Love over All

Photo Credit: http://time.com/

Stella and Dave saw each other at the bus stop and afterwards, boarded the same bus. They got talking after Dave came to her defense when the conductor spoke to Stella rudely. The pair talked from then till Dave got to his stop. He got her number before he got down from the bus and called her as soon as he got home.

After three weeks of speaking over the phone, they met at a fast food restaurant and talked like they had known each other all their lives. It was also quite a pleasant surprise when they both discovered that they were from the same town. This made them even closer and they began to spend a lot of time together. Dave was working in a small insurance firm at that time while Stella had just gotten a job as a subject teacher in a private school; they met on her way home after her first day of work.

Dave was pulled to another company by his boss who he had worked well with and was offered a higher position with a better pay cheque. In a short time he became quite successful and also began to travel a lot on short courses in prestigious business schools around the world.

On her own part, Stella was promoted from a lower school teacher to an upper school teacher and life was indeed good for the young couple. One would think that Dave would change following the good fortune that he had started to enjoy but he stayed focused and true to the love of his life.Their love grew stronger with each success that they both recorded. 

Although he had always told her that he would marry her some day, Dave proposed to Stella officially after seven years of being good friends. She accepted his proposal but asked him to hold on, she had an ambition to become a qualified member of a professional body and so asked Dave to let her study for and pass her professional examination so that she would give him all her time as a wife.  

Dave in his usual understanding manner accepted Stella's request and gave his full support, however he carried on with the minor preparations towards their marriage while he waited for Stella to complete her programme. All through the years, Dave and Stella strangely kept details of their relationship away from their families. 

It was understandable why Stella did not share her private life with her family; she had a step mother who she had never enjoyed a good relationship with. Her mother passed on during childbirth when she was just thirteen years old and her father re-married a year after her mother and baby brother’s deaths.

She hated her father for forgetting her mother that soon and secretly resented the woman who became his wife. She blamed him for her mother's death because she watched her try very hard to give her husband more children despite all the difficulties she encountered trying to conceive.  Her step mother on the other hand did not make it any easier for her, she did not hide the fact that she did not like Stella and as soon as she began to have her own children she totally neglected little Stella.

Dave’s parents knew that he was in a relationship but did not know who the lady was. It was never an issue because they knew that at the right time they would meet the lucky girl. Dave took some time off work to visit his parents in preparation of his upcoming marital engagements. He finally revealed the identity of his fiancée to his parents who were delighted that he met one of their own. They proceeded immediately on a background check of Stella’s family.

Three days after he arrived the village, Dave returned from random visits to some of his relations in the village, that evening as he drove into the compound of the lovely modest home he built for his parents, he noticed that the atmosphere was not a happy one.

      To be continued...