"I don't want anything serious."
Those are the words Corpse spoke that echoed through Vanessa's mind every time she found herself driving back home from his apartment in the middle of the night with bedhead and smeared makeup. She had to constantly remind herself to not get attached to someone who wanted to remain unobtainable.
They met when a friend of a friend invited her to one of his parties. They were drawn to each other and hit it off immediately. They exchanged numbers and ended up hooking up. Corpse felt that if she wanted something more, she would have spoken up about it. But, when she came over after that, she acted as though the last time she'd seen him she wasn't screaming his name. But then they hooked up again, and it became a toxic cycle.
Corpse fell hard for her. He wanted her all to himself, but he was too afraid to be the one to introduce the idea of exclusivity in fear of rejection. So, he decided to go a roundabout way by, instead, suggesting just the opposite to get a feel for Vanessa's response.
They laid there, sheets tangled at their legs as he held her while she traced shapes on his chest, just basking in each other's company. That was the moment he told her he didn't want anything serious, and his heart was beating out of his chest. There was no lead-in. No context. He didn't really even know how to ease into it, so he didn't.
Vanessa tilted up her head as he anxiously awaited her response. She was kind of hoping he did want something more because of how effortlessly they melded together, but she should have known they were purely physical. She forced a chuckle and nodded as if it were obvious, and Corpse's heart strained at how okay she was with it.
Things continued as they were. They'd constantly text each other throughout the day and send each other memes until one of them would ask what the other was doing that night, and she'd find herself making her way over to his place.
You doing anything?
Corpse needed to see her. It killed him to be hiding how much he just wanted to spend his days with her. He wanted to devote all of his time to her. To him, she was his.
Out with friends.
Idk if I can make it tonight.
He never really thought of her much as someone who liked going out. Sure, they'd met at one of his parties, but, for some reason, he pictured her just bored at home as he was. He decided this needed to be it; he was going to tell her how he felt the next time he saw her. He wanted to be someone she made plans with, too. He wanted to be the reason she was too busy to do something with someone else.
He accepted that she may have been a little busy for him tonight, so he sat there, scrolling through Instagram as he laid on his couch. His curiosity piqued when he noticed that their mutual friend of a friend had posted some photos with her as one of the tagged handles in the description.
He smiled as it looked like they'd gone to a party thrown by someone he didn't know, all of them standing in a group in the living room, gleaming at the camera with a drink in hand.
She looked so happy.
He swiped his thumb for the next picture, his eyes narrowing when he noticed the same guy next to her as he sat on the couch and she seemingly swept in to sit on the arm rest for the picture. She was leaned onto him, an arm around his shoulders as his rested on her lap while they made funny faces.
She looked so happy.
Corpse's blood ran cold, wondering who this guy was and how close he was to Vanessa. He quickly clicked on the other tagged account, and his question was answered. There was a recent photo with her. It looked as though he was teasing her with the threat of snapping a picture. She was shyly laughing with an arm shielding her face and the other holding his hand within frame. Corpse looked at the date. Last Wednesday. Right before he'd texted her and she came over for the night.
Corpse had spent the past hour switching between that photo and back to that night's pictures of her, trying to read her body language in relation to the other man. There was a faint knock on the door, and he set down his phone on the coffee table and went to answer it.
Corpse solemnly let in Vanessa. She was a bit tipsy but still completely coherent. She found her drunken thoughts couldn't get Corpse off of her mind, and she needed to see him. As soon as he shut the door, he rushed forth and pulled her into a passionate kiss that swept her off her feet. Their lips parted, and she looked up at him, worried and wondering what had gotten into him. His hair was disheveled and eyes were red.
"Choke me," Corpse demanded with a straight face.
Vanessa was at a loss, "What?"
"Choke me like you hate me," he repeated through gritted teeth, wanting to have a reason to despise her. He wanted her to exert the same emotional pain physically to solidify that he wasn't crazy with how hurt he was. He wanted her to completely crush him in every aspect so there was some fault to her that would force him to move on.
Vanessa was frozen, feeling as though Corpse had lost it, "What are you-"
"-Who is he?" he asked, his mind racing and spurting out thoughts that sounded unrelated.
"Who?" she was baffled at his strange blabbering.
He refused to say the guy's username as he glared daggers at her. Her eyes danced around his living room, trying to figure out what he was going on about before they landed on his phone on the table, his screen lit with the picture taken of her by a friend she'd started dating a couple of weeks ago.
"You didn't want anything serious," her eyes landed back on Corpse, almost afraid of this entirely new jealousy-enraged side to him that she'd never seen before.
"I lied," he said, desperate for her to convince him there was nothing going on between her and the other man, "Vanessa, I love y-"
"-Don't even say it," she quickly interrupted him.
She'd forced herself to move on as soon as he told her he didn't want anything serious. To go back now wouldn't be fair to the other man and, surely, wouldn't be fair to her. She was already at Corpse's every whim when he was lonely because she truly cared about him, but he couldn't mess around with her feelings like this.
"Lose my number," she said bitterly before adjusting her purse strap on her shoulder and walking out the door.
A few months later, she tagged along to a party that Corpse was throwing. Things hadn't worked out with the other guy, and she decided she wouldn't let what happened between her and Corpse ruin her night.
As she was sipping on her drink while a couple of her friends caught up with each other, she looked over her shoulder, feeling a pair of eyes on her. Across the room, she met Corpse's gaze. He watched as she gave him a small smile. But, there was nothing behind it. There wasn't that passion of longing to be with him anymore.
Corpse accepted that things were over between them. He returned the smile and gave his cup a slight raise towards her and a head nod before they turned their attention back to their friends.
