WhoIsTheRealBoyfriend

My girlfriend was just put on blast by a movie star in a tell-all post on Twitter.
It came with a video. Her, on my arm, walking into a hotel and not leaving until the early hours of the morning.
The post, from A-list heartthrob Aiden Vance, was a public breakup announcement: 【Yasmine, I never thought you were this kind of person.】
The evidence was undeniable. The topic started trending instantly.
“Damn, Aiden Vance doesn’t pull punches!”
“Wait, when did they even start dating?”
“This is a shame, I was actually starting to ship them…”
“Is anyone else wondering who the guy in the video is?”
I put down my phone, the sheer absurdity of it all washing over me.
Yasmine and I were childhood sweethearts. We’d been together for eight years. And now, Aiden Vance was her official boyfriend?
So where does that leave me?

1
Less than twelve hours after Aiden’s post branded Yasmine a cheater, my personal information was doxxed and plastered all over the internet.
Paparazzi camped outside my office building. My phone was flooded with an endless stream of harassing texts. The lies and vitriol wove a suffocating net around me, threatening to drown me.
I hid in the office bathroom, calling Yasmine over and over. She never picked up.
Desperate, I tried to set the record straight online.
“So you’re saying Aiden Vance is the other man? Are you kidding me?”
“Spoken like a true homewrecker. The nerve to come out and play the victim.”
As a private citizen, my social media had no reach. The few comments I got were all from his fans, accusing me of trying to flip the script. The attacks intensified. Within a day, I had become the internet’s most hated “other man.”
I took a deep breath, about to message HR to request time off, but a notification from them beat me to it:
“Leo, your personal conduct has become a significant disruption to the company. Please take some time off to handle your private affairs before returning to work.”
Just “take some time off”? I’d been in the corporate world long enough to know what that really meant.
My phone buzzed again.
“Don’t do anything. Wait for my people to pick you up.”
It was Yasmine.
My mind involuntarily replayed the details from Aiden’s post—the story of how they met, how they fell in love. A sharp pang of something cold and sharp pierced my heart. I stared at her text for a few seconds. I decided to trust her one last time. At the very least, I needed to hear an explanation from her, face to face.
Escorted by a few of her staff, I was bundled into Yasmine’s private car. She wasn’t inside. Her manager, a woman with a perpetually cold expression, glanced at me. “You’ll be staying at a hotel we’ve arranged for a few days. Wait for Yasmine to contact you.”
I didn’t answer, just watched the city blur past the window, my thumb unconsciously rubbing the watch on my wrist.
“Yasmine has a watch just like that one,” her manager said suddenly. “You two have been together for almost eight years, haven’t you?” Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “Every Valentine’s Day, she’d custom order a matching pair from overseas. She really did care about you.”
I froze, my mind drifting.
There was a reason Yasmine and I both wore watches.
Growing up, we were the neighborhood outcasts. Her mother had run off with another man, abandoning her. Her father was an alcoholic who beat her, once so badly she ended up in the hospital. As for me, I had no parents. I was raised by my grandfather, who suffered from dementia.
Whenever the other kids pointed at me and jeered, “The psycho’s grandson is a psycho too!” Yasmine would be the one to step in front of me, her small fists flying.
Driven by a desperate need to escape, we were the two smartest kids in the neighborhood, the ones who studied the hardest.
One day, I was sick with a fever. My grandfather, making me porridge, forgot to turn off the gas stove. The kitchen caught fire. Luckily, Yasmine had come over to do homework and saw the smoke. She calmly ran for help, and they put the fire out.
But not before both of our wrists were badly burned, leaving scars we’d carry forever.
When we first got together, we were broke. But for our first Valentine’s Day, she used money she’d saved for months from a part-time job to buy us a pair of matching watches.
That night, she’d rested her head on my shoulder, her warm, humid breath ghosting over my neck. “Leo,” she’d whispered, “I swear I’m going to give us a good life.”
And she did. She was discovered by a casting agent, and her first TV show was a massive hit. She became a star overnight.
Every Valentine’s Day after that, she’d give me a new watch to match hers.
But this year, she didn’t.
This year, she didn’t even spend Valentine’s Day with me. I had cooked a huge dinner and waited for her all night.
Where was she?
According to Aiden Vance’s post, Valentine’s Day was the wrap party for their show. While everyone else was celebrating, the two of them had slipped away. They’d walked the streets like a normal couple, gone to an amusement park. At the very top of the Ferris wheel, Yasmine, her face hidden by a mask, had leaned in and tentatively kissed him.
He had pulled both their masks off and, smiling, kissed her back.
I stayed in that hotel room for two days. I forced myself not to look at social media, not to contact anyone.
On the third day, Yasmine finally showed up.
The fever had returned. I was leaning against the doorframe, getting a glass of water, when I looked up and met her dark, intense eyes. She was thinner, which made her look even more fragile. Dressed in all black, she stood there like a statue carved from ice.
I slumped against the door, feeling weak. It suddenly occurred to me that today was our eighth anniversary.
Last year, on our seventh, Yasmine had a break from filming. We were supposed to go on a trip to the coast. But when we got to the airport, we were swarmed by paparazzi. In the ensuing chaos, it was another actor, who just happened to be there, who "saved" us.
“Why is he at the airport with Yasmine?”
“Didn’t he publicly confess his crush on her last month? Are they really together?”
The reporters surged forward, shoving me out of the way to surround him and Yasmine, their camera flashes blinding. The other actor, a master at fanning the flames of shipping rumors, saw his chance. He smiled and said, “The show’s on hiatus. We’re just celebrating together.”
When Yasmine didn’t object, he leaned in closer, a calculated gesture of intimacy. Yasmine looked up at him, a soft smile on her lips, her eyes so tender they looked like they were melting. The airport erupted in cheers. But then, she turned and looked in my direction, her eyes filled with apology.
That night, the top trending topics were all about her and the other actor. And me? I wanted to post a gallery of our vacation photos, but I didn’t even dare to tag the location, terrified that someone would trace it back to me and cause problems for her.
Later that night, she held me, her voice thick with guilt, her cheek pressed against my chest. “Just a little longer, Leo. I promise. Next year, on our anniversary, I’ll tell everyone that you’re my boyfriend.”
My thoughts snapped back to the present. I was about to say something when her manager appeared from behind her and frisked me from head to toe. Only after confirming I wasn't wearing a wire did she leave.
"Were you afraid I was recording this?"
Yasmine just smiled, as if nothing was wrong. "Leo, I've missed you."
I felt a strange, bitter laugh bubble up inside me. I was so confused.
After that anniversary, I saw her less and less. She was always busy filming, doing press tours. I told myself I had to be understanding.
One day, I was so lonely I posted a vague complaint on my private social media about wishing I had someone with me. I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to see her standing over me. She had seen my post and had taken the red-eye from the set just to be with me.
When I opened the door and saw her, I was so happy I just started kissing her, messy and desperate. She laughed, her arms wrapping lightly around my neck. "I missed you too. Every part of me missed you."
By the end, I was clinging to her like a dying fish gasping for water.
She had an early call time the next day and left before dawn. I stood in the empty apartment, watching her disappear down the street, feeling hollow. Then I noticed she’d left her suitcase.
Inside, it was filled with all my favorite snacks. And at the very bottom was a photograph. An autographed picture of my favorite theater actor. I remembered reading a post from one of her fan accounts that she had turned down several jobs to study theater for three months.
It had been for me.
Even later, when the rumors about her and Aiden Vance were everywhere, I chose to believe her.
I truly didn't understand how we had ended up here.
"That Twitter post. Aiden Vance. Aren't you going to explain?"
"Explain what?"
"All those news articles saying you two fell in love on set. I never doubted you. You said it was just for publicity, and I believed you."
"But now?"
"If you fell for him, you could have just told me. We could have broken up. Why did you have to lie to me?" My voice was rising. "Cheating on me behind my back with another man—was it a thrill? Did it make you feel powerful?"
"Why would you put me in this position?"
Yasmine just stared at me, silent.
"Do you have any idea what I've been through these past few days? Do you know what people are saying about me online?" My throat felt raw. The next words were poison on my tongue. "Yasmine, some of that 'dirt' on me... you were the one who leaked it, weren't you?"
Her expression hardened, but her voice remained calm. "Leo, it's not what you think."
I looked at her, at a loss for words. This was the same Yasmine who would have fought anyone who said a single bad word about me. Now, faced with a torrent of vile abuse directed at me, she stood by and did nothing. Worse, she had added fuel to the fire. By throwing me to the wolves, her team had bought themselves enough time to handle the PR crisis.
Looking at the woman in front of me, an overwhelming exhaustion washed over me. I didn't want to fight anymore. "Yasmine, let's break up."
"I don't agree." She grabbed my hand, reaching for my face. I jerked away.
"About Aiden..." She paused, as if searching for the right words, and bit her lip in frustration. It took her a moment to continue. "After that fire when we were kids, I've always been afraid of explosions. There was a scene in the movie with pyrotechnics, and I just couldn't get into character. He was the one who kept encouraging me."
"Our characters in the film had this incredibly intense, complicated relationship. I've never been so deep into a role before. I just... I couldn't snap out of it." She ran a hand through her hair, the frustration in her eyes deepening.
I let out a hollow laugh. "So you're saying you had a momentary lapse in judgment? That you never had any real feelings for him?"
Yasmine was silent.
I pressed on. "Did you sleep with him?"
Her face went pale.
"Valentine's Day. I waited for you all night. I called you, and you didn't answer. You were with him, weren't you?"
She looked at me, her lips moving, but no sound came out.
Suddenly, a tickle in my throat exploded into a violent coughing fit.
A cool hand touched my forehead. "You have a fever?" Yasmine's brow furrowed. She pulled out her phone. "I'll have someone bring you some medicine."
Seeing the faint trace of concern on her face just made me feel sicker. I turned away and dry-heaved. "Don't pretend to care. It's disgusting."
A shadow crossed her eyes. She stared at me for a few seconds, then grabbed my arms and pulled me onto the sofa.
"Leo." Her voice came from above me, the usual coolness in it now laced with something strange and chilling. "You promised you would never leave me, no matter what."
Her hands pressed against my chest, and she leaned in to kiss me. I put a hand up to stop her. "If you have any respect for me left, let me go."
Her body went rigid. After a moment, she pulled back. "I'm sorry."
The room fell silent.
I looked at her. "I'm willing to have an amicable breakup. I won't use any of our private information to add to this mess online. But you have to tell the truth. Clear my name."
She was silent for a moment, her lips pressed into a thin line. "I can't."
"Leo, I've already released a statement. The public will lose interest in this soon enough. If you can just compromise one more time, once this all blows over—"
"Compromise one more time?" I cut her off. "What does that mean?"
Then it hit me. My hands felt numb as I opened Twitter, a platform I had been too afraid to look at for days.
The top trending topic was Yasmine's official response.
"I apologize for taking up public resources. First, I want to apologize to everyone. Leo and I were previously in a relationship. Due to certain issues, we had to break up. Later, during filming, Aiden and I got together. When I ran into Leo again, I finally learned the real reason he had broken up with me. He suffers from a hereditary mental illness. The night of the video, he came to find me during an episode, mistakenly believing we were still together. It was dark, which led to a misunderstanding.
I am deeply sorry I didn't tell Aiden about this sooner. To Aiden, I am truly sorry.
After coming to his senses, Leo also felt terrible about the situation and will be releasing a statement to clarify things."
I stared at the screen, my blood running cold.
"So, the reason you came here today—"
"Was to get me to confess to the whole world that I'm mentally ill? That I'm the crazy ex-boyfriend who's harassing you?"
Yasmine's eyes darkened. "Leo, Vanessa will give you a script. Memorize it. She'll record a video of you."
"After this is over, we can go back to how we were—"
SLAP.
The sound was sharp and loud. I had put every ounce of my strength into it. Yasmine's head snapped to the side. The overhead light caught the corner of her mouth, where a bead of blood was starting to form.
The silence stretched for a few seconds.
Yasmine slowly turned her head back, her expression unreadable. She took my hand, a flicker of guilt in her eyes. "I'm sorry."
I didn't pull away. I just looked down and asked softly, "Do you know what day it is?"
She looked blank.
"Last year, on our seventh anniversary, you promised me that on our next anniversary, you would tell the world that I am your boyfriend." I let out a low, bitter laugh. "Today is our eighth anniversary. And you want me to tell the world that I'm a psycho."
The color drained from her face.
A year. It's not that long, but it's not that short either. The bond we had built, brick by brick, over a lifetime of shared experiences—it only took one year to tear it all down and twist it into something unrecognizable.
She knew. She knew how terrified I was of being called crazy because of my grandfather. She knew.
Looking at her, it felt like I was seeing a stranger.
"You're so arrogant, Yasmine. You thought our eight years together, the fact that I loved you so much, meant I would forgive your betrayal. You thought I would sacrifice my dignity for you, admit to being a madman, and then just go back to being with you as if nothing happened."
"But why should I?"
"The man I loved was the girl who defended me from bullies, the one who would fly across the country on a red-eye just to bring me snacks because I was feeling down, the one who only had eyes for me."
I looked at her, my voice steady and clear. "Not this person in front of me. This soulless, disgusting stranger."
Her grip on my hand tightened, a storm brewing in her eyes.
Slowly, deliberately, I pulled my hand from hers. "Not only will I not record any video, but I will also find a reporter and tell them the truth."
"I'd advise you to think carefully about that." It was her manager, Vanessa. She met my gaze and held up a phone. The screen was shattered. It was my phone.
"Sorry about that. We couldn't risk you not cooperating. We'll buy you a new one, of course. But this one won't have any chat logs on it."
Vanessa pulled a brand-new phone out of her bag and placed it in my hand. "If you want to expose her, you'll need proof that you two never broke up last year." She smiled. "While you were staying at the hotel, we took the liberty of removing any evidence from your apartment. All the gifts she gave you this past year, your ticket stubs from visiting her on set since January—all gone."
I looked at Yasmine in disbelief. She went pale and avoided my eyes.
After a moment of silence, I spoke, my voice low. "I have backups."
Vanessa's face fell.
"Eight years together. I have backups of every chat log, every ticket stub. And they're not on that phone."
I stared at Yasmine, my voice like ice. "My terms are the same. You go on Twitter, you explain everything, and you publicly apologize to me. It's the last shred of dignity we can offer each other."
Yasmine suddenly laughed, a flash of mockery in her eyes. "Backups?"
I took in her expression, and a wave of suffocating sadness washed over me. I turned to leave, pausing at the door. "You have two days to think about it."
I walked out of the hotel, my head burning, and hailed a cab to the hospital.
Lying in a bed with an IV in my arm, I finally opened Twitter. I scrolled through the comments on Yasmine's post.
The top comment was from Aiden Vance: "Really?"
Yasmine had replied: "Yes."
The second: "Okay, I admit I was a little harsh before. The way you're still being so kind to your mentally ill ex proves you're not a bad person."
The third: "Good thing they broke up. That psycho sounds scary."
The fourth: "So when is this Leo guy going to make his statement?"
Yasmine had replied: "Soon."
I closed my phone and shut my eyes.
The truth was, I didn't have any backups.
For eight years, I had trusted her completely. I loved her so much that I never even saved a clear photo of her on my phone. I rarely posted on social media, and when I did, it was just a picture of her hand reaching for mine, or her back from a distance. I never even dared to tag our location when we traveled. How could I have made backups?
The only joke was, I really had saved our chat logs from this past year. I'd treasured them.
This past year, I had felt her growing distant, her replies becoming more perfunctory. But I kept telling myself she was just busy. On Valentine's Day, I'd created a private Twitter account, visible only to me, and filled it with screenshots of our few conversations from the past year, and the voice messages she’d sent. I would look at it whenever I missed her at night. I never imagined it would end up being my only weapon.
I spent two days in the hospital on an IV drip. There was no update from Yasmine, no contact at all. In the bed next to me, an old woman was patiently feeding her sick grandson. I watched them, and my eyes stung. I suddenly missed my own grandfather.
After I was discharged, I made two calls. First, to a leader of one of Yasmine’s fan clubs I’d met while visiting her on set. I got the contact information for a well-known journalist from her. Then, I called a cab to the nursing home.
Three years ago, my grandfather had a sudden heart attack at home. I was at work, but Yasmine, who had just wrapped filming, happened to come home and got him to the hospital in time. The doctor said that with his age and his dementia, he needed round-the-clock care.
I had been a wreck, but Yasmine had held me, gently patting my back. "I'll find the best nursing home for him. I promise."
The old Yasmine had been so good to me, and to my grandfather. Before I completely cut ties with her, I wanted to see him.
I walked down the familiar hallway to his room. The nurse on duty was surprised to see me. "Your girlfriend picked him up this morning. Weren't you two going to get a family photo taken?"
A roar filled my ears, and a chill shot up from my feet to the top of my head. I spun around and ran out of the nursing home, my hands shaking as I dialed Yasmine's number.
She picked up immediately.
"Where are you?" I demanded. "Where did you take my grandfather? He's confused, he doesn't recognize anyone. Yasmine, what are you trying to do?"
The background on her end was noisy, the faint sound of camera shutters clicking.
"I'm at a press conference." Her voice was low, sounding like it was coming from a great distance.
I felt a wave of dizziness. "A press conference for what?"
"I know you don't have any backups." A sigh came through the phone. "Leo, you love me too much. You would never back up our conversations."
A bitter taste filled my mouth. I practically spat the words out. "So what? What are you going to do to my grandfather?"
"I won't do anything to him," she said, her voice trembling. "Leo, I had no other choice. If you won't come out and clear things up, I have to let him do it for you. I taught him a few lines to say to the cameras. He has a good memory. He remembered them all."
Tears streamed down my face. I bit back a sob. "Yasmine, don't make me hate you."
There was a pause on the other end. "Leo, I'll protect him. Don't worry."
...
By the time I got to the hotel, the press conference had already started. I didn't have a pass and was stopped at the door. On the big screens inside, the room was packed with media, cameras flashing as Aiden and Yasmine posed for photos. I hadn't realized Aiden would be there too.
From what I could overhear from the staff, Yasmine had three goals for this press conference. First, to have the "mentally ill ex-boyfriend" clear her name. Second, to officially announce her relationship with Aiden Vance. And third, to announce their next project together, a romantic comedy.
In a daze, I saw a familiar, wrinkled face on the screen. He looked pale and lost.
"Leo's condition has worsened, so he is unfortunately unable to be here today. This is his grandfather," Yasmine said, holding his arm and guiding a microphone to his lips.
My grandfather looked helplessly at Yasmine, his eyes cloudy. He spoke haltingly. "Leo... is... is sick. He can't come. He... he and Yasmine broke... broke up last year."
After forcing the words out, he shrank back behind Yasmine, as if the microphone were a monster.
"He definitely doesn't seem right in the head. That Leo guy must be..."
"It's so sad. The whole family is crazy."
Hearing the reporters' whispers, my nails dug into my palms. I wanted to storm in there.
"Leo?" A soft voice said my name. I turned to see an elegant woman in a cream-colored dress. I was momentarily taken aback. "I'm Julia, the journalist you spoke with. I can get you inside."
I quickly wiped my tears away with the back of my hand and nodded.
The moment I stepped inside, I froze.
Yasmine and Aiden were kissing.
The entire room seemed to hold its breath. It was dead silent, except for the relentless flashing of cameras. Aiden's eyes were closed, his hand slowly moving to her waist. Yasmine seemed to smile into the kiss, her arms wrapping around his neck to deepen it.
Suddenly, a shout shattered the silence.
"You can't kiss him!"
I whipped my head around, my breath catching in my throat.
My grandfather was standing in a corner, his usually stooped figure now ramrod straight, his eyes red and filled with a childlike hurt.
"Leo is your boyfriend! You two never broke up..."
The room erupted.
My grandfather, trying to get to them, rushed forward, tripped over a chair leg, and fell hard.
The scene descended into chaos. Someone called the police, someone called an ambulance. The cameras kept flashing.
"Grandpa..."
I scrambled onto the ambulance, looking at my grandfather's unconscious form. My head roared, and the blood in my veins turned to ice.

First, search for and download the MotoNovel app from Google. Then, open the app and use the code "257954" to read the entire book.