Love or Hate

She watches him pick his shirt up off the floor and slip it on over his head, hiding the perfect tattoos covering his body. He glances at her, sweaty and curled up in a ball with a pained look on her face.
"See you later, Serafina," he says before leaving without a backwards glance.
Serafina sighs and curls up tighter as her chest begins to ache and feel empty. Why does she allow him to treat her this way? All she is is a good fuck and she knows it. It's not like Chase was exclusive. He has this whole "no-attachments" thing going on and while that was fine, it meant Sera got hurt more easily. She wasn't like that; she couldn't just bottle up her feelings for somebody and pretend they didn't exist. She should leave him, that would be the smart thing to do, but, as much as she hates him, she craves him because only Chase can make her feel alive, only he can make her chest not ache with a feeling of emptiness and worthlessness.
She leans over and turns on the radio, the silence Chase left becoming too much to handle, she was starting to think too much and thinking is never a good things after being with him. A commercial for vodka comes on before switching to a song about two lovers who died because neither one could confess their feelings and tried to hide behind other people.
Serafina cries, she only allows herself to cry after being with Chase. She doesn't ever want to show weakness and Chase made her feel very weak. She knows she's just a notch in his bedpost. She's seen him, with his arm wrapped around the arm of a blonde girl, whispering things in her ear and making her giggle and blush.
Which is why Sera questions why he takes the time to see her. She isn't blonde, she isn't pretty, she isn't a model or something amazing like that. She's just...Sera. Black hair, short, thin, and a barista.
Even though Chase sleeps around, he's made it very clear that if he finds Sera doing it, he will not be happy and he will leave her. If he leaves her, then the hole in her chest will become too unbearable and she doesn't know how she would survive; he knows this and that's how he controls her.
When Chase is happy, Sera is happy. When Chase is mad, then she's miserable and spends her days crying and clutching her chest where the dull ache is there, pounding away at everything she has left.

Making a decision she should've made a long time ago, she slips out of bed and pads to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of alcohol and a piece of thin metal. She takes a sip and relaxes as the warmth of vodka slides into her body. Russians drank vodka to keep warm in the winter. Sera drank vodka because she was empty and needed to feel alive.
That's where that piece of metal came in.
She will finally be free of having to love and hate...

Chase was anxious; bouncing on the balls of his feet while the lady went to get his package. He was doing the one thing he vowed never to do: fall in love. When he first met Serafina, he didn't think anything of her, she was a good lay and Chase was okay with that. He doesn't like becoming attached. Sera was exactly what he needed.
But, somehow, along the way, it changed. He changed.
He saw the way she looked at him, like he made her feel like the only woman on earth and when he saw her one night with another guy, he was enraged.
He told her that she couldn't sleep with anyone else, she was his and his alone. He didn't want anyone else to have her. She was his toy, only he could unwrap her and relish in her beauty.
After that, Chase hid his feelings behind other women, afraid of what she was doing to him. He tried to stay away from her, but he couldn't, he couldn't bear the thought of her going behind his back when he wasn't around and so, he found himself on her doorstep.
And that's why, he's giving her a diamond necklace and a promise to try harder. He wanted to spend forever with her, no one has ever made Chase this vulnerable and unsure of himself.
His phone buzzes and he sees its a text from Serafina.
Finally, I am free.
Puzzled, he tries to call her, only for it to go to voicemail. He shakes his head and doesn't think anything of it, she does strange things like this sometimes. The sales lady comes back with his gift for Serafina and he pays for it before heading home to get changed in something nicer then work clothes. Not that his work clothes aren't nice; he just wanted to make an effort for Sera.

She feels free, she's free from hurt, she's from pain, she's free from having to love Chase. Her blood is staining the carpet, but it's okay because she won't have to worry about it anymore; she sent a text to Chase, she hopes he understands that it was for the best. The wounds are deep and she won't be alive must longer because she'll bleed to death. With her last bit of strength, she picks up the still-full bottle and pours it over her body, her screams dying out with her heart.

What is this woman doing to me? Chase shakes his head as he walks into his home and heads upstairs to take a shower, wishing for Sera to be there, filling his home with his sweet scent.
No! She is just a toy! She is nothing to me! He chastises himself.
He pauses, halfway to his bedroom, If she was nothing, then why did I buy her a bracelet and why am I going to such efforts to please her?
Chase realises that this is what love feels like, this is what his parents lacked enough to make him swear off relationships and giving his heart to someone. All his life he was a player and he was perfectly content with it. There was no one to hurt him and he didn't have to have expectations. There was only lust.
There was only sex.
Except Sera kept him coming back, something he never normally does. He made her become exclusive to him and him only because he couldn't stand anyone else but him having her.

She wasn't answering her door. Chase's been standing outside for twenty minutes, luckily he has a spare key. She probably fell asleep, he reasons as he opens the door. He calls out for her as he walks about the apartment. He can hear a song playing in her room, a sone about losing the one you loved. He knocks on the door and opens it, seeing Serafina on the floor covered in blood and smelling strongly of vodka. He cries and cradles her head in his lap, her lifeless eyes staring up at him, her black hair splayed out like a beautiful silk curtain. His Sera left him. How could she leave him?
He calls her name, hoping to rouse her from a slumber he hopes she's in. He kisses her pale lips, wanting to make them soft and warm with life.
His love, his hate, was gone.
Finally, I am free.