I woke up this morning nauseated and ran out of my bed and quickly to the restroom. After taking care of that for the 4th morning this week, I slowly changed from my pajamas to my school clothes. Since the sun was perfect today, and I picked out the right outfit, I sat near my window and took the perfect selfie. It took me about 5 minutes to do, including the filter, because of course, that's necessary. Then, seeing that it was 7:10 am, I rushed down to breakfast.
I was greeted at breakfast with silence, with only the beeps of messages sending and notifications ringing as everyone at the table was looking at their phones, barely even touching their food. I walked into the kitchen and saw my plate was already made beautifully, so I found the perfect angle and posted it on Instagram. Then I took it and sat down at the table, and like every morning, my family and I sat in silence, eating our food and solely looking at our phones. It felt cold sometimes, but one does get used to it.
"Chelsea, I just don't know how you do it! Like, 250 likes in an hour? On a morning selfie? You're amazing" Karen told me as she saw my post from this morning. "Thanks, you know, it's all about the angle and the lighting" I responded. The other thing I didn't tell her about it though was that could be extremely lonely. The likes definitely mattered to me because it determined how great my photo was, but I hardly talk to most of the people who follow me, only a few.
After snapchatting through Algebra 2 for 2 long hours, it was time for lunch and met my group of friends in the cafeteria. "So, how are you and Chad doing," Alexis asked me. "Well, we're doing great! We spent some time together last night watching a movie and doing other stuff. We've been hanging out a lot more lately. He's really sweet and caring. I could see myself with him and I raising our kids in the future. Also, he recently got a great internship at Facebook, and I'm finding out about my Instagram internship this Friday! We're both really excited about the future" I replied. "Wow, that's so exciting! You totally have to put this on your story!" Karen remarked. "Girl, I did that walking here," I said back.
As we carried our lunch trays through the lunch line, I smelled fish and started to feel sick to my stomach again. However, as we passed by that section, I felt fine again and sat down with my friends at a table. Yet I started gagging when I discovered that one of my friends had fish on her plate, and ran to the bathroom. After taking care of my business again in one of the stalls, I felt a vibration coming from my phone. "Sexy!" some guy wrote on my Insta post this morning. I began to puke even more when I saw from a profile that he was a man in his late 40s. I blocked him a couple of minutes later, too old and creepy.
At this point, I was a little concerned with what seemed like regularly occurring nausea and trips to the restroom, and I found that my stomach also started to get a little bigger. So, to take the worries out of my mind and settle things, I decided to buy a pregnancy test after school.
I sat in the chair in my room for 45 minutes, staring at the two parallel lines, it couldn't be. Instead of reaching for my phone to post something on Instagram, I fastly messaged my boyfriend on Facebook Messenger. "Chad, I don't know what to do. I swear that I took Birth Control, but I just don't know what happened. I'm pregnant" I texted. After waiting 2 minutes for a reply, I started looking up info about pregnancy and Planned Parenthood on Google, Facebook, and even Instagram. However, as I searched more and more on the internet on what to do, I found myself being bombarded more and more with maternity and baby clothes sales. After doing 2 hours of research and signing up for a pregnant youth hotline of what to do on my computer, my entire browser was full of pregnancy-related ads, and I couldn't get them off; even ads about being a mom popped up on my Facebook and Instagram. I felt as if I was drowning.
Feeling overwhelmed, I walked away from my computer and took a walk outside, in order to think about what to do next. And when I came back to my house in a better state, I found my little sister on my computer. "Why are there so many pregnant ads on your computer?" she asked me. I froze for a minute, evaluating what I needed to say. "It's for a school project, sex ed" I stated anxiously. She looked at me weirdly, then walked out of my room and downstairs. Just when I sat back down at my computer, Chad messaged me back.
"Who's the father?" he wrote. "You of course! Now, what do you think we should do?" I replied and waited. Two minutes later, he responded "Well, I know that's not my kid because we almost always used protection. Who have you been sleeping with?". "I haven't slept with anyone! Why do you think I would cheat on you??" I wrote in all caps. "It's not my kid, and it's not my problem. I have a future to think about. Don't message me again" he finally replied with after 5 minutes of silence.
When I saw that text, I lost my calmness and started typing aggressively, he would not be leaving me alone to deal with this. My message was 4 paragraphs long, filled with anger about why he would leave me out to dry when I needed him most, how bad of a person he was, and why he needs to help me and his child. However, instead of pressing send, I accidentally pressed share. I didn't notice anything until I got a call from Karen. "Chelsea, you need to take this off your wall right now!" she said. "I could tell you meant this as a private message, but you just shared/posted it on your facebook account right now, and it has over 100 reactions to it. Whatever you do, don't read the comments".
Well, of course, I had to read the comments, and found myself being the called rude names; Chad blocked me. I began to cry, and realizing my mistake, tried to stop the damage by deleting the post. But by that time, it was already shared. I was so distraught that when I heard the phone ring, I couldn't push myself to answer it.
"Chelsea, get down here NOW!" I heard my mom yell. I ran downstairs, and she told me what happened. One of the pregnancy ads found my home phone number and called the house.
