No Copyright Infringement is intended. This is just for fun. 

And to the most awesome beta of all the betas...Sweetpea - I LOVE YOU. Thank you for being not just a great beta but an even more wonderful friend. Thanks for always helping me to push the crap down! Boy, do I need it. :-)

That first sunset...when she first came home - to my apartment  - our apartment -  the one that we share together (as of now)...It was like Christmas came early. And I know that's the kind of analogy that people use all the time to explain just about anything, anything good and happy. But this...Ok, so here's maybe a less cliché analogy, albeit stranger:

When I was 15 I gave up basketball for Lent.  At the time I'd just sort of figured out how great I was at the game, and like all things that have ever truly made me feel great - it became my mission to get even better at it and to make the Varsity squad.  Becoming better at basketball became an obsessive quest.

Unfortunately it was that obsession that came to mind one day as I'd sat in church listening to the words of Father McGrady.  His passion about the great sacrifice of our lord, Jesus Christ made me think about my own sacrifices in life. You know like - cleaning my room after the 20th time my mom asked me to, or watching my little sister even though ‘she wasn't mine'.

I remember looking up at those high, wooden beams that stretched across the ceiling of our church, thinking, ‘No God, not basketball...That just seems a little much.  How about cheeseburgers? Yep...I can do cheeseburgers for a month. No problem.'  It should be noted that I did truly love cheeseburgers. I was a growing boy. I could burn three hundred calories just channel surfing. Giving up cheeseburgers was not a frivolous sort of sacrifice.

But an unequivocal, ‘Yep, sorry. It's gotta be basketball...Yep. Definitely,' came to me one day while I was visiting my grandmother.  All I can think now is that one of the three crucifixes that hung on her living room wall had something to do with my change of heart.

Giving up basketball was horrible.  From the first day to the last, I felt empty inside without the thing that made me feel alive everyday.  I tried to take my mind off of it.  I limited access to any March Madness viewing (because this felt a little like cheating) and I varied my activity schedule - that was the way to go right? Deciding to play video games when I ordinarily would have been playing ball, go the mall when I ordinarily would have been playing ball...read even.  The latter pleased my mom to no end, but still I felt deprived of a certain inalienable right.  Why had I decided to do this again?  

My friends wondered why I didn't just go down to the court and hang out.  That friends, was like telling an alcoholic to come with you to the brewery -- just to watch and appreciate the process ...

So on that transcendent day when my self-imposed sacrificial act came to an end - Easter Sunday - as my mom was busy cooking Easter dinner for my family...I went to the park.  I played for hours...and hours.  My dad came to round me up, but he knew better than anyone what a losing battle it was. The first love of my life had just been returned to me and there was no way I was staying away.  I let him pull me away for as long as it took to eat a few mouthfuls of stuffing and a slice of turkey...then I was gone again. 

As corny as it sounds, I can still remember the quiet of that evening as the streetlights came on.  Just me, the ball, a hoop...and that ever present echo off the pavement.

Apparently all the other guy's moms had been successful in keeping them home on Easter.

So years later, knowing that my real first true love was back in my arms after such a long time away, I paid attention to the sounds just like I did that night on the court. The peak of pleasure at twilight, muffled words against starved skin, and the rustle of crisp sheets that hadn't been washed in vain after all...I paid attention to all of it.

The echo of that childhood love seemed a hollow, distant refrain as the breath of her laughter tickled the hairs at the nape of my neck.

And there I was, feeling alive again as the streetlights outside our apartment began to buzz.  Lying there with Pam, in the decadence of a few hours spent in her arms - I found paradise once lost.

My very own resurrection was just the beginning of the rest.

Tomorrow, I'd have much the same feeling as I did the day after my 15th Easter. Bone weary and sore, a little bit like I'd taken a beating...but it was a good kind of pain and it was nothing compared to what I felt without her.   

I would sacrifice all over again...if she needed me to. Even if she never asked.