Anomalies ✔

Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: JOIN-ME

All joy... emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings. 
-C.S. Lewis

One of my tics is when I make a quick growling sound and Jazz found out that when he growls at me, I'll growl back.

He thinks it's funny.

It doesn't bother me at all, it wouldn't bother me even if he did what Noelle does and have me actually growl.

I just wish I knew why he liked it, because it's definitely not due to what it sounds like, but what it looks like.

Right now, when I look at Jasper, I can't figure out how we were ever strangers.

As a private person, someone who doesn't share myself with others, I can say that learning how to interact with others is difficult. It's like baking, almost, you have to mix the right ingredients together, and if you add the wrong ones things can taste hideous even if they look good.

It's a lot like our words.

But I've mastered how to tell someone just a little about myself but doing it in a way that makes the person in front of me think they know a lot.

Jasper, somehow, sees through this every fucking time and it's absolutely infuritating.

He's never satisfied with just a little of me, with my hidden truth, and it's the most annoying thing I've ever experienced.

I love him, he's just too adorably sweet for his own good.

Because one pout, one tiny quiver of his lip with those damn snake bites in, and his minty eyes staring at me, I tell him things I'd never tell someone else.

I talk to him, and he listens.

Words aren't my strong suit, a lot of the time I don't- -and can't- -say the right things without messing up. So I rely on looks, hidden messages, body languages, the silent things people do that tell someone they're loved.

The musician does that a lot, tell me about his love without saying a thing, I mean.

It's in how he makes sure everything past our dorm's door frame is exactly where it's supposed to be from the furniture to the difference between the small spoons and the big ones but leaves the cleaning to me. It's how he makes dinner every night not because he enjoys it that much, but because he knows I'm already exhausted from cooking all day and being at practice.

Everything about him is expected.

Now, every time he pouts I can hear the small 'ting' his septum piercing makes against his medusa one that rests in the center of his cupid's bow. How he's one of the biggest, strongest guys I know but he'll curl up on my bean bag after a long day and just when I think he's asleep, he'll say my name and take me in his arms. It's the way his tattoos look when he flexes or is working out after our run and then looks up to me with that dorky grin of his and says my name, says "Castor." like I'm something amazing even when I know I'm ordinary.

Jasper Red is an anomaly.

That's proven in the way he, upon my entrance to the dorm after a run, excitedly wiggles on the floor like a happy puppy before he's able to prop himself up with his guitar in hand.

"Castor!" The giant cheers, showing off his snake bites and dimples.

"Hey," My amusement seeps through my smile as I refrain from laughing as all I can think is I love this dork.