ROSÉ -corpse husband-

CHEATER (13)

WARNING: None of the information given in this chapter regarding real life content creators is true. It is for the story. Please don't make it something it is not. This chapter does contain mentions of cheating, consensual sexual relations, and mental illness.

Corpse was back online, and he was hating every second of it.

"Rachel," he groaned, hand wiping down his face roughly. "I fucking hate this."

"Corpse, just get it done! It'll be done and over with, and you won't have to worry about it anymore," she tried to encourage him, but Corpse could hear her typing quickly on her keyboard over the phone.

Rae was blowing up even more than she already had been. Now, with more brand deals as a co-owner of 100thieves, and more meetings to attend, her attention was never fully on him. He felt selfish for wanting more from her, or wanting anything at all.

Corpse had a bad habit of attaching himself to motherly, nurturing women. He was vocal about it, and often got called out for it, but he simply didn't care. He wasn't naive to his mommy issues, and he was perfectly willing to talk about them.

He struggled with Rae, though. Rae was one of his closest friends, and he didn't want to lose her friendship over him being needy. They worked so well together as friends because of how hard they worked behind the scenes. Corpse worked as a distraction, and as a way to validate himself. Rae was already validated. She worked because she genuinely loved what she was doing. Corpse was constantly inspired by her.

He sighed, finally beginning to type out his email to another declined music label offer. They worked in silence, the sound of the clicking keyboard filling enough of the noise.

Corpse wished so badly he could force himself to see Rae, in person, in all of her glory. He trusted her more than anyone else, but he also knew she would be disappointed. She had such a concrete image of what she thought he looked like in her head and he would never be able to live up to that. Corpse despised that part of being faceless.

"Have you spoken to Eden recently?" Rae asked hesitantly once she heard the typing cease.

"Not since she stopped by when I was offline. She hung out here for awhile, we watched movies. Nothing happened," Corpse explained. "She said something?"

"No, not really..."

Corpse didn't want to dig himself too deep into a hole. He had already fucked up by having sex with her, and they hadn't really figured out what they were. Corpse knew he loved Eden, but he was unsure if he would ever love her the same way he had before. Eden was a lot to handle. She had a lot of work to do, in her career and in her own mental health.

He didn't necessarily want to know, or care, about Eden's opinion of him.

"What did she say?" he asked anyways. He was an idiot.

"Nothing, really. I was just wondering," Rae said quickly. Corpse stayed silent, knowing if he waited long enough, Rae would spill anyway. She wasn't too good about keeping secrets from him. "Well, she just mentioned more details about why you two broke up. Stuff you didn't tell me about," she said hesitantly, like she was nervous how he would respond.

"Well, yeah, I didn't really talk about everything... there was a lot going on at the time, I kinda forgot a lot," Corpse rationalized, not necessarily understanding what Rae was getting at.

"You never told me you cheated on her."

Corpse heart felt like it stopped for a split second, before he immediately felt defensive. "Woah, woah, that's not at all what happened," he defended.

"With Loey Lane," Rae continued.

Corpse groaned. "I didn't cheat on her. Eden and I had been broken up for like two months when I started talking to Loey."

"But you've been friends with her for a long time?" Corpse wished he could see Rae's face, imagining her eyebrows furrowed her confusion, her pushing her clear framed glasses higher up on her nose.

"I have. But Eden was friends with Loey too. Loey was already in Georgia when I started flirting with her. We weren't even a couple," Corpse tried to explain, but still wanting to keep some of the situation private. It wasn't exactly his brightest moment. "Loey is one of my best friends and probably always will be. We thought it could work after I broke up with Eden, but I realized quickly I was using her as my rebound, and I didn't want to do that, so I stopped."

"But you were still with Eden?" Rae asked.

"No... I mean, yes, kinda. Eden lived with me still. We were still.... ya know.... but Loey and I would like.... Rae, I don't want to talk about this," Corpse groaned. His memory was horrible, and he couldn't exactly remember all of what happened. Regardless, he was ashamed of how he had treated women he cared so deeply about. "I know I didn't cheat on Eden, though."

"She seems to think otherwise, Corpse," Rae said harshly, nearly snapping at him.

"She only thinks otherwise because I was fucking her while also flirting with another woman. We weren't together anymore," Corpse snapped back defensively. He sighed. "Why did you bring this up anyway? I already feel like shit about it. I apologized to Eden a long time ago. I didn't realize it would still come up in conversation."

"She just seemed upset and I wanted to talk to you about why you would do something like that. You didn't seem the type to cheat," Rae explained, soundly calmer now.

Corpse just hummed in response, still slightly pissed. He didn't enjoy becoming more aware of his feelings about particular situations, this being one of them.

They finished their work on call together, before Rae said she was having dinner with her roommates before she had to stream. Corpse wished her a good stream, promising he would watch, before hanging up knowing he needed to find something of his own to eat.

Opting for sushi, he put in his regular order from a local restaurant, and called Eden.

She answered after the fourth ring. "Hey, are you okay?" she immediately said, sounding concerned.

"Yeah, yeah. Wanna come over? I ordered sushi," he invited.

Eden agreed, promising she would be heading his way soon before hanging up.

Corpse sighed. He knew they had to talk now.