Wavering Unshakable

"Yeah," He replied, the words catching in his throat so they caused his voice to crack, and he continued in answering her more carefully, "We've been in this apartment almost two years already. How crazy is that? As house mates, us two guys seem to be pretty compatible people. I mean, with you too--it's like we all feed off of each other or something."

As Jordan said this, he inhaled from the joint between his gloved fingers and exhaled so that smoke swirled around his naturally highlighted blond hair. He'd been hesitant to get high, but Allison had talked him in to it before. After all, she'd said, it was a natural gift from God. It was relaxing and engaging for them both, and with less consequence it seemed, as Ben was absent for the night.

Allison had moved in to the old building while going to college in the city and since then, her two roommates had moved on leaving her with empty rooms. She'd met Ben first when he answered her housing board ad. He was in her year, and in the same housing situation she was, so she was quick to say yes. They'd spoken only a few times in passing, but he'd seemed to her to be the sort of guy she could have a real conversation with. Not hurting her first impressions of him either was that he was well-spoken, tall, dark-haired, and had a boyish smile that could, if values were shifted, charm the pants off a prude. The two had begun to hang out a lot and were having coffee in one of the hipster cafes downtown one night. Ben had struck up a conversation like he always did with one of the musicians playing that evening, and so had found the like-minded Jordan who moved in a few weeks later.

Jordan was not quite two years younger than her and Ben, and just as casually attractive. Allison was quick to discount her attraction to both of them to the fact that all of her former roommates were girls and either caustic atheists or pretentious prep school wannabes. To hear Switchfoot coming from Ben or Jordy's room as she walked in after class was a change, and a welcomed reminder of how relaxing living with chill guys could be.

Luther was a heavily affiliated school, and it didn't really surprise her that both of the guys were Christians too. The three of them had become champions of these profound, but sometimes ambiguous, conversations here on the crumbling steps of their building from two years of late nights. Still, Allison felt that they were lacking some sort of truth or somehow missing out on a deeper connection.

Allison wrinkled her nose and with a sarcastic grin, let out a guttural moan and threw up her mittened hands in the air for effect.

"Wait wait, I'm not feeding off of anyone here! You and Ben can 'feed' off of each other all you want." She exclaimed with a good-humored, prodding lilt to her voice.

"Oh you know what I mean, Allie! Philosophically. Spiritually." He grinned in realizing how his words had been interpreted.

The brushed silver cross he wore around his neck was well covered by a scarf and pea coat tonight, but Allison knew it was there. He wore it with everything, and she'd be surprised if he took it off to shower. It hung by a thin, black leather cord, and was quite tasteful. She knew very well, too, about how it seemed to suffocate him sometimes. His parents had given it to him when he'd been confirmed, and it meant a lot to them that he wore it. How much it meant to him, though, was yet to be determined she thought. He curled a stray piece of hair across his forehead and around his ear and his shoulders hunched in the cold breeze. What he said next in his uncharacteristically, slightly-inebriated state, indeed, was only fueling of her suspicions.

"It would be great to have that kind of connection with someone I was intimate with, though. But intimacy just cheapens relationships...throws them in to the realm of superficiality and then ultimately defeat, you know?"

Silence fell over them from the cloudy, night sky, and they both looked towards the sad, single street lamp emitting a lonely glow over an equally miserable, crumpled barrel of a trashcan. Winter here meant tingling conversation muffled by cold wind, and heated conversation in constricting sweaters and overly warm apartments. Here, winter meant exhilaration in dueling extremes of inducing solitude and bringing people close. With unfortunate familiarity, the heavy feeling of sadness began to sink into Allison's chest. She decided to not dance around it in hoping to not offend anyone, and just articulate to him what she was thinking.

"God and whatever higher power is out there wants us to be happy and healthy, Jordy. Sex is so much a part of life and love...how can it cheapen a relationship? How could that kind of commitment and connection ever mean defeat?" She countered defiantly but carefully, pulling the last bit of smoke through her fingers and snubbing the burning ember of what was left into the snow. She itched her scalp under the two loose, blonde braids that hung down from under her multi-colored snow hat.

"Yeah, but when you've got such a consistently reciprocated, deeply felt connection with someone--when you can know how they're feeling and what they need far past the basic, animal instinct of sex--that's when it cheapens the relationship. It would defeat everything when we're not meant to be sexually compatible in the first place."

His last few words fell right in time with the soft beginnings of a snow fall, fragile and telling. Allison took a breath of the frigid air, watching the specs glide from the blackness above down to the thin reflection of white at their feet. They both knew who it was he was talking about--it wasn't her--and realized all of the weight his words held as gravity descended upon them. She took a breath before gently interrupting the quiet of denial in his silence.

"So...is that a Freudian afterthought or just a lame excuse?" She asked quietly.

Flakes of snow had begun to decorate Jordan's hair, cheeks, and eyelashes, but he paid no attention to them as her words stung his skin. After a pause, he cocked his head towards Allison. In the darkness, she could still make out the red at his cheeks that always made him seem so young. With a sheepish smile, he exhaled through his nose in a little laugh as he wiped at his face with fingers of woven blue yarn. He hit his jeans with a muffled slap as he let his hands drop back to his lap defeatedly. Eventually the smile faded and he looked away again, seemingly agitated by having to explain.

"It's His word we've gotta live by Allie, not mine."