"I hung up, sat, wondering if the phone conversation with my mother had ended, but her voice was hard to make out. Looking at my phone, I noticed Shad still hadn't call back from earlier. Was the restaurant that crowded? Growing impatient, I strolled down my contacts to call him when my mom appeared at the door looking at me, moving her lips, but no words coming out. Horizontal lines made way to her forehead; lips move again, no words came out. I stepped out the shower not even knowing that a part of me had stayed behind in it. In a quick instance, my life became a movie plot. A girl falls in love with handsome guy, lives happily ever after was not it. The words that revealed themselves through my mother's lips could have been left sealed if Shad and I were wrapped in each other's arms. Instead, something more powerful was standing in between that ever happening. "Shad was shot" were my mother's hesitant words to me as she stared with glossy eyes. She leaned her head on top of mines and slowly revealed more: "He died."

The chapters in A Better Me discuss grief, identity, illnesses, abuse, relationships went wrong, and life obstacles that have shaped Martina into the person she is today.