Left with Nothing.
"I feel like I can predict how my life will turn out in the next two years," Martha said as she brushed her long, curly hair, getting ready for a date with her lover.
"And why are you so certain about that?" Samantha asked with a little confusion filling her face.
"Just look at me, a few years back, I was struggling in the most important areas of my life, and here I am celebrating the big wins in my life," Martha replies with an amazing smile as she reminisces back to count her wins.
"Can you be specific on those wins, ahh!! Let me guess. One of which is your relationship with Jason right?" Samantha said trying to tease Martha.
"As much as I wouldn't want to answer that, I would just love to clear the air, everything with Jason is going smoothly, if I could describe it in one word, it would be perfect, currently I'm feeling like a seer like I'm seeing the future of our relationship," Martha said blushing with butterflies dancing in her stomach.
"And perfect it shall be, but.." Samantha tried to make a statement when she was interrupted by Martha.
"Hmm hmm, No, but," Martha said as she moved closer to the mirror, looking at her reflection, wondering how incredible of a woman she had become over the years and for her achievements so far.
Martha Collins is a successful social media influencer in her mid-30s, who has her whole life figured out. She is an open book that everyone knows how her whole perfect life started, it wasn't all filled with a bed of roses. Martha's story is more like growing from grass to grace.
If Martha can be described in one word, it would be "love." She loves easily, and when she does, she gives her all to ensure that love blossoms and springs forth. It's her loving nature that attracted her to the most amazing people in her life, and her boyfriend, to be precise.
Martha and Jason have been dating for three years, their relationship started as a fairytale and later grew into an unbreakable bond. Jason Is an entrepreneur and a writer, he is well known for his charming looks and supportive nature.
Martha's career as an influencer was thriving strong when she landed a multi-million dollar contract with her all-time role model. Her dreams were emerging in front of her eyes, and she could feel every bit of it.
But then, the future isn't always promised, though sometimes the conscious is likely to make it feel right. Just like the saying, "There is always a touch of imperfection in perfection".
It all began when Martha started receiving suspicious emails from a stranger she knew nothing about. This person kept pooping her phone every day, and every minute; at first, it felt like a prank because of how important she was to society, but some things can't be left ignored.
"Phone beeps"
"Martha, can you put your phone on silent, please? This is a very important gathering, and you wouldn't want to be distracted," Samantha tells Martha as she pretends to adjust her seat properly.
"That's what I'm doing." Martha tried to put off her phone when the beeps continued the second time, thereby leading to the third.
Martha couldn't hold her curiosity anymore about the messages that had just entered her phone, so she took an excuse from the gathering to go attend to whoever it was on the phone.
She rushed out to the restroom and opened the first message, it came from an unknown sender claiming to have some important information she'd be interested in about her boyfriend, Jason. The messages were cryptic, she tried to ignore them, but then they kept on coming like tears rolling down her jawline.
Martha couldn't go back into the gathering because the messages she received planted a seed of doubt in her mind, and she just wanted to know the truth about her lover Jason and the person behind these messages.
Martha replied to the messages and asked for a physical meeting with the person. Fortunately, the person didn't decline the offer.
Martha texted her friend Samantha that she had an important meeting to attend and Sam should step in for her at the gathering.
Martha got to the venue of the meeting and was waved to come sit down by a stranger.
"Hi, Martha," the stranger said, trying to disclose her face.
"Hi. Hmm. Miss" Martha stuttered as she tried to make a complete statement.
"Would you like anything to drink?" the stranger asked politely with a friendly tone.
"Can you skip the rat race and let the rat out instead" Martha replied.
"Okay, ma'am, my name is Peace, and I'm Jason's wife, we've been married for five years, and our union is luckily blessed with two beautiful daughters," Peace said as she brought out her phone to show Martha her wedding photos with Jason.
Peace stretched out her hand with her phone towards Martha.
Martha held the phone and reluctantly went through the photos when she saw her lover Jason in a groom's suit, standing beside Peace, his claimed wife; at that moment, Martha's voice dried up immediately, she looked for words but couldn't find them.
Martha stood up from her seat, wondering how to take the next steps that would lead her to the exit door; her vision became blurry, and her sights were covered in tears. At first, she thought it was a prank, but then seeing peace changed everything, that moment, Martha's world began to unravel.
On getting home with tears rolling down her beautiful cheeks, Martha tried to reach out to Jason "all to no avail" The number wasn't connecting, and she tried to reminisce back the last words Jason said to her before leaving for the trip he had but she couldn't because in that moment she was being blinded by magical feeling called love.
Martha couldn't hold back her thoughts as she tried harder to remember those words; fortunately, the lines started packing up, trying to make sense to her. In the process of reminiscing, her phone beeps again leaving a message.
These messages kept on coming in the middle of nowhere by strangers telling her about the secrets they knew about Jason and how he is a gold digger, he makes powerful and influential women fall in love with him and leaves them at the edge of nothing after sucking their finances dry, and Martha's case wasn't an exception to that.
As the mystery deepened, Martha's life began to crumble before her own eyes, she became withdrawn from the world out there, and she started questioning herself on the sacrifices she made for Jason, all the loans she took on his behalf promising to back in no time.
Martha's world came crashing down when those loan sharks came for their money, she was thrown out of her house with nothing, and in those moments, Jason was nowhere to be found.
Martha lost everything she had worked hard for, the only question that came to her head was, "Why can't I have a smooth life?" Martha stood alone and was surrounded by the ruins of her perfect life.
Thanks for reading 🧡
This is so sad. The level of deceit is high and I really feel sorry for Martha. I enjoyed reading this too.
Thank you so much for your nice comment
A perfect life ruined in seconds. Poor Martha trusted her boyfriend wholeheartedly only to fall victim to his lies and deceit. Your story is very interesting.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Good day.
Thank you so much for finding my story interesting.
hi @young-tari. You have the makings of a decent story here but you tried to pack too much into too few words. This would have made a good outline for a much longer story, alternatively you could have removed a lot of the backstory and focused instead on the moment of betrayal. Other than a few things that you can work on such as not switching tenses between past and present, and ensuring that you edit your work for spelling and punctuation issues, I would suggest that you also read the following articles in The Ink Well on Show, Don't Tell and Developing Memorable Characters. Also Avoid the Dreaded Info Dump.
You tell us a lot in this story but most of it is in narrative in what is known as information dumping. Instead of *sprinkling in the information at appropriate times and linking thoughts and actions back to each other, a writer instead drops a lot of backstory at once in pure narrative form (either at the beginning which negates the opportunity for a strong hook, or jarringly at some mid-point where the flow of the story is abruptly interrupted. A reader wants to try to piece things together for themselves from clues dropped along the way, not to have everything handed to them on a plate in a few paragraphs. This means that your story feels like a summary of events rather than a development of a plot that engages the reader and gets them invested in the outcome. I think that the articles will help you to develop these skills and you will notice an improvement in your writing as a result.
Thank you so much for the correction. I will create better stories next time with this information.
Seems crazy how much we might sacrifice for someone, just to be betrayed in the end. I guess chances increase when we become the so-desired influential people we tend to follow.
This story leaves me wondering how Martha will rebuild her life from the ashes. Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing.
That is gonna take a long time to rebuild a perfect life one once had
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