Anomalies ✔

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: MINE

Desire grows by what it feeds on. 
-L.M. Montgomery

Jasper has this weird thing about him that makes me want to be my best when I'm around him. He gives me hope that I'm still a good person, even if I sometimes do bad things.

One second I was a scared college kid living in a new place and ticing all the goddamn time because I was so stressed and the next I was with him going on runs and laughing over coffee.

When I hug him, even if previously I hadn't known I didn't feel safe, I swear that I feel more protected than I ever had before.

Once I told him that he needs to take over his own world before someone else does it for him. Well fuck him, because he took that advice and used it to take over my world instead.

Nothing is better than that though, this is my home now, he makes me feel like I belong.

Sometimes people are easy for me to understand and I know I'm an open book to Jasper even if he's a romance novel written in another language for me. Love isn't something I've easily understood.

I'm a cook, a baker, and a football player. I'm good at chemistry and making plans, following through with instructions and working with whatever happens when those things go wrong.

Love isn't -it isn't predictable.

I know what I want, don't get me wrong, I'm not oblivious but I'm easily confused.

What we have is, as I said, unexpected. It's the kind of thing you only read about in books, the kind I have lining my shelf and filling my dreams.

One thing I failed to ask myself is what if his dreams are different from my own?

Jasper's body close to mine, him looking at me like that, the way he says my name...it's all done in a very convincing way to tell me that he loves me too -even if we're not in love with each other

But if there's one thing I know, it's that the human mind is easily tricked.

Still, I want him to be mine.

So we have to learn how to communicate with each other.

"Here, just," I nervously point at my bed and he does so without question. "Sit, please."

But standing in front of him starts to feel like I'm about to give my little brother a lecture so I sit on my desk, legs stretched out onto the back of my chair as I lean back comfortably.

This isn't the most flexible outfit.

"Jasper, c'mon," Catching the pout at the way he shrinks in on himself, I try to talk as gently as possible but the growl that soon follows is anything but. "Even if I could realistically get you in trouble, I can't. I'm not your authority figure, I don't have any control over you. You don't have to act like you're in trouble."

"T-talk usually means um, sit still while someone y-yells at me."

Frowning I grab onto Selene's dog tags, "It's not like that with me. If I ever yell at you you must have like, killed someone or something. Or gotten hurt." I pause, thinking about how hot headed I can get sometimes. "And you bet your sweet ass that if you don't yell back at me if I ever do it for no goddamn reason I'll be a bit disappointed."

His pout just grows. "I-I don't like to yell."

"Listen, Love, I noticed your thing when it comes to-" I growl. "-touching and I'm just trying to respect that."