Ugly Love
"It's not exactly love at first sight for Tate Collins when she meets the tormented and secretive Miles Archer. They wouldn't even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is a mutual physical attraction that can't be denied. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they might have stumbled on the perfect no-strings arrangement. He isn't looking for love, and she doesn't have time for it-so that leaves just the sex. What they've got could be surprisingly satisfying, as long as Tate can stick to the two rules Miles has for her: never ask about the past; don't expect a future."
Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover is the most painful thing I have read in a very long time. The scenario in this novel is one of the most cited reasons for never pursuing the friends with benefits arrangement; someone is bound to get hurt.
What starts as something physical and presumably simple gradually plunges into something incredibly complex and-true to the name-ugly. The red flags pile up as Tate continues to look the other way. Is Miles really as tortured as he sometimes lets on, or is he simply heartless? She is thrown between these two beliefs as she tries to deny her mounting feelings for him. It reminds me of the one and only time I have pursued a similar arrangement, and the visceral description of the feeling of being incredibly disposable to someone is gut-wrenching. It brings me back to a much younger version of myself that believed she had the power to wait out the brooding nature of a self-imposed tortured boy. It is a recipe for destruction, bound at the seams with incredible infatuation and sex.
I wish I had read something like this when I was younger, conclusions aside.