That Guy: A Cautionary Memoir

Content Warning: This story contains mature themes intended for adult audiences. Reader discretion is advised. ***** The Manhood Diaries is an unfiltered secret collection of male confessions: raw, intense, and deeply personal. Told through the voices of different men, each story peels back the layers of masculinity to reveal desire, vulnerability, power, and hidden truths rarely spoken aloud. Through their experiences, the book explores manhood from within: the struggles, the secrets, the passions, and the contradictions. Bold and unapologetic, it offers a gripping look into the private worlds men live but seldom share.

Attorney Yna Reyes has built her life on discipline, logic, and control. Shaped by loss at a young age, she learned to survive without relying on anyone, becoming a respected lawyer and prosecutor who keeps her heart carefully guarded. Love, to her, is a distraction something fragile she cannot afford. Everything changes after a chance collision with Gabriel Valesquez. What begins as an unexpected encounter slowly turns into something deeper, quieter, and far more dangerous than either of them anticipated. Gabriel does not pursue Yna with grand gestures or pressure. Instead, he offers patience, honesty, and a presence that challenges the walls she has spent years building. As Yna navigates demanding cases, long nights at the firm, and the protective concern of her closest friends, she finds herself drawn into a connection she never planned to want. Meanwhile, Gabriel carries a past he has never fully confronted one that threatens to resurface just as Yna begins to open her heart. Between ambition and vulnerability, silence and longing, The Man I Should’ve Never Met is a slow burn romance about healing, restraint, and the courage it takes to choose love after learning how to survive alone.

Have you ever fallen in love with a man you should hate? Do you think it'll be wise to stick around this love, especially when it brings lots of challenges, but opens ways to new discoveries? Would it not be best to walk away, and lead a quiet life, rather than stick around this love? Disliked by her own mom, and sent away from home, Rebecca thought life would be miserable as she faces the challenges of fending for herself, but gets caught in the web of love with her boss, the same jerk she was supposed to hate. He was an arrogant, cold, and calculative rich jerk in her eyes, but he could go to any length just to secure the woman he loved. Can his love be strong enough to defend her endangered life? What if he doesn't succeed? Well, the only way to find out is by reading this book to unravel the risks and successes Rebecca had to face for loving the man she had wished to hate! 💕

I was the most notorious terror child in the entire neighborhood. Every day, I threw a tantrum and claimed a parking spot as my own. I refused to let anyone else park there. The other residents had no choice but to leave their cars on the street, where they received expensive parking tickets. I held a neighbor’s seven-year-old pet duck under water until it drowned. The duck had been worth a thousand dollars. I did it simply because I wanted to taste duck meat. In the elevator, I would cancel everyone else’s floors for fun. One day, the elevator broke down. A neighbor was trapped inside so long that they nearly suffocated. My parents were at their wits’ end. More than once, they beat me in public over my actions. They even broke down in front of everyone and cursed me. “How did I end up with such a rotten child?” “Why don’t you just die?” I thought. “But Mom, Dad, weren’t these the very things you taught me?” I lowered my head, heartbroken. “Kid, are your parents bad to you? Why don’t I find you a new mom and dad?” a tempting voice asked. I looked up at the scarred man standing in front of me. Hope flickered across my face. I nodded.

I thought surviving high school would be the hardest part of my life. I was wrong. The day my mother died, I lost everything—my family, my home, and the truth. Years later, I'm forced to move into the one place I swore I'd never return... Brinkley Estate. And the one person waiting for me there is Callum Brinkley. The boy who has hated me for as long as I can remember. Cold. Cruel. Untouchable. Living under the same roof with him is torture. But the more I try to stay away, the more impossible it becomes to ignore the secrets hidden behind his walls—and behind his eyes. Someone is watching us. Anonymous messages begin appearing. Locked rooms are suddenly unlocked. Old journals reveal impossible truths. And every clue points to a conspiracy buried for more than twenty years. The deeper we dig, the more dangerous the truth becomes. Because my mother's death wasn't an accident. She was murdered to protect a secret powerful enough to destroy generations. Now someone wants me to finish what she started... Even if it means I won't survive. In a house built on lies, where everyone has something to hide and no one can be trusted, the last person I should fall for is the boy who hates me. But what if hatred was never the whole story? What if the greatest secret inside Brinkley Estate... is the reason we were destined to meet? Some families inherit wealth. Others inherit monsters.

I was having my lunch break when someone anonymously messaged my relationship consultation account. "The system has decided that I only have seven days before my task's deadline is up. What can I do to keep my wife from dying with me before the world itself kills me?" The text continued, "Will it work if I pretend that I cheated on her to make her hate me?" The comments below were filled with mockery. "God, tell your clickbait elsewhere. You're just going to get your arse kicked here." "Geez, grow some balls and just say you want to get rid of your wife. The world's going to kill you? I swear, these scumbags are getting more creative with their excuses." I was a relationship-based content creator who had made it really big, so a bit like this was not all that strange to me at all. I sneered and answered the question, "Cheating's a total cliche. If you want to kill every bit of love she has for you, destroy the memories she holds close to her heart, deny everything she's ever done for you, and make her think she's a complete joke." I continued, "If you want her to shed not a single tear after you die, you have to drench her very soul in hatred." The guy answered immediately, "Thank you. It's going to break my heart, but I'll have to do this." When I got home that night, my husband, who thought of me as his whole world, tossed our photo album into a brazier. That album had been with us for 10 years, and it was a record of our romantic moments. I stared at his face, but his expression was colder than any winter wind, and my heart nearly stopped beating right then and there.