Despair, self-doubt, and desire cripple human beings.

-Kilroy J. Oldster

Ever since I was little, I've felt out of control.

From the age of five my body moved when I didn't tell it to, I'd say things I wouldn't want to and sometimes, I even hurt myself or insulted people. It was uncontrollable and nobody knew what was wrong with me.

I felt broken.

Because nobody else did these things.

At school kids started to call me Spaz and they'd do things to see how much they can make me go off and a few times, they betted on what I'd shout.

That made me the outcast.

Then when I was ten I finally got a diagnosis -Tourette's.

It explained why I freaked out, it explained that it's manageable.

But being explainable didn't make me feel less broken.

It didn't get me friends.

My twin was always my anchor to reality and kept me grounded during my worst fits, it's one of the reasons I'm so scared to go to college -she won't be there with me.

Circe and her girlfriend Noelle are still back at home, attending the same college my older sister did because she wants to be a social worker.

My entire family is normally there for me and since there's eight kids in total and even more outside of us, it's safe to say we're not a small family by any means. An army of children, Papa would say.

But now that I'm a freshman at college, that all changes.

Just yesterday my parents dropped me off at my dorm and I had to say goodbye to them and my twin.

That was harder than I ever expected.

And I've had to see Adonis, Atlas and Nemesis off to college as well as watch Selene go back to the military every other year.

None of them warned me how alone it would feel leaving a house of ten to a dorm of two.

My own body failed to warn me that I'd be so nervous my normal tics- -which were now mostly physical than my other few verbal ones- -would turn into violent ones.

Which would send my arm jerking when I was holding a box of books.

Making the box slam up into my nose and forehead.

Causing me to stumble to the ground, spill the books and clutch at my bleeding nose. The sight of blood, in turn, making me tic again and bang my head back into the ground.

As if that wasn't enough, my glasses fall off so everything is a mess of red and white as my vision gets blurry.

My body, that never much listens to me anyway, ignores my inner pleas for consciousness.

And I pass out.

Only to wake up to a loud shriek, the sound of arguing- -flirtatious bickering?- -and hands gently shaking my shoulder and holding one hand to my cheek.

I jerk without control until the blurry but clearly male person above me holds me still until I stop moving.

Groaning, I cup my hand to my nose. "Not again."

"Not again?" He questions, sounding both confused and concerned. "Did someone attack you? Again. What the fuck."

"No I," A growl leaves my mouth as my shoulders tense, his hands never leaving me despite my weird behavior. "I have Tourette's and my tic-" I squeak. "-made me knock that box into my head."

Something I have never liked admitting out loud.

Another problem with saying it out loud or talking about it in general is that no matter how hard I will my body not to, thinking and talking about my Tourette's makes my tic worse. I can go hours without a tic but they can happen a lot in a single minute if I'm talking about it for too long.

"Oh."

There's a moment or two of silence so I take the opportunity to find my glasses, accidentally smudging them with blood.

I'm a cook, a baker and a football player with Tourette's that tends to fight people more than I should, so it doesn't bother me.

Half-ashamed by having to tell him that because I knocked myself out, I avoid eye contact and wipe my red hands onto my pants before picking my books up and putting them back -occasionally throwing them back just to have to pick them back up again until my mind calms down and the tics stop.

Then who I assume is his mother is tapping my shoulder, making me glance to her as she asks, "A-are you alright?"

"Yeah," Nodding, I continue to put the books away. "I'm used to it."

"Shit, here let me help you."

The boy is reaching down and before I could protest he grabs the last two books and stands with the box in his hands.

I stand with him but as my head tilts back to look at him I notice he's as tall as most of the guys in my family, meaning really tall. I definitely pulled the short straw, thanks Mama.

And instantly, I'm caught in a mess of mint-green.

Holy shit he's handsome.

A squeak leaves my mouth as my head jerks away from him and I mumble "Bit hot innit." in a British accent.

Apparently unbothered, he smiles charmingly, holding his hand out to me. "I'm Jasper, but you can call me Jazz, sorry for my parents. Also, are you okay?"

Instead of grabbing his hand to shake, I punch it. "Oh I'm-" I growl. "I'm sorry. My name is Cas- -mother-duckling!- -and normally my tics aren't this bad this is just, what you call my twitches. I'm just-" I growl again. "-nervous. By tonight I should be mostly normal."

Jasper shrugs, still smiling, "Aren't you already normal?"

"No." My reply is instant but the wild twitching of my hands takes a moment to kick in, probably triggered by the word 'normal'.

"You're my roommate, right?" His mint eyes look around, searching the space before flicking back to mine. "Where the hell is all my stuff?"

"I put all the personally labeled boxes in-" I growl. "Your room and the one labeled kitchen in the kitchen. Sorry for the mess."

Right, good, just stay calm.

Just because he's cute doesn't mean that you need to freak out, body.

If only it worked like that.

"It's not really a problem, like, not at all." Jasper says, turning back to his parents with a determined look in his minty eyes. "This is goodbye, you guys aren't allowed to stay for the whole day like you did at Nyx's first dorm."

If my head didn't hurt so much right now then I would be questioning this entire situation so much more but right now I'm too tired of myself to care much about anything besides not bleeding all over the cute guy.

The cute guy who's my new roommate.

Who I thought I'd be giving the Tourette's talk to a lot later.

Of all the times I've knocked myself out at bad place this probably takes the cake. I mean, with the blood all over my face it probably looked like a murder scene.

Leaving Jasper and his parents to do their goodbyes- -because I'm socially awkward like that- -I leave my box on the floor and go back to my room and grab one of my towels so I can clean my face off.

What a great first impression I've made.

Sighing, I clasp my hands tightly to my chest and take a few breaths.

Time to risk my sanity to put my books away.

Standing up, I glance into the main room to see the family on the two couches that were delivered along with his stuff and that one of them put the box of books on the beanbag I brought with me.

As to not disturb them, though I think I'm already well past that point, I silently take to putting away the books.

Organizing is...it's comforting to me.

When everything is organized and neat it makes me feel in control and when the area around me is messy it makes my body feel like a war zone -I have no better way to put it. I've accidentally destroyed entire corners of rooms and pushed furniture over because it was messy and I'm not exactly looking to repeat that situation.

Chemistry class in high school was interesting, to say the least.

Eventually their talking quiets down and I notice the silence more than I noticed anything they said.

Glancing behind me my shoulders tense as I notice the two identical pairs of mint eyes and one pair of brown eyes staring at me. Jasper's dad isn't glaring at me, per se, but his look definitely isn't a welcoming one.

He's a giant too.

Good to see someone's height genes are hereditary.

Though I don't speak, I do raise an eyebrow.

"Did y-you come here with someone?" His mom asks me, smiling sweetly.

"Yeah," I growl and flinch before turning to her completely. "They dropped me off."

"Who are 'they'?" His dad questions, arms crossing. "Parents?"

I narrow my eyes at him, jaw clenching as I nod. I'm not quite sure if he just doesn't like people or is an overprotective parent or what but I don't care either, if he wants to waste his time seeing if I'm a threat oh well. It's not my problem.

When it comes to speaking, I don't like to talk much unless I have to or I'm excited because once I do, it's easy for the people around me to tell what tics are triggered by which emotions.

Once they figure that out, they can read me like an open book.

Over the years I've involved into a quiet and quite private person, one who isn't bothered to tell someone to fuck off just because they sit too close to me. Being around people drains me so I'd rather be a complete asshole for a moment than feel exhausted for the rest of the day.

I'm my football team's running back, so people trying to tackle me is all the human contact I'll ever need.

"You said your name is Cas, right?" Jasper smiles again this time, eyes wandering my face instead of meeting my eyes and I'd be lying if I said I missed the slight pink on his cheeks.

But all I do is chalk that up to his friendly nature showing itself.

I nod again, looking down to the books. "Yours is Jasper."

"You can call me Jazz, just so you know."

"Okay."

Why are introverts allowed to survive infancy?

"He's my youngest," His dad speaks again, making me look over to him to see that the not-glare of his has turned into a real one. "And this is his first year of college. I don't know you or what kind of person you are, but I can promise that the kind of person I am is the kind that would hurt a fucking college brat for hurting my kid."

Waving him off with a shrug, I turn back to the shelf and slide one of the books onto it. "I won't hurt him." Before they could say anything I blurt "Ah, probably!" out without meaning to.

Fucking great.

I've always felt like my mouth was dumb but my brain was smart.

And the worst thing about that was nobody else could know how smart and confident and capable I am because all they see is the weird tics and the things I don't want them to hear always seem to be said louder than the things I actually want to say.

Sometimes I feel like my own family doesn't even know better.

But then I remember how understanding they are, even if none of them can know what it feels like to be disabled in this way.

"That was a tic," I explain, hand clenching tightly to a book as I try not to- -willingly- -smack my head into it. "I won't hurt him. I'm just-" I growl. "I'm nervous right now. Stressed. Unpacking is stressful."

But it's necessary that I do it as fast as possible so I don't break something.

Jasper shrugs as if to say 'what can you do' before turning his giant body towards me, leg so close to my side that I can feel his body heat. "I'll be fine even if you try." Obviously, you're like nine feet tall and built. "Besides, you seem like a hella chill guy anyway. I think it's cool you're my roommate, compared to other kids of intolerant judgemental fucks around."

It's then I realize that I hung up my gay pride flag in the middle of the living room wall, since the wall closest to my bedroom has the bookshelf on it.

Either they didn't notice or they didn't care and I'm really hoping it's the latter.

"Judge-" I squeak. "Judgmental fucks?"

Pointing a finger above her head, the mom answers, "People that would judge you for that, and him for being bi."

He's bi.

The cute guy I'm going to be living with is bi.

And he's really tall and nice and his parents accept him.

Relief fills me but I growl at her instead of thanking her, making me flush in embarrassment as one of my hands shake out wildly.

Today is not my day, not at all.

"I'm glad you decided to hang that up, Cas." By him saying this I can tell that he's trying to get used to my name, to remember it. "Do you want me to help you unpack, since it's stressful?"

"My brain freaks out if things aren't in the right place or messy," I admit, growling over a few words but after so long, I just ignore most of my tics and move on like nothing happened. "So no. Thanks."

Besides knocking myself out, the most exhausting part of this has been meeting new people and explaining to them something I don't like about myself.

Normally it takes a while for people to notice something is wrong with me because normally, I'm not this stressed and I went to behavior therapy for six years so my tics aren't that bad.

Jasper knows now within the first hour of meeting me.

How lovely.

"I have a bunch of trinkets and instruments," He tells me, probably still smiling that annoyingly charming smile. "Do you want to pick where they go? I really don't care, as long as they're out in the open. Since that will help your brain stay calm."

Because I don't quite know if he's being serious or trying to make fun of me without me noticing- -some people think because I move when I don't want to it means I'm stupid- -I look back to his eyes for a moment.

He looks like he's telling the truth.

"You'd let me do that?"

"Well yeah," Jasper nods as he speaks, not able to see the surprised expression on both his parent's faces. "I offered didn't I?"

"Oh." I pause, turning back to my books.

Is it bad that I still think he's going to make fun of me -even after he's being really nice and thoughtful?

Yes.

Yes it is.

Deciding to take the 'risk' as my anxiety decides it is, I say, "I'd like that. Thanks." Pausing, I growl again but this time it's followed by an embarrassing jerk of my knee that sends my body toppling sideways.

In other words, I send myself between his knees.

Squeaking, I scramble away from him- -the last thing I want is to be seen as the predatory gay- -only to hit the back of my still sensitive head on the book shelf.

Jasper leans forward from the couch and holds his hands out to me, "Why don't you come up here?"

"I don't want to interrupt family time."

My parents would probably be a little upset if when they sent me off to college it was interrupted by a kid banging his head into a box of books so hard he'd knock himself out and start bleeding.

Well, Papa would be bothered my mama would probably send them to the nurse.

If I wasn't the kid that was knocked out- -and purely because I understands the pain and embarrassment- -I'd probably laugh.

"It's alright, we should be heading out soon a-anyway." His mom says, watching as her son pulls me up and helps me sit beside him.

Now I'm in the middle of them.

And because I'm next to the giant, I'm flushed.

So now I'm in the middle of this family and blushing because their son is cute and I probably have blood on my shirt and-

"Do you have anything planned for dinner?" Jasper asks, turning his body towards me.

"...not really."

Honestly, I hadn't thought about food today because I've been so busy unpacking and making sure all my school things are intact.

Though I'm a running back I'm actually a double major in the culinary arts as well as a business minor. My papa got me into baking young so I've always done that and even though cooking is more dangerous for me- -since it involves knives, which I'm not really supposed to hold- -I love doing it.

Jasper leans into me, enough to make my cheeks flame to life again but I don't give away my internal screaming and stay blank as I blink at him. "You've eaten today though, right?"

Maybe food should be on my mind more, because no, I haven't eaten today.

As a football player I should be better at taking care of myself but most times, if I don't find it necessary I don't eat...or sleep.

Most days, I just work.

That's why I have energy drinks on hand because otherwise, I pass out.

"Uh," If I tell him the truth, will he try to make me eat like most people? "Yeah?"

He doesn't believe me -not in the way those minty eyes flash over my frame and narrow at me. "I don't mind making food."

He thinks I can't cook.

That's cute.

Given, most times if I do eat it's packaged or take-out because if cooking is going to be my day job it's not going to be my personal one.

But he doesn't know that.

So I'm going with the wild card, my Tourette's.

"I don't either." I tell him, trying desperately not to stare at him.

"That's safe for you?" His dad asks, arms still crossed. "It must be easy to hurt yourself."

"Was it the bloody nose that gave it away?"

Must to my surprise, the dad chuckles before shaking his head at himself but his mom and Jasper himself look a little surprised that I joke about it.

Man, I hate people who take themselves too seriously just because they have something in their life that makes it hard.

"I want to start unpacking." Jasper announces, standing off the couch and sending me a small look that implies the 'I' in his statement should have been a 'we'. "Is that okay with you both?"

His parents agree but they spend ten more minutes getting sentimental and trying to leave as slowly as possible, making me awkwardly sit on the couch and watch as my new cute roommate users them out of our dorm.

Well, this day has been interesting.