lucky as she is.

You wish you hadn't blown your own chance with him.

But no matter how much you wish to be in her position, you're not.

And you have to stand jealousy eating you up inside every single day, knowing that there's nothing that you can do, because you can force someone into loving you, and he's clearly very much in love with his girlfriend. You're not going to hurt her or tell her to back off either, because you've never been a violent person and you're not going to start now. So you're going to have to stand the jealousy and the horrible way it makes you feel because you have no choice.

All you can do to respond is trying to hate her, as intensely as possible. Sometimes it seems like you succeed at it. Sometimes, you don't even know why you try (maybe because hating her makes you feel like you're still a part of that story; maybe because it makes you feel a little more alive; maybe because you resist to the idea of simply walking away and leaving them alone.)

The worst part of jealousy, though, is that it doesn't come alone. It brings its friends, sadness, loneliness, despair and insecurities.

So when the night comes and you find yourself having dinner alone in your tiny apartment, the hate's already gone and those other feelings swoop down on you like a flock of birds fighting over the remains of a picnic.

And in those moments you just feel empty.