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Angela detests having to stay up in the office longer than her usual working hours.
It is a disgrace and disrupts her routine — be it of feeding her cats or of praying and eating and sleeping at a practical time. Of course, as head of the accounting department she does end up staying up quite late on many days, mostly Fridays. Always because of Michael’s own inability to simply do work when work is due.
And she detests it with all of her heart, and more.
But today, it’s different. Today there’s both urgency and despair.
Two strings that pull at her from opposite directions: one that wishes to escape this horrible office as soon as the clock strikes five, faster even than Stanley, to avoid having to look at any of her colleagues longer than necessary, to see the disgust and the contempt upon their faces — the pity; another string ties her to her seat, buried in her work like a proper bumblebee.
The latter wins, forcing her to scowl anytime anyone looks her way.
Averting their gazes like it’s an Olympic sport. Not that she watches the Olympics, but there is a certain strength she admires in those athletes, from the pictures, as well as an attitude that she judges.
Stanley is the first to leave, followed swiftly by her… former fiancé now, Andy, who stumbles upon his chair and groans loudly, “Goddammit!” as if to specifically ire her , and leaves without sparing her a glance. Dwight follows the same example, unusually haughty and quick at leaving this building that he so adores.
Angela can’t help but scoff at that, somewhat irked by the fact that he’d abandon a little bit of himself just to spite her. But though she wants to judge him, to scowl at his attitude and the way he avoids meeting her gaze — it’s not judgment that pulls at her heart and forces her to look down at her reports.
Clearing her throat from any oncoming lump and blinking repeatedly, she holds herself quite steady until almost everyone has left. Either without a word to her, nor a glance, or with a weak, “Goodnight, Angela,” that she can barely reciprocate, her throat too thick and her posture too stiffly held together to allow a crack in.
“They’ll be clearing the trash cans tomorrow morning,” Pam notifies her meekly with a knowing glance towards a specific trash can. A suggestion hanging in the air that she perhaps expects Angela to thank for, or to somewhat acknowledge with a nod or a smile, but she does neither, averting her gaze to blink away the tears that suddenly threaten to fall.
She sniffles. “Goodnight, Pam.”
Pam purses her lips into a tight smile and, nodding briskly, grabs at her fiancé’s hand to leave. Chatting about whatever nonsense the pair seems to always find.
Angela would fight anyone that dares imply it is envy that tugs at her heart at the sight of their joined hands, of the way they smile adoringly at each other like a pair of lovesick teenagers.
She is not envious. Has no reason to be.
Choices were made and she was thrown away like the trash that she now stares at, heavy with remorse and disappointment at herself. But there are no regrets to be had for having been dumped not by one but by two men.
Are there?
It was to be expected, if disappointing, and there’s no one to blame for it. Life goes on and she’ll be fine.
The tears swimming at the corners of her eyes seem to disagree with her thoughts, as many things often do within her. Even when there’s pride to uphold, her heart must betray what lies within, what her mind won’t allow. Angela however doesn’t cry for both these men, as her mind suggests she ought to do — if she must cry at all, that is.
There’s only one desk that her gaze fixes upon, one empty space and one missing object that she knows she’ll find right below. A sob threatens to escape at the void that spreads in her chest at the finality of his action, of his steely gaze, and she clasps a hand to her mouth to stifle it.
It is only when the lights turn off and everyone but her and the security guard has left that Angela allows a tear to fall. In the darkness, she blinks more decisely and breathes heavily when it drops, followed by a stream of unwelcome tears that she can’t seem to rub away. She succumbs to it — to the darkness and the heaviness of her thudding heart. To the way her gaze is inevitably drawn time and time again to his desk.
Without thinking, Angela walks and kneels before it, reaching until she feels the bumpy shape of a long figurine head. She fishes it out without any care about the other waste within the trash, tracing its features as though it is the first time she’s seeing it.
It looks off, as though the fall has marred its features and distorted the face of the man she—it doesn’t matter how she feels. It’s over now.
Angela should let it be over. Ought to accept the finality of Dwight simply throwing out the bobble-head figurine she’d gifted him nearly three years ago and what this gesture truly signifies.
But she can’t. She clutches it to her own chest and sobs instead, allowing some more traitorous tears to stain her face. There’s no one to see her downfall anyway, no one to experience the great pleasure of her disgraceful crying not for the fiancé lost, but for the lover lost.
Lover is, at least, a fitting title for a beloved person.
Dwight, beloved. He knows, right?
In this darkness, clutching at the figurine, Angela’s heart aches deeply at the loss, sharp like a knife slashing her chest. It spreads, it heaves, makes her keel over the precipice and bite at her lips until they draw blood. And as suddenly as this outburst starts, it ends, too, leaving her to wipe away tears and sniffle away the snot that drips below her nose.
Shakily, washed over by embarrassment for a scene no one could even see, Angela finally grabs her things. But when her hand hovers over the trash can to throw the figurine away again, she hesitates for what feels like a century. Hand trembling over the edge, her gaze fixed upon that scarily accurate resemblance.
She retreats. Hugs the figurine to her bosom and, in a trance, reaches her car almost entirely blinded by the tears she’d thought gone. But with the proof of her remorse in her hand, there’s no way to stop the flood.
Oh , what a choice she’d made, foolish not to pick—.
“I didn't think you'd stoop so low as to take the figurine out of the trash.”
Dwight.
His voice wavers unusually, as though he's on the verge of tears, but when she glances up at him, her own face scrunched up and tear-stained, there is not a trace of pain upon his guarded features. It somehow makes matters worse. Sharpens the pain tearing her lungs and catches her breath into a stupid sob that she tries to mask by straightening her back and staring directly at him.
“Did you really wait out here,” she attempts a sharp voice of her own but it falls flat with the thickness of the lump in her throat, “for hours, just to corner me?”
He shrugs. “I needed to see you.”
Angela falters, her breath hitching and her gaze flickering up to meet his in a surge of hope. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes,” Dwight steps closer, frowning at her marred features. His hand hovers lightly near her cheeks before dropping back to his side. “You look horrible.”
“That’s rude,” she scoffs, suddenly wishing to be anywhere else but in his field of vision. Curled up at home, asleep. Definitely not under his scrutinizing gaze. “Well,” she evades him softly, “Unless you’ve come here to talk, or to apologize for throwing away my gift, I don’t really have to hear you insult me so—.”
“You’d know if I was insulting you. I was merely pointing out a fact. Fact: you have puffy eyes and a red nose. It would make anyone look horrible.”
“Alright,” Angela evades him again, in vain. “I got your notarized letter,” in a manner of speech. He really ought to have given her a proper one, like she would. “Is chucking me and that figurine into the trash not enough?”
Dwight shakes his head, disbelief painting upon his features. “You deserved it.”
Angela shudders at the intensity of his glare. “If that’s how you feel—.”
“It is,” Dwight confirms firmly, cornering her at her door. Mirroring a situation often teased between them, towering over her with his height. But there’s no ease to it now. No playful banter. “I’m disappointed.”
“I see,” she whispers, her forehead creasing with the furrowing of her brows. “Is there a reason—?”
“You lied to me.”
Despite her disadvantageous position, Angela meets his steely scowl with pride, her chin high as she attempts, “I don’t know what you’re—.”
"You slept with Andy."
"No,” she lies.
"Twice.”
Fuck . "It was just…” she looks down, suddenly feeling smaller than she already is. “Alright, maybe, but you don't understand—."
"You're right," he nods firmly, averting her gaze when she attempts at grabbing his hand, pushing her away like that figurine into the trash. "I don't understand. And I should not care to understand—."
"D, please, let me just—."
"Save it. You lied to me."
She pauses, her breath hitching with words unsaid.
Angela has never been great at grasping at straws. Correction: there is a limit to the number of straws she can grasp at. A limit to how much she’s willing to beg for and with—she despises begging on principle.
It’s beneath her.
And there are straws now she could grasp at, of course: she could point out the fake/real wedding that he forced her into without her consent and without remorse; there's Sprinkles, her beloved cat he killed and covered up his crime; how horribly he pressured her into getting back together when she was not ready for it yet; there's her love for him—but Angela can't seem to grasp at any of these.
Proud as always, she looks down at the figurine in her hands, strokes its face as she wishes to stroke Dwight's and nods. "Yes. I—I slept with him. I slept with Andy"
Dwight scowls, lowering his voice. "Why?"
"Dwight," she pleads, tilting her head to the side to meet his steely gaze with her tearful one, "does it matter?"
“Of course it matters, Angela,” he whispers with a frown. For the first time, he doesn’t sound accusatory. There’s a vulnerability to his tone instead, a kind of smallness that doesn’t belong to him. “I trusted you and… I thought what we had was special.”
“It was!” It could still be , but Angela does not have the heart to say it out loud. Even thinking it makes it sound stupid, out of reach.
“Then why did you do it?”
Too many reasons, and yet too little. Under the intensity of his question, all of the reasons seem vain, stupid. Selfish. What does it matter that she was angry at him after he forced her into a marriage she had only partially agreed to? And does it really matter that she slept with Andy to diffuse his attention? to draw him away from all the whispers around the office?
She bites her lip in thought, averting his gaze to trace the figurine once again: the curve of its mouth, the keen look — the joy that spread about Dwight’s face when he received it. Angela shakes her head in disappointment at her two moments of weakness. When she meets his gaze once again it’s with a sort of acceptance within her that spreads into her heart and keeps her voice steady, level.
“I did it to save face,” she says, startling at Dwight’s scoff. “Andy was getting suspicious about all the chatter around him, all the whispers around the office and to keep the relationship safe I had to—.”
“You didn’t have to.” The distance between them practically vanishes with his last step. From this short distance, there are lines that can be spotted, creases that betray the pain within him. A pain that reaches his eyes, too, almost pleading. “I told you to be with me. To leave him.” Dwight squares his jaw, his gaze flickering below her eye level and coming right back up when he senses the quickening of her heartbeat and the hitching of her breath, “And you never did. You just used me.”
“I did not—.”
“You did. If he hadn’t found out, how long would you have gone forward with this ruse. Lying to both of us?”
“I never meant to—.”
Dwight chuckles darkly. “But you did. If Michael hadn’t told him, would you have? Or would you have married him, content to use me as a sex toy?”
“As a—.” Angela pauses with a scoff. “It’s not that simple . It was never that simple.”
“Yes, it was. If you loved me—,” he pauses with a scoff, “ If you loved me—.”
“Of course I did.” She grabs his hand with her free one and this time he doesn’t resist her hold. “I do.” As shameful as it would be to admit, she has only ever loved him. She demonstrates it with a soft squeeze of his hand. “I’ve already admitted it many times, D.”
Dwight shakes his head, guarded. “I can’t be sure of that.”
Tentative, her lashes drop pointedly as she whispers, “I could prove it.”
“No.” Dwight steps back slightly. “There’s no kissing, that’s not allowed. You can’t do this to me, Angela.”
“Alright—.”
He continues. “We’re not together anymore. I thought that was clear when I threw away the figurine and—.”
“Okay.” Angela wishes she were someone more willing to put up a fight. Instead, she drops his hand and nods. “I see.” A tear streams down her face. Angela wipes at it angrily with a sniffle. “So be it.”
“I don’t want us to be uncivil, though,” he admits softly. “We can be colleagues.”
Angela nods—asking to be friends would be a stretch so she doesn’t offer it. “Of course. That won’t be a problem.” She’s always been great at being civil. Dwight will just be another on a long line of people she’s had to guard herself around with pleasant smiles and empty words. “Colleagues.”
“Yes.” A pause. “Not friends, not yet.”
She bobs her head, resigned to her own fault, to her own mistakes. Softly, she murmurs, “Goodnight, D.”
This time, Dwight lets her turn her back on him and, as galavant as ever, opens the door for her, smiling tightly when she glances at him in surprise.
“Goodnight, Monkey.”
With that, he walks away to his own car, blurring in the distance with the newfound wetness of her eyes. Exhausted, mentally and physically — when’s the last time she’s eaten? — she drops into her car.
Alone, Angela can't seem to find the strength to drive away. Her heart is bursting and unlike all those times with Dwight, it is not with joy. It is, similarly, with love, but with a tainted one, a painful one. And though she hardly means to take all the blame upon herself, she can barely contain the hatred that seeps into her heart, directed not at Phyllis or Andy or Michael or even Dwight—only her.
And driving when all she can blame is herself is dangerous, the palms of her hands simultaneously squeezing the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turn white and somehow feeling too dumb to hold it safely, as though she might just let go of it at the needed moment.
Not that she—she never would.
But Angela feels heavy, head thumping harshly against the wheel and onto the clackson and somehow light, weak. She sobs, hot with flashes of anger and confusion. Every emotion weaves into one, her shadows covering her like blankets of regret. Regret that grips at the figurine she’d somehow dropped onto the seat next to her, squeezes it until she’s sure it might pop, until it digs into her skin—and loosens. Drops upon her lap and lays there until it merges into her, as though she’s started meditating.
Free of thought. Just a part of the universe around her, God judging her from above for all her sins.
A shudder passes through her as a chilly wind current reaches her side, the creaking of an opening door suddenly registering within her earshot. With a confused mewl, Angela all but manages to sit up, a blur of shapes and colors appearing in her line of sight, before she’s crushed under the pressure of Dwight’s lips upon hers, two rough hands coming up to cup her face as though she might escape his reach otherwise.
As if she’d want to escape this heaven she ascends to—what a sinful thought.
Angela shuts the morality within, responding in kind to his touch, parting her mouth. Relishing in the sigh that escapes his mouth into hers, angling her head for better access. The figurine on her lap drops when he grabs her waist and pulls her closer, but she barely notices. Against his lips, cupping his cheek — it’s what coming home feels like.
Crumbling and being picked back up.
When they part for air, foreheads pressed against each other, she doesn’t dare look up into his eyes. Frightened of what she might find there, she dives back in instead but he doesn’t respond with equal fervor, pulling back.
“No,” whispers Dwight, voice thick with emotion. Cupping her chin, he forces her to meet his watery gaze. Apologetic. “Angela, no.”
“D...” she nuzzles into his palm, pleading.
He shakes his head, a sort of finality to his person. “This was not—I just needed closure.”
Oh.
“I see.”
“I just can’t.” Breathing in shakily, he presses a soft kiss to her forehead. “I know it’s not all your fault, that all of this happened. I recognize that I... that I killed Sprinkles,” Angela stifles a sob, “and did not respect your space afterwards, but I can’t keep giving you my all and getting only a part in return. I can’t keep being content with that.”
“Dwight—.”
Dwight strokes her cheek. “I loved you, Angela.” Loved. “And you never even chose me first.”
It shoves deeper than a dagger to her heart, the realization that she has no truthful rebuttal to this. That even despite her greatest desires, she’d never deemed him a great enough love to take some risks for.
“A small part of me always wanted to,” she finally whispers, closing her eyes in shame.
“Too small for your pride.” Angela doesn’t deign to answer that. “The worst is that I would’ve been content with it for a long time, too, if I hadn’t found out,” Dwight whimpers. “I would have wanted to fight for you, for us. I would have knelt and proposed to you if that’s what it would have taken for us to finally be together—I would’ve wanted you as the mother of my children, the bearer of my seed —and you know that as a Schrute my seed is great—as my wife— .”
“I would have said yes.”
Dwight pauses, swallowing thickly. “No,” he smiles sadly, “I don’t think you would have.”
No , she supposes again. She’d never been brave enough around Dwight. If it had been all up to him, they wouldn’t have even been secret for so long. More blame on her. Does it ever end? “I would have wanted to.”
Dwight nods. “I suppose so. But you said yes to Andy and broke his heart, too, so where does that leave us?”
“Here,” she says, grabbing at the hand that cups her cheek.
“Yeah,” he whispers, leaning in to give her a soft peck. Final in its brevity. Dropping his hands to his lap, he stretches the distance between them. “I hope you'll find a man whose heart you won't want to break, Monkey.”
I never wanted to break yours, almost slips through her lips, pleading and small. But Dwight abandons ship fast and surely with his words, colder than ever before. Leaving a void in her heart that she doubts she could ever fill, a part of it stolen by Dwight too long ago to be now returned or rebuilt.
What is left is just emptiness. This time, there’s no hoping for a return even, the screeching of his tires alerting her that he’s left shortly after. It alerts her that there won’t be a reprise, that this had been the closure they both needed.
Hadn’t it?
And if she needs some more time to collect herself, to adjust her hair and wipe away the tears, adjusting the figurine in the seat that ought to belong to him, that’s alright.
Today’s for crying, for succumbing to her darkest thoughts. Tomorrow she’ll be alright.
Tomorrow, no one will know the longing in her heart. She’ll guard herself, but in this empty lot, Angela can still be her truer self.
Just for today.