Farrah Abraham - My Teenage Dream Ended

This work is a memoir. It reflects the authors present recollection of her experiences over a period of years. Certain names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed. Dialogue and events have been recreated from memory, and, in some cases, have been compressed to convey the substance of what was said or what occurred.

The views and opinions expressed in the book are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of MTV or its parent company, Viacom, Inc.

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PROLOGUE

My teenage dream ended when I was seventeen. All it took was a phone call. One phone call, and my dream was gone forever.

Up until that moment, I had it all. I was confident, popular, a cheerleader. Best of all, I was crazy in love: The Real Thing. We were lovers and best friends. When we were together, the rest of the world melted away. Sure we had plenty of drama. We made love, fought and broke up, then made up and made love again.

Even when I accidentally got pregnant, I was convinced that everything would work out in the end. We were meant to be together. We wanted to get married and have children. It was just happening sooner than we had planned.

Then, a friends voice on the phone changed everything.

Derek died in a car wreck last night.

Just like that, my teenage dream ended.

THE PHONE CALL THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

I woke up from an uncomfortable sleep to the sound of my cell phone ringing. It was December 28 th and I had fallen asleep downstairs in my parents bedroom while watching a movie with my mom. I didnt usually sleep in my parents bed, but my mother had wanted me to sleep with her that night. She was worried about me because lately I had turned from a confident social

butterfly into a quiet, sad and lonely girl.

I was torn between letting it go and picking it up. I couldnt tell if my mom was asleep and I didnt want her listening in on my call, but I knew there must be some drama going on for anyone to be calling me in the middle of the night these days. I had distanced myself from my usual crowd of friends, trying not to get caught up in immature gossip or going out late at night. I was seventeen and seven months pregnant. I was going to be on TV soon. I wanted to change my life and get on a better path, for both my baby and myself.

The ringing stopped and I saw the missed call was from Kerrie, one of the few people I could still call a true friend. The last couple of times we had talked it was about boyfriend problems, but it had been a while. There was no message, so I figured she was calling to tell me that shed seen Derek, my ex, flirting with some girl at a party. He and I played that game; flirting in public, knowing word would get back, just to make the other jealous.

It was 3 AM and I was too tired to hear about his latest flirtation, so I went back to sleep. But the next morning when I woke up, curiosity got the better of me and I had to know why Kerrie had been calling in the middle of the night. I missed Derek and wanted to talk about him, even if it was just to hear that he was hooking up with some girl to make me jealous.

We were already officially broken up when I found out I was pregnant. He had tried to call me when word got out about my pregnancy, but I was determined to keep my distance until after the baby was born. I needed a break from the drama and time to figure out what it meant now that we had a baby on the way. The distance was meant to show him how serious I was and how serious I needed him to be.

My mom was already upstairs cooking breakfast in the kitchen, so I hauled my big belly out of bed and called Kerrie back. She picked up on the first ring. She didnt say hello. She just said, Derek died in a car wreck last night. I dont remember much else about the conversationwhat I said, what she said. I only remember that one sentence. I can still hear her saying it, even now, years later.

Derek died in a car wreck last night .

I got off the phone and tried to calm down, but my mind was racing. Derek was the father of the baby I was carrying inside me. He was my first love, my only true love. We hadnt spoken in more than two months, but I had still believed we had a future togetherme, him, and our baby, as one happy family. Its every teenage girls dream, right? You meet a boy, you fall in love, and then one day you have a family and grow old together, happily ever after. Til death do us part.

Now Derek was gone forever, and so was my happy ending.

At breakfast I sat quietly, trying not to choke on my cereal. It must have been obvious that something was wrong, because my mom brought up my phone ringing in the middle of the night. She asked if it was one of Dereks friends trying to get hold of me. She knew that his friends were sending me messages on the computer, which I kept ignoring.

Is Derek trying to start more issues? my mom asked. She didnt wait for me to answer and just launched into her usual string of derogatory comments about him. She hated Derek; she was furious that I was pregnant with his baby and wanted him to stay out of my life.

Usually, I just ignored what my mom had to say about Derek, but this morning, of all mornings, I couldnt take it. I yelled, Hes dead! and ran upstairs to my room.

After that, my parents barely said another word about Derek. I know that they read the same news stories and watched the same TV reports that I did. Yet they acted like he had never existed. We had been caught sneaking around too many times and they thought he was a bad influence on me. I felt like they were relieved that he was out of the pictureforever. Their hatred of him seemed to make them blind to my grief. The few times I tried to talk to them, they dismissed the subject. My mom would say, Some things happen for a reason. Maybe him not being here is better for you and your baby. Or my dad would chime in with, Yeah, you never know, you could have been in the car with Derek and then you both would have been killed.

So I stopped talking to them about him.

I stopped talking to anyone about him. Words felt useless anyway. There was no way to describe the grief that had settled over my world. Nothing I could say would make the pain go away. So I locked my memories of Derek away and focused on getting my life on track for our babyshe was all I had left of Derek now.