It is Thanksgiving, the Sunday. She hasn't seen him since July, but they talk often, and for everything she knows, she does not know how she feels about him. Love? A strong liking? He doesn't know either.

They spend the day together, walking, talking, holding hands, and kissing in a park that does not yet have its layer of frost covering the uncut grass. Eleven o'clock at night, and she drives him home. She doesn't leave, not right away. Goodbyes were never good for her.

He holds her in his arms, and she kisses his mouth, softly, yet passionately. He kisses her back, extending her the courtesy of hesitancy before slowly feeling the inside of her mouth with his tongue.

The kiss is long, warm, and comfortable, and it makes her feel unusually unlike herself while being of totally sound mind. He looks into her eyes, and she knows what he wants. In all honesty, she wants it, too. Both being too unsure of themselves to vocalise any desires, she takes a step to her left, and awaits his reaction.

He perceives her action as bold, perhaps because he himself is too shy to take a step that big first. He respects her, she knows he does, and he would never push her into anything; he'd only ask. He knows what she is asking, suggesting, and he can't disagree, even if he wanted to, being so compelled and inspired to follow her anywhere she might go. So, playing off of her terrified boldness, he steps to his right, and hand in hand, they slowly walk toward the house.

She knows what she is doing, knows what it means, knows that she would then feel like the hypocrite that many believe her to be. But she knows that things wouldn't be same, could never be same again, no matter what happens within the next few minutes.

He leads her up the hall, walking slowly, giving her the chance to change her mind if she would feel so moved to do. She follows, aware that in the big scheme of it all, what she is doing is wrong, but looking within the moment, nothing could be more right.

He closes the door behind them and looks at her face, flushed by cause of the adrenaline mixture of fear and exhilaration. He kisses her once. He stands back to look at her and realizes that he's never seen anything so beautiful.

Once again, she leaves her passivity for the opportunity to be brave, and slowly removes her shirt. She drops it to the floor without once showing how scared she is. He looks her over again, and she can feel his eyes burning into her flesh, and she realizes that it's not eyes she wants to burn; it's skin, his naked skin burning against her own, consumed by the fires of passion.

Slowly they undress, each article of clothing a piece of tempered metal being stripped away by the force of mere desire. Two naked bodies standing across from one another, hot from tension, shaking from nerves, are both ready to advance on one another in a lovingly blissful manner.

He takes a step forward, kisses her, carefully etches maps of her body into his mind with his fingers. He knows what he told himself, and for all the world can't think of any reason why what they are doing now is wrong. . . Save for maybe one, which he casually discards like another piece of cloth as he is effortlessly engulfed in the scent of her naive seductiveness.

She lies down on the awaiting bed, all concerns wiped away by the feel of his body being gently settled on top of her own.

And they become one.

One mind moving within one body, their souls meld together, and as one they reach the height of ecstasy, the very definition of all that can be defined within one's own heart.

The segregation leaves them both feeling satisfied yet wanting, and he wraps his arms around her, finally knowing how this feels. She fits herself more comfortably inside his warm embrace and suddenly she understands why it never made sense before, why she tried too hard to make herself confused.

Two whispered "I love you"'s at the same moment in time show the permanent, crystalline residue of two halves becoming whole, a declaration they know they'll be making to one another every day for the rest of their lives here on earth.