jam oneshots | for the soul~

my girl, pt 1.

Jim's POV.

Throughout my entire friendship then courtship with Pam Beesly, she has always been my girl, in one way or another.

Even when we were just close friends, and she was engaged- or rather, locked, in a loveless engagement with Roy, she had been my girl. Or maybe I was her guy- the guy she came to whenever she needed to complain, the guy who may or may not have allowed her to do his makeup one night when Roy was out and I was at her house (I'll never tell, though I admit I look dashing in eyeliner), the guy who she could hug tightly and hold to her chest like a doll whilst she gazed off into the distance, contemplating everything from her future marriage to her career as an artist.

But in a way, she was sort of my girl too. My girl who I would always talk about to Mark, my roommate, Larissa, my sister, and just about anyone who would listen to me. I even spoke of her to Michael, one eventful night on a certain booze cruise overlooking Lake Wallenpaupack, admitting my feelings right then and there in the freezing, bitter cold.

I've never quite forgiven myself for that heinous act, even to this day.

Part of me still doesn't get why I opened up to my gullible yet thoughtful boss that evening. Perhaps it was the sheer cold that corrupted my thoughts, or the emotional buzz I was on due to inhaling the scent of copious bottles of alcoholic beverages. I don't think I'll ever truly understood why I chose to admit my feelings about Pam to him, of all people.

And yet I did, and every time I look back at the memory, I'm haunted by the way Michael looked at me, a sincere, sympathetic look in his eyes. I don't want to be sympathized with over such a trivial issue- why won't people understand that about me, even after all this time?

And, being Michael Scott, he, of course, went around telling the whole office my innermost thoughts and emotions about a woman I had been in love with since the dawn of time. I can't stay mad at him, though. In the end, I think it only forced the universe to push Pam and me closer together, until I caved in and kissed her.

She was my girl even when I was in Stamford, and spent many nights calling her, wanting to hear about how her day was going, how her art classes were coming along, how her love life was going (though I obviously glossed over the subject and never spoke about my own romantic escapades with a bottle of wine and some softcore porn). Unfortunately, the calls became less and less frequent as I began to get more involved with Karen; until one day they merely stopped.

I think she cared a lot about the fact I stopped ringing, but she has never told me this.

She was more or less my girl after the merger when I was dating Karen and I never dared to sneak a risky glance at her from where I was sat. It would have been hard to do so anyway, considering the fact I now faced away from her ever since that bastard Ryan stole my desk.

Never in my life will I ever doubt Pam and her gentle demeanor and truthful manner, but sometimes, just occasionally, I will sit there and wonder if she really did feel anything romantically about me during our separation.

Did she spend hours upon hours thinking about me, wondering what I smelt like, what I thought about on a daily basis, what it would feel like to run her nimble fingers through my hair, pondering whether she would ever get to feel her own lips upon mine again, just like I had spent countless nights alone, thinking the exact same questions?

Or did she move on, thinking about another man in the same vein, tossing and turning in a bed that was too small on a boiling night, deliberating whether this other man was her true love?

It may come as no surprise to you that I don't enjoy thinking about my fiancee with other men.

Yet all this time, she hadn't felt like she was my girl, the woman who I would get to spend the rest of my life with. Come to think of it, as much as the galaxy itself has always seemed to force us together, it also always pulled us apart, a boundary always standing between our true feelings for one another.