Prologue

The walls were too white, and the hum of the fluorescent light pressed into the back of my skull like a headache that wouldn't leave. I kept my eyes on the clock above the door, watching the second hand jerk forward, anything to avoid looking at her.

 

The therapist sat across from me, leg crossed over the other. Her pen hovered, motionless above a yellow notepad. 

"Start wherever you can," she broke the silence. "There's no wrong place to begin."

I stared at the faint grooves where her wedding band had worn into her skin. And the slight tremor when she flexed her fingers. 

And still, I couldn't speak.

The words were there, but my throat had other ideas. It locked up, and I could hear my own pulse pounding in my ears. I tried anyway, opening my mouth once, twice... nothing. Just a soundless exhale that made the corner of her mouth lift in understanding.

I wanted to laugh. Really, I did.

What she had in front of her wasn't a girl, not really. Just fragments glued together by habit. I tugged on the sleeve of my hoodie, twisting the fabric until my knuckles turned white. 

"I don't..." My voice cracked. I coughed. Tried again. "I don't know where to begin."

She nodded like she'd heard that a hundred times before. 

Silence stretched out again. I wanted her to say something... anything, but she just watched. In that silence, the memories rushed in. 

And when the words finally came, they tore their way free.

It began the way everyone swears it always does.

With a warning.

They always warn you about boys like him.

With voices that drip smoke and eyes that cut through your skin like they've known you in every lifetime before this one.

Society slaps labels on them, "dangerous," "toxic," "bad news," and wraps the warnings in well-meaning smiles.

"Stay away," they say. "Protect your innocence! Don't play with fire if you're not ready to burn."

But what they don't tell you...is how intoxicating the fire can be or how it doesn't come at you like a roaring blaze.

No.

It flickers in shadows, finds you in your loneliness, boredom, and hunger to feel something real. It curls around your ankles like smoke under a locked door. And by the time you realize the room is on fire, it's too late.

Boys like him don't storm in and tear down walls. They don't announce themselves with alarms or warnings. They slide into your DMs around 2:07 a.m. with something borderline stupid enough to make you roll your eyes. You should ignore it and go to bed.

But you don't.

You stare at the message longer than you mean to. Type. Delete. Type again. Pretend you're annoyed, but your heart's already racing like it knows something your brain hasn't caught up to yet.

And slowly, you become a moth to a flame that looks like comfort. Sounds like late-night phone calls that stretch into sunrise. It feels like someone is finally seeing you and speaking to the parts of you no one else ever bothered to reach.

He wasn't just a boy....he was an eclipse.

The kind that blocks out every last sliver of light, until all you can see is him.

His grin that dared you to destroy yourself, hands that felt like both salvation and shackles, and his words, carved so carefully they made you question if you'd ever existed before him.

The first time I saw Lloyd, I didn't think oh no, danger.

There weren't any sirens, and gut instincts screaming run. My thoughts unfolded like this. 

Don't be stupid.

Then, Jesus, he's hot. Look away before he catches you staring.

But he noticed.

That was the thing about Lloyd.

He noticed everything, and once his eyes found mine, that was it, game over.

He wasn't just attractive. That would've been easy to dodge.

He was gravitational.

The kind of person who pulled you in without trying. He had a calm, effortless swagger, like the world would bend if he asked it to.

Six foot three, Light-skinned. Hoodie sleeves pushed up to reveal veined forearms. Built like he lived in the gym, but never made it his personality. And that face, pretty-boy features with a dirty mouth. Brown eyes like molasses when calm, and whiskey when they weren't.

And trust me, they weren't always.

He was a walking contradiction.

Soft voice. Hard stare.

Easy laugh. Impossible past.

A computer genius with fingers made for keys and a mind that never stopped. A basketball player with a shot so clean it made people go quiet, but he never cared who was watching. He was all of these things, and somehow, none of them. Like he kept the real pieces of himself locked behind glass.

I fell in fascination, like watching something beautiful, you know, you shouldn't touch. Then it morphed into obsession and hunger. Not just physical, though there was that too. It was deeper. A craving for his attention and the way he made me forget I hated small talk, and how to breathe when he said my name like it meant something.

I thought I could handle him, flirt with the devil, and walk away with my halo slightly bent, nothing more.

But he was a storm in disguise, and I was the fool who danced in the eye of it, thinking I was safe. I told myself I was smarter than the others, stronger, and more self-aware. That he ruined other girls, but not me.

I was dead wrong!

I didn't notice myself slipping until I started seeing the world through his eyes. He rewrote my reality, slowly and carefully, until the girl I used to be became a ghost I couldn't summon.

Every time I tried to leave, he gave me just enough to make me stay. A gentle touch after a cruel word, a promise dressed up in pain, and a kiss that felt like drowning in honey and lava all at once.

Every time he cheated, I told myself it was the last time. I'd sit on the floor, phone in my lap, staring at screenshots I never asked to see. Trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest. Still, I found ways to blame myself.

Maybe I wasn't enough.

Maybe I was too clingy, emotional. Too... something.

Every time he gaslit me, I believed I was the problem.

And every time he pulled me back in with soft words, hard sex, and promises that tasted like hope... I stayed.

He became the center of my world, and I became the shadows around him.

Until one day, I woke up on the floor of my apartment, surrounded by shattered plates I didn't remember throwing. Neighbors whispering through the door, afraid to knock. I couldn't stop shaking and screaming. Everything hurt, and nothing made sense.

They called it a psychotic episode.

I call it what it truly was.

Possession.

Because someone like Lloyd doesn't fall in love. He invades, infiltrates, and infects.

And now?

Now I sit behind padded walls, staring at the ceiling, wondering how love, or whatever that was, could end like this.