Boys Like Him
She loved him until she lost herself.
Now, behind locked doors and shattered glass, she must learn to breathe again.
When she first met Lloyd, he was magnetic and intoxicating. The kind of man who turned every head when he entered a room, who spoke in promises sweet enough to taste. With him, she felt chosen, cherished, and safe.
But safety was an illusion, and love became a weapon.
And slowly, piece by piece, he dismantled her until nothing of the woman she once was remained.
Now institutionalized after a breakdown, she begins to piece together the brutal truth of what really happened in the shadows of their love story. Memories sting like open wounds: the manipulation disguised as tenderness, the apologies that blurred into threats, the desperate hope that tomorrow he'd be the man she fell for again.
Yet beneath the grief and the shame, a quiet rebellion stirs, a vow to reclaim her voice, her freedom, and her life. Because this is not just a story of how she fell apart. It is a story of how she rises.
Haunting, raw, and achingly intimate, Boys like him peels back the glittering mask of a toxic love affair to reveal the kind of darkness that hides in plain sight, and the unbreakable strength it takes to escape it.
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Chapter 6
I balanced my tote on my hip as I fished for my keys, pretending not to notice the light spilling faintly from his balcony.
The lock clicked open with a soft thud, and I slipped inside, exhaling like I'd been holding my breath the whole bus ride home.
I dropped my bag, changed into shorts and an oversized shirt, and started dinner. Nothing fancy, leftover rice, an egg, soy sauce, and sesame oil.
The steam fogged my glasses as I leaned over the stove. Somewhere above, faint footsteps crossed the ceiling. Someone laughed, and it made me pause with the spatula midair.
Lloyd.
The realization hit like static against my skin.
I tried to shake it off and focus on plating my food, but the sound had already settled under my ribs. I sat down, scrolled through my phone to distract myself, messages from Mariah, a meme she said "looked like me on caffeine withdrawal." I smiled weakly and sent a quick reply, pretending my hands weren't trembling.
But when another burst of laughter echoed through the wall, deeper this time, accompanied by another voice, female, light, and tinkling, I froze.
There was nothing explicit about it. It was just laughter. But something about it burrowed deep.
I set my fork down and stared at the wall, suddenly very aware of the tight, unfamiliar ache that curled low in my stomach.
Why does it bother you? I asked myself.
He's just your neighbor. He doesn't matter.
But my brain was a liar when it came to him.
I finished dinner in silence and took the plate to the sink, rinsed it twice, and then once more, because the first two didn't feel enough.
By ten, the laughter had stopped. I told myself that was good, that the quiet was what I wanted, but it didn't feel like relief.
I went through my nightly checklist anyway. I brushed my teeth and turned on the fan for white noise.
I flipped onto my side, glaring at the ceiling like it was his fault my body had apparently decided to rewrite its entire chemistry overnight because his voice wouldn't stop haunting me.
Not the words, those were forgettable, but the texture of them. The way they scraped down my spine like velvet dragged the wrong way.
I kicked off the blanket, pulled it back up, then kicked it again. The room felt too warm, and the air too heavy. I could smell my own shampoo, that faint vanilla clinging to the pillowcase, and it only made me more aware of myself, my pulse, the slick heat on my neck, the ridiculous tremor running through me.
Get a grip, Nyelle.
He's just a guy. A loud, cocky, probably insufferable guy.
But my traitor of a brain replayed the slope of his smile anyway, the one that looked carved rather than earned. I shut my eyes and tried to erase it. Instead, his laughter threaded through the dark like a song I didn't ask for, curling into the hollow behind my ribs.
The ache built until it was almost physical, and panic hit.
I sat up fast, heart hammering, throat dry. My body was acting like it had been... triggered by something, and I hated it, the way it refused to listen to reason. I buried my face in my hands, trying to breathe the heat out.
When that didn't work, I grabbed my phone. If I couldn't stop thinking about him, maybe I could neutralize him, find some proof that he was just another self-absorbed guy, nothing more. Something to ruin the illusion.
I opened Instagram. Typed his name. Deleted it. Typed again. The search bar blinked at me like it was in on the joke.
There were hundreds of Lloyds, millions, even, and still, somehow, I knew I'd find him. My thumb hovered before adding our campus name. A small, stupid hope whispered that maybe he wasn't online, and that maybe this obsession was just mine to carry.
The screen refreshed. And there he was.
Top of the list. Verified. Every inch of him was exactly as magnetic as memory made him. @lloyd.Luxen, 200k followers, athlete, basketball highlight reels, a grin that screamed I know I'm trouble. His bio read:
🏀 "Not everything needs to be figured out."
Of course it didn't. Guys like him never had to figure things out, the world just bent to their rhythm.
The first photo stopped me cold, him mid-air, jersey clinging, and the entire court blurred beneath his leap. The next was a grin, with his teeth flashing, and arms spread as if he owned gravity itself. Another was a close-up, sweat catching the light on his throat.
I wasn't into sports. I didn't even know the difference between a dunk and a lay-up, yet I scrolled like I'd been starving for this. Each image was a pulse of color and motion that made something inside me tighten.
Crowds, teammates, trophy shots. The comments section was an avalanche of heart emojis and drooling faces. Apparently, the entire campus already belonged to him.
I should've stopped there. I told myself I would. And then my thumb slipped, followed immediately by a soft click, and the tiny blue checkmark turned solid.
Following.
It took a heartbeat for the horror to register. My stomach dropped through the mattress.
"No, no, no..."
I scrambled, unfollowed instantly, praying he hadn't seen the notification, praying the algorithm would be merciful. My pulse was so loud it drowned out the room. I stared at the phone like it was a live wire, cheeks burning hot enough to light the air.
How did it come to this?
A single class, a handful of words, and now I was the kind of girl who stalked a man she barely knew.
I dropped the phone facedown and lay there, motionless, half hoping the ceiling would cave in and bury me before morning. But even then, the thought of him wouldn't fade. It pulsed quietly under my embarrassment. A notification blinked at the top of my screen.
Lloyd Luxen has sent you a message.
My pulse stopped.
You stalking me, neighbor? 👀
I dropped the phone. Literally. It hit the carpet with a dull thud while I stared at it like it had grown teeth. I picked it back up.
Oh my god, no 😭 I followed you by accident.
There! Perfect, casual, and totally believable. Except that the typing bubble appeared instantly.
lol sure, you "accidentally" searched my full name and followed me? That's dedication
🙄 Don't flatter yourself. I texted back.
Who says I need to?
You really are full of yourself, huh,
just confident. There's a difference.
right. confident enough to DM strangers in the middle of the night?
You're not a stranger. You're the girl from across the hall who doesn't wear a shirt in 90-degree heat.
I choked.
I literally choked on air.
The audacity! The nerve! The fact that my face was on fire!
That's not... I was unpacking. It was hot. The air conditioning was broken.
mmm excuses.
You're insufferable.
And yet you're still replying.
I wanted to hurl my phone across the room. I also wanted to keep reading whatever came next.
He didn't text again for a few seconds, long enough for me to think it was over.
So what's your favorite pie? His text popped up again.
My fingers hovered. This again?
cherry. why?
noted.
noted for what??
You'll see.
And then he went offline. Just like that.
No goodbye, emoji, or explanation.
I stared at the empty chat box, heart still hammering, a weird little ache building in my stomach.
The logical part of me screamed to stop. To block him, erase the conversation and the heat pooling low in my abdomen.
But the part of me that had felt invisible for years, that part leaned into the screen light and read the last message again. You'll see.
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7.7
Not only was I drugged, blinded and assaulted. I was deceived into carrying a baby by a stranger I never knew. Then he appeared and took my child away.
I was sent to a militia by the father of my child. I thought I was rescued but I was recruited to be a weapon for killing. Who was manipulating me, I didn't know. The answers were far from what I knew.
Forced to blend into the world that I could never believe I would be to, a place where brutality reigned, kill or be killed was the only language. I have survived but he has to pay for everything he did to me, because I believed every phase of my life was set by him and him alone. Have I really survived?
Who would have thought, he existed twice in the same world? Do I really know who I should take revenge on? Him or the person I would sacrifice everything for?
Was my mother the one who orchestrated everything? What kind of pawn am I?
8.0
Scarlett Hayes thought marrying James Whitmore would finally make her family see her as more than a burden.
Instead, it destroyed her life.
Framed for crimes she didn't commit, betrayed by the people she trusted most, and sentenced to prison while pregnant, Scarlett lost everything in a single night.
Then came the cruelest blow of all.
After giving birth in chains, she was told her baby had died.
The people responsible believed she would spend the rest of her life rotting behind bars.
They were wrong.
Five years later, Scarlett returns.
No longer the discarded daughter of the Hayes family. No longer the broken woman they left behind.
Now she is Commander Scarlett Hayes-a decorated war hero, the unseen force behind a global intelligence empire, and a woman powerful enough to make governments tremble.
She comes back for one reason only: revenge.
Her ex-husband, the stepsister who stole her life, and the family who buried her alive are about to learn exactly what happens when a woman with nothing left to lose takes back everything they stole.
But as Scarlett tears through the secrets of her past, one truth threatens to change everything-
the child she mourned for years may not be dead.
And the mysterious man connected to the night that changed her life has been watching from the shadows all along.
9.6
She was sold as a broodmare. He was a warrior with no memory. Together, they'll burn down the world.
Lyra has been called many things: half-blood, mongrel, dirty blood. Rejected by every pack she's approached, she's given one final chance-as a bride to Ronan, the cruel Alpha of Red River Pack. But when her wedding night becomes a nightmare, she stabs her new husband and flees into the frozen wilderness.
Stellan remembers nothing. Not his name, not his past, not the ancient tattoos covering his body. He only knows that when he sees a terrified woman falling from a cliff into an icy river, he must save her-even if it kills him.
On the run from a vengeful Alpha and his army of hunters, Lyra and Stellan discover an impossible bond growing between them. The moon has chosen them as mates. But Stellan's memories are returning, and with them, a devastating truth: he's not just any wolf. He's the Alpha of the North Star Pack. And a half-blood can never be his Luna.
Now Ronan's brother has sworn revenge, an ancient prophecy awakens, and three packs prepare for war. Lyra must prove that bloodlines mean nothing-and that the most powerful bond of all is forged in ice and fire.
He lost his memory. She lost her freedom. Together, they'll find everything.
7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
9.5
One night, I was a girl seeking vengeance in a velvet mask. He was the stranger who took me against a cold stone wall, his touch a silent, lethal promise.
Now, he is Caspian Blackwood-the most feared architecture professor at Aethelgard. When my "perfect" boyfriend, Dominic Calloway, cheats on me and sabotages my degree, Caspian offers a lifeline with a razor-thin edge: Be his silent, nude model for thirty days.
The rules are absolute. I must wear a silk mask and a weighted collar. I must never speak. I must hold the poses he demands until my muscles scream for mercy. In the lecture hall, he ignores me with arctic indifference. In the studio, his gaze is a physical weight, stripping me faster than his hands ever could. But as the charcoal scratches against the paper, I realize the "deal" isn't just for art. It's for the soul I accidentally gave him in the dark. Will the deal destroy his career, or consume me first?
8.2
In our beast world, females are treated as nothing more than precious breeding stock to keep the pack strong. As the pack's best Mender, I spent all my time focusing on my healing herbs, completely ignoring my maturity ritual.
But tonight, the blind pack elder grabbed my wrist and delivered a chilling ultimatum.
If I don't choose my mates by the next Full Moon, the Council of Elders will force a match and assign them to me.
The threat is already suffocating. Arrogant, elite warriors like Caleb Quinn are pacing outside my door like starving wolves, stalking my porch and using pack business to corner me. At home, the reality of multiple mates is even worse. My mother has two mates—my father, the strongest Alpha, and my cold, intellectual step-father. Their toxic, murderous jealousy turns our house into a daily war zone. They literally unleash suffocating killing intent on innocent cubs just for hugging my mother.
I am disgusted by this sick, possessive obsession. I refuse to let my life become a battlefield of jealous males fighting over who gets to guard my door, and I absolutely refuse to be forced into a harem by the Elders.
So, I made a declaration that shocked my entire family and broke every pack tradition.
"I will only ever take one mate."
And to make sure none of those predatory warriors can touch me, I set an impossible trap.
"Whoever wants me must defeat my father first."