As soon as I picked up the phone, I heard a questioning voice coming from the other end.

"Isabela, what's wrong with you? You left my mother behind and left. She's alone in the hospital. Can you bear the responsibility if anything happens to her?"

I didn't know if it was because the speech had broken his perfect image, but when I heard this, I felt that it was extremely harsh.

"Aren't you dead?" I asked flatly with my face turning cold. "Why should I, an outsider, take care of your mother?"

Mathew was stunned.

After a while, he softened his attitude and comforted me, "I know that you have been wronged by my mother. Thank you for your hard work. When I come back, I will make it up to you. Can you continue to take care of your future mother-in-law in the hospital now?"

I used to feel shy when I heard the words "future mother-in-law".

But now, I only felt disgusted.

"Can you not read? If that's the case, I'll remind you again. Do you know what breaking up means?"

There was a hint of sarcasm in my words.

Mathew heard the determination in my words and fell silent.

In the end, he said stiffly, "Your emotions aren't stable. We'll talk after you calm down."

With that, he hung up the phone.

I deleted all of his contact information.

From then on, I would completely leave his life.

Marisa hesitated for a moment and said, "You've worked so hard for so long. Are you willing to give up?"

I had loved Mathew and stayed with him for four years.

We would either get married or go our separate ways long ago.

And we were still standing where we were.

He always said that if I married into his family without his parents' consent, I would be bullied.

Therefore, he wanted to work harder and get blessings from his parents.

Because of this, he changed his speech.

I was so happy that I even began to think about our future.

However, after I found out about his affair, I began to doubt myself.

"What's there to be reluctant about? It's as you said before. If he wanted to marry me, he would have done that long ago. Why does he find excuses of all kinds to fob me off?"

"Didn't you say that you would get the marriage certificate after he came back from the business trip?"

I calmly told Marisa that he had gone with another woman to watch a concert.

Marisa was stunned at first, then angry.

"What does he mean? You're serving his mother, but he's taking another woman out to have fun. Does he think he's an emperor who can control everything?"

"So, I gave up."

I gave up on my four-year relationship.

I gave up on the future related to him.

I sighed in relief. "It doesn't matter. It's not like I can't live without him."

These words were more like self-consolation.

I stayed at Marisa's place and had a drink with her that night.

When I woke up the next day, I forgot about all of the sad things.

I was focused on my work.

"Dr. Strickland, I have good news for you. The candidates for further study have been determined, and you are one of them. The director will come to talk to you soon."

As soon as the morning consultation was over, a colleague came to happily tell me the good news.

I was not surprised by this result.

But I couldn't stop feeling happy.

"It's indeed good news. Thank you for telling me. I'll treat you to dinner when I get the notification."

"Then I'll look forward to that. But if you go to study, you'll be in a long-distance relationship with your boyfriend. It'll be the most difficult time for you."

I pursed my lips and shook my head. "I broke up with him."

"What? You and your boyfriend have been a loving couple since college. Why did you suddenly break up?"

"I suddenly feel that we aren't a good match..."

Before I could finish my sentence, someone knocked on the office door.

I looked up and saw a tall and handsome man standing at the door.

Mathew exuded a cold aura from head to toe. There was a sense of alienation in his handsome eyes.

My colleague took a deep breath and said with an embarrassed smile, "You guys talk. I'll leave you alone."

She left in a hurry.

Only the two of us were left in the office.

I collected myself and said indifferently, "It's break time now. Please register after two o'clock in the afternoon."

"Isabela, let's talk."

He walked over briskly and stared at me with his deep black eyes.

"We have nothing to talk about."

I took off my white coat composedly, picked up my badge, and went to the cafeteria for lunch.

But when I passed him, I was grabbed by the arm.

Mathew's expression was tense and impatience flashed across his eyes. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Let go."

I said coldly, unwilling to even look him in the eye.

"Isabela, there's a limit to my patience. Speak properly before I'm angry."

Hearing this, I was so angry that I laughed.

I glanced at him coldly.

"I only have one question. What did you do the day before yesterday?"

Mathew's expression froze. A trace of guilt flashed across his eyes. "I was on a business trip. What else could I do other than work?"

I could sense his guilt and a chill flashed through my heart.

We used to talk about everything.

But somehow...

There seemed to be a transparent barrier between us.

We began to have our own secrets.

"Mathew, to be honest, you're quite disappointing."

My four years of hard work seemed to have become a joke because of his excuse.

I didn't need him to be honest with me in everything.

I only hoped that he could have a bottom line.

But he still let me down.

Mathew looked impatient. He frowned and said, "If you have something to say, just say it. There's no need to beat around the bush."

I looked straight into his eyes and said word by word, "Because of you, I missed my idol's concert, but you took another woman to watch it with the tickets I bought. Mathew, if it were you, what would you think?"

Hearing this, he seemed to have realized something. He looked at me with a complicated expression.

"The place of the banquet happened to be near the concert hall. I didn't want to waste the ticket, so I went to watch it."

"Are you even fussing over such a small matter?"

I pursed my lips tightly and said nothing.

In his opinion, this small amount of money was not important.

But I spent a month's salary to buy the tickets.

I did this just to go to the concert with him.

A hint of mockery appeared in my eyes and I said in disgust, "Mathew, sometimes, you disgust me."

Mathew was irritated by my words. His breathing became heavier, and the way he looked at me changed as well.

He was wondering why I suddenly became so unreasonable.

"Isabela, can you change your snobbish personality? I just used your concert tickets. Tell me how much it is and I'll pay you back."

"800 dollars. Transfer the money to me."

As I spoke, I took out my phone, found the payment code, and handed it over.

Mathew's eyes were filled with disbelief as if he didn't expect that I would ask him for money.

I was generous to people close to me, but it didn't mean that I was an idiot.

What was more, we had broken up, and we had nothing to do with each other now.

He had to pay the money back.

"Hurry up, I'm going to have lunch."

I raised my phone and reminded him to hurry up.

Mathew was so angry that he laughed. He transferred 1,600 dollars to me in a fit of pique.

I heard the notification of the transfer.

My eyebrows twitched. I calculated the bills and returned the extra money to him.

This time, he looked angry. Gnashing his teeth, he looked at me. "Do you really want to draw a clear line between us?"

"We broke up. I don't want what I shouldn't have."

"Okay, then return all the things I gave you before."

He gritted his teeth and glared at me, his eyes burning with anger.

I said calmly, "Those things are in your house. I didn't take them away. You can go back and check it up. As for the money, you can send me a bill. I'll pay back what I should return to you."

Hearing his words, I couldn't feel anything in my heart.

I was even glad that I didn't take these things away when I moved out.

Otherwise, it would be too disgraceful if I had to return it.

Mathew's face darkened. "Isabela, do you have to make a scene?"

After speaking so much, I became a little impatient.

I looked at the time. If I didn't go to the cafeteria now, I might starve myself.

I couldn't be bothered with him. I shook off his hand and turned to walk toward the door.

At this moment, a delicate person came from the door.

"Mr. Hinton, I've finished my examination."

It was his secretary, Juliet Kaiser.