In February of this year, Zach Cruse had just come out of a stressful on again off again relationship with his previous girlfriend. The relationship was a rollercoaster, and the hills and turns had Cruse shaken and disillusioned with relationships in general. He was over the angst and the anxiety, and was ready to move on and put the whole ordeal behind him.
That was the plan at least, until a local church lock-in happened.
Cruse was in the process of repairing his friendship with his ex-girlfriend, so when she invited him, he said yes to attending their mutual friend’s church lock-in. He was hoping to gain back civility and erase some of the awkwardness that had appeared between the two.
At the lock-in, the youth group banded together on teams to play broomball, which is a sport that Cruse says is essentially, “hockey, but you wear shoes instead of ice skates, and you hit a ball instead of a puck.”
Indiana’s temperature in February ranges from chilly to down right frigid. That particular night was cold, although not bitterly so. The ice rink was alive with chatter and laughter, which helped to keep the chill at bay.
Running on a large sheet of ice in tennis shoes is not one of the easiest activities to participate in. It took a large amount of energy, and with each breath, the chill made your lungs tingle.
After playing for a few hours, Cruse decided to take a break. He felt dehydrated, and slightly sick, so he went to the small and kind of ancient looking concession stand to order a PowerAde.
As he came back to the rink, he noticed a girl sitting by herself, watching the others slap the ball back and forth and clumsily run across the ice.
He knew her name was Jessica, not because he’d talked to her any, but because Lauren, the mutual friend, had talked about her before. He slid onto the bench next to her, and she glanced over at him.
“Hi,” he said. “Having fun?”
She smiled and answered, and from there they chatted for a few minutes about inconsequential things. He asked if she wanted to take a drink of his orange PowerAde, and then he went back out onto the ice. “Huh,” he thought to himself. “She was nice, and kind of cute.”
Broomball continued, neither side ever really winning. Cruse stayed with his friends, joking around and talking with his ex-girlfriend, trying to achieve his goal of patching things up. As the night went on, Cruse got even more fatigued, while everyone else hit their second-wind.
The group moved into the sanctuary, when Cruse noticed Jessica again. He spotted her curled up in a pew, sitting by herself, hugging a pillow and yawning wildly. She was bundled up in Franklin College sweats, and her sweatshirt two sizes too big.
For two hours they talked about everything. Star Wars, Death Cab for Cutie, Star Trek and the Beatles. They talked about college: her hopes that undergrad would be better than high school, his insisting that it wouldn’t be. He talked about being homeschooled, his teachers and his projects. She talked about her love of music.
About halfway through their conversation, Cruse though, “I wonder is she would ever want to hang out sometime?” He was intrigued and a little bit curious about her.
Eventually the group moved out of the sanctuary, and by then, Cruse and his friends left the lock-in. He had work early the next morning.
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