My Teenage Dream Ended by Farrah Abraham Page A

of Lincoln’s campus I felt like I had arrived at home. That was me, I couldn’t wait to go to college. Every year when we went to a college campus for cheer camp, it was the best—dorms, workout gyms, older college guys and pretty cheerleading coaches to look up to, eating camp food, sweating daily, getting sore muscles, building new ones, and having cheerleading chants engraved in my brain.
    Ahhhh! I breathed it all in.
    On the third day of camp, I felt like I was finally about to start my period, which was a relief because I was beginning to get worried. During lunch break, I went to the bathroom and peed, but when I checked the toilet the water only had pee in it—no blood. Then I looked at my underwear and there was one tiny drop of blood. I thought, What does this mean ?
    That night I told Derek that my period hadn’t come and I was worried. Derek, as always, thought there was nothing to worry about. He said, “Sometimes girls don’t get periods every month.” I wanted to ease my stress, so of course I agreed, but all that week I worried. One drop of blood wasn’t a period, but what was it?

BRAWL AT THE SALTY DOG

    At the end of that week I came home from cheer camp and it was back to work and tanning for the rest of summer. Working with Derek had been going well. We would eat together on our breaks or after we got off our shifts. We were spending a lot of time together just like he’d promised. But then one night at the end of June things changed.
    My sister wanted to go out for her 21 st birthday and one of her guy friends had rented a party bus. I told Derek I wanted to hang out with him later that night, but that first I was going to go out with my sister and my other friends for a little bit. I said I’d call him later.
    As the night wore on, Derek got more and more annoyed with waiting for me. On top of that, he had gotten it into his head that a friend of my sister’s liked me and had taken me on a couple of dates while Derek and I were broken up. It was true that the guy liked me and I had gone out with him a couple of times, but he knew how I felt about Derek and had never tried to hit on me. It was more like a friend who had a crush on me but was happy to just hang out.
    It got to the point in our text messages where Derek was trash talking, saying he would fight the guy if I didn’t tell him where I was and if I didn’t let him come get me right away. I refused because he seemed so angry, but told him he could come get me later. By 1:00 AM our group had made its way back to our neighborhood to a bar called the Salty Dog.
    I wanted to wait for Derek, so I didn’t go inside. I told my sister how Derek had been acting, so she would know what was going on. I said that I thought it was best if I left before Derek got too jealous. She didn’t like Derek because, like my friends, she had watched me get hurt over and over again. She was sick of the drama and didn’t want to hear about it or deal with it anymore.
    I told her I was going to text Derek and ask him to come pick me up. I stayed on the party bus and waited for him while everyone else went inside. I waited a good fifteen minutes on the bus with no sign of Derek. By now, I was tired of talking to the bus driver and feeling like I was being punished for my boyfriend’s insecurities, so I thought, I’ll just go into the bar for a little bit and I’ll keep watching for Derek. My sister will let me know when he’s here.
    I went into the bar and, after another half hour, I figured Derek wasn’t going to show up. I hadn’t gotten any texts or phone calls from him and I didn’t know where he was. I hung out and talked to friends and after a while I noticed that half of our group wasn’t in the bar anymore. I figured they were all outside talking or smoking, but then I noticed that my sister was upset about something and had got up and left the bar. So I went to see what was going on.
    I walked out the door of the bar and in the parking lot