My Boyfriend, Mr. Popular

I thought Julian had stopped seeing Winter after that, but I was wrong.

The views and income from their viral video had lured him into filming more videos with her behind my back, and the content had become increasingly suggestive.

I found out one evening while Julian was in the shower. He had left his phone unlocked on the living room table. A message from Winter popped up, asking him when he was coming over to film again.

Feeling betrayed, I opened their chat and read their messages. To my horror, their conversations were ridiculously flirty, as if they were a real couple.

I furiously checked Julian's Instagram page and saw five new videos that made my blood boil.

In one, Julian was shirtless as he showed off his abs to let Winter run her hands over him. In another, he pinned her against a wall and kissed her passionately. There was even one video of them playfully wrestling on a bed.

Each video had an absurd number of views, and the comments were all gushing about how perfect they were together. Some praised their chemistry and even urged them to get married.

Julian hadn't bothered to deny any of it, either. In fact, he'd responded to the comments by saying, "We've always been in love and plan to stay together forever."

I felt sick to my stomach. How could he lie to my face and claim there was nothing between him and Winter while he was out there publicly shipping himself with her?

By the time Julian finally came out of the shower, I had reached my limit. I told him to delete the videos immediately, or we were done.

Julian panicked and tried to explain. "Vicky, it's all because the last video blew up. A media agency noticed the high engagement and offered me and Winter a contract to keep making content as a couple.

"All these videos are planned out, and none of it was my idea. I didn't even want to do it at first because I knew it'd upset you. But the money's really good, and it's not like I'm losing anything."

"What about me? How am I supposed to feel about this? If I were out there cuddling and kissing some other guy for everyone to see, would you be fine with that?" I snapped.

It was really hard not to feel angry when thinking about him showing off his love with someone else and being showered with blessings from the public.

Julian argued, "I'm only doing this to make more money, so I can save up for us to get married. And I promise that nothing is going on between me and Winter. Those flirty texts are all scripted by the agency. I can show you the contract if you don't believe me."

He proceeded to bring me the contract, and sure enough, it laid out the terms in which he and Winter were bound to act like a couple for their videos, all for the sake of gaining more followers.

I stared at the contract, speechless. This whole time, Julian's dream had been to make it big on social media. His account had been stagnant for so long, and now, he finally had a shot at success.

How could I be the one to crush that dream?

As long as he wasn't actually cheating on me, perhaps I could endure it.

"Vicky, I promise you that as soon as I've built up enough of a following, I'll get out of this contract and start doing my own content. Then, once I've saved up enough, we can get married," Julian reassured me.

I reluctantly agreed. I figured I could tough it out for a while longer, even if it meant avoiding watching his videos entirely.

With my reluctant approval, Julian threw himself into filming even more videos with Winter.

When the agency wanted them to shoot travel vlogs, he started traveling for work, and we ended up in a long-distance relationship.