My Teenage Dream Ended

by Farrah Abraham

  Copyright © 2012 by Farrah Abraham

  FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN 2012 BY:

  MTV Press

  1515 Broadway

  New York, NY 10036

  mtv.com

  This work is a memoir. It reflects the author’s 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.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior consent of the publisher.

  Designed by Susan H. Choi

  Photography on pages 162 and 176 by Justin Riddle,

  Total Event Photography,

  ph: 402.813.2156 email: Justinriddle1@gmail.com

  DISTRIBUTED BY

  powerHouse Books

  37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

  PHONE 212 604 9074 FAX 212 366 5247

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  DIGITAL EDITION

  2012 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN

  EPUB: 978-1-938765-01-08

  PRINT: 978-1576875988

  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 friend’s 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 28th and I had fallen asleep downstairs in my parent’s bedroom while watching a movie with my mom. I didn’t usually sleep in my parent’s 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 couldn’t tell if my mom was asleep and I didn’t 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 she’d 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 didn’t say hello. She just said, “Derek died in a car wreck last night.” I don’t remember much else about the conversation—what 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 hadn’t spoken in more than two months, but I had still believed we had a future together—me, him, and our baby, as one happy family. It’s every teenage girl’s 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 Derek’s 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 didn’t 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 couldn’t take it. I yelled, “He’s 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 picture—forever. 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 baby—she was all I had left of Derek now.

  I MET HIM AT A BASKETBALL GAME

  Derek wasn’t my first boyfriend, but he was my first love. I still remember almost every detail about the night we met. I was fifteen and had my first “real” boyfriend—though it wasn’t serious. I was at that age when I was curious about the opposite sex and wanted to find out what guys were like.

  I knew exactly the kind of guy I wanted: preppy, with a job and a car, who would take me out and be my best friend. I wanted what most teen girls dream of—that ideal boyfriend who would whisk me away into a world of love and happiness. When I met Derek, I
thought he would be that guy.

  The night I met him, a friend called to say she was going to a high school basketball game and wondered if I wanted to come. I had recently switched schools and hadn’t seen her in a while. I was looking forward to catching up and arranged to meet her there. I told her I was trying to end it with my boyfriend, but that we still might come together. She said she had just started dating this new guy and wanted me to meet him.

  When we arrived at the game, my boyfriend immediately ditched me to go sit with his guy friends—typical jock. This was one of the reasons I wanted to end it with him—I didn’t feel like he really respected me or appreciated

  being with me. Instead of getting mad, though, I kept my cool and went to find my friend.

  I found her hanging out with a bunch of friends from my old school. She introduced me, but I could tell none of them was the boyfriend she’d mentioned. “So, where’s this new boyfriend?” I asked.

  She laughed. “He should be on his way. I don’t know why he’s late.”

  This detail should have been a red flag. Guys who are late, guys who say they will show up somewhere and then don’t, or come late—that’s not a good sign. But I was too young and inexperienced to know any better.

  I went back to watch the game and at halftime wandered over to see my friend again, and there he was. She said, “This is Farrah,” and when I looked up at him she said, “and this is Derek.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just smiled, but it felt like a jolt of electricity was running through my body. He was good looking—light brown hair, hazel eyes, tan—and wore light jeans with a beige cotton coat over a button-down shirt and a simple chain around his neck. A super preppy guy—just what I liked.

  I was taken aback by my strong reaction to him. I liked him immediately, but he was dating my friend, so I kept my mouth shut. I have a strict policy about going after friends’ boyfriends. But I was aware of him the whole game, sitting a row behind me with his buddies. I had never felt like that about a guy before.

  Even though he wasn’t available, just meeting Derek changed my life. For one thing, I totally got over my boyfriend and broke up with him.

  BEST ST. PATRICK’S DAY EVER!

  Though I knew Derek was off-limits, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. We went to different high schools, so it was unlikely I would see him again if I didn’t take matters into my own hands. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and called my friend to find out how serious she was about Derek. She had a short attention span when it came to guys, so it was possible they had already broken up. I tried to sound casual as we chatted, but all I really wanted to know about was Derek. Finally I slipped in, “So what happened to that boy at the basketball game?”

  She snorted. “You mean Derek? Oh, that was short-lived. I’m into someone else now.” Derek was available! I got off the phone as fast as I could without seeming rude and immediately logged onto Myspace and found his page. I messaged him, but played it cool, saying something like, “Hey, nice meeting you at the basketball game. We should go out sometime. What are you doing for St. Patrick’s Day?”

  It took him two days to message me back, but when he did he said he was going to a St. Patrick’s Day party and asked me to come with him. So I gave him my number. I was so excited, I could barely stand it. Of course, when Derek and his friend came to pick me up, I still played it cool. I just said, “Hey” and acted like I was all about being chill and hanging with him and his friends.

  We drove to a party way out somewhere in Omaha. On the way we saw cops everywhere, and the guys were freaking out about random police checkpoints because they had alcohol in the car.

  We pulled up at the party house and there was music playing and lots of kids from my school were hanging out, playing Guitar Hero and drinking games, all happy that it was a holiday. It was a fun atmosphere and we joined the party. I was still playing it cool with Derek and his friends, just hanging out, like maybe I wasn’t that interested—even though I totally was. I didn’t flirt with him; I always maintain class in front of other people and I wasn’t going to hang all over him like a groupie, no matter how into him I was. Plus, I wanted to see how he treated me and other people before I decided for sure if we should date.

  Derek must have been on the same wavelength, because he didn’t flirt with me much, either. We mostly chatted with other people at the party, but every once in a while our eyes would meet. It was like a fun, sexy game that made me want to date him even more.

  At the end of the night we headed home in Derek’s friend’s car. Derek and I sat in the back together. My head was spinning, whether from the alcohol I drank or from being so close to Derek I wasn’t sure. The next thing I knew, though, Derek and I were making out, right there in the backseat, for straight-up an hour. It didn’t seem like an hour had gone by, but I checked my watch and time doesn’t lie. That’s what it was always like with Derek, an hour would feel like a minute.

  Suddenly the car stopped and we were in front of my house. Derek kissed me one last time and said, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  As I walked through my front door, I was floating on air. The night had gone even better than I could have imagined.

  That was the best St. Patrick’s Day ever!

  SEALED WITH A KISS

  We went on a few dates after that—dinner, the movies, and a few more parties—and started spending all our free time together. We would go on long walks in the Old Market, ConAgra Park, or along the river, talking for hours. This felt way different from what I had experienced with my first boyfriend. Derek was thoughtful and romantic—he would text me all the time when we weren’t together and surprise me with flowers. Sometimes he would just show up at my house late at night and throw pebbles at my window to wake me up and surprise me when he got off work. I was so into him and I could tell he really liked me, too.

  A couple of weeks after that St. Patrick’s Day party, on April 1st, Derek asked me to be his girlfriend. One night, after a long session of hanging out, playing Guitar Hero and beer pong, we had ended up crashing at his friend’s sister’s apartment. We were cuddling in bed and talking randomly when all of a sudden he asked, “Do you want to be my girlfriend?��� I didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes!” I answered immediately and snuggled into him. It wasn’t ideal, he didn’t get down on a bended knee or anything, but I was so happy that he wanted us to be “official” that it felt as romantic as a marriage proposal. That was the first night we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Whenever we hung out we would hold hands and hug, but I wouldn’t kiss him if I wasn’t tipsy. I always felt so nervous and shy around him. Eventually, he mentioned the awkwardness of us only kissing when we partied. Derek seemed as nervous around me as I was around him and I wanted to prove to him that I really liked him.

  I tried talking to my sister about how nerve-wracking it is to kiss someone for the first time. I worried about it not happening perfectly. I would think about things like, If I shut my eyes will I miss his lips and kiss his cheek? How long should we kiss? Should I pull away first, or wait for him to end the kiss? Being tipsy took the stress off because if you made a mistake you could always blame the alcohol. My sister just laughed and made fun of me. She didn’t understand how much I liked Derek and how perfect I wanted our first sober kiss to be.

  The next time we went out to a party I deliberately didn’t drink and I kissed him anyway. We were standing by the stairs in the middle of the party and I just went for it. I didn’t care who saw. I had intended to go in for a short sweet kiss, which was what I thought I could handle. But Derek wasn’t having it and pulled me in for a long, passionate one. It felt like our mouths were magnetized and I was helpless to resist. I was too scared to pull away so it went on for a while. Eventually, I heard our friends yelling, “ew” and “quit kissing.” I didn’t let it bother me, though. I was so proud that we were having our first real kiss I felt like saying, You all wish!

  That was a crazy ni
ght, with a lot of romantic drama—some

  couples were breaking up, others were hooking up for the first time. It was also the night that almost everyone we knew realized that Derek and I were a couple. Our kiss left no doubt about that. Hopefully, it would keep away all the girls who were always hovering around Derek, like sharks circling their prey.

  A friend took a party photo of us kissing that night and every time I look at that picture, I can still feel the thrill of that moment.

  SISTER SISTER

  That night, I ended up staying at Derek’s friend’s place with him and in the morning we all went out for breakfast. I felt like I was really starting to get to know Derek and his friends, which was great, but I began to notice that he was always hanging out at his buddies’ houses instead of his own. He never talked about his family. I didn’t know what was going on.

  It bothered me that I still didn’t know anything about his parents or his family life. That felt weird to me. Other guys I had dated had been open about their families, but it wasn’t the same with Derek. He never mentioned his parents.

  Then one day Derek picked me up from school and said we had to go get one if his sisters from her high school. I was happy to go along, happy he was finally letting me meet someone in his family.

  When his sister got into the car with her friend, everything went really quiet and awkward. I had thought this was going to be my chance to bond with one of his sisters, but no one spoke the entire ride. We stopped to get gas and as Derek got out of the car his sister pointed her head towards me and said something like, “She’s actually pretty.” Derek smiled and went to pump the gas. I just said, “Thank you.” It was such a weird comment. What was I supposed to say?

  We dropped his sister and her friend off at Derek’s house, and as we were leaving, his other sister pulled up in her car. They had a conversation about where their mom was, and while they were talking she was looking over at me, obviously checking me out. She never said one word to me, not even “hi” or “bye,” but from the way she was looking at me, I could tell she was going to say something about me to Derek later.