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missing and where we could do better at building or maintaining our relationship. At sixteen years old, I probably didn’t have the emotional vocabulary for it, either.
    But at the end of the day, I didn’t have time to worry about me and Ryan. I figured we were both more concerned about Bentley. And anyway, we were engaged, and we were moving in together. That felt plenty solid.
    For the most part, my tunnel vision seemed to be working out well. I was steady on my feet, and I didn’t seem in danger of a nervous breakdown or anything. I’d barely even cried. But there was one moment when it all caught up to me, right when I was making the final move from home to the new place with Ryan. I’d just eaten dinner at my parents’ house and I had my last few boxes in the car, because I was driving to the apartment for my first night there with Ryan. As soon as I drove off, I just lost it. I cried all the way there. I don’t remember knowing exactly why I was so upset, whether it was because I was going to miss them or I was nervous or what. But I think somehow when I pulled out of that driveway, it finally became real that I was a grown-up — whether I wanted to be or not.
    Living with Ryan wasn’t difficult at all. For all of my being okay on my own, it’s never bothered me to live with someone. After my moment in the car, I got over it and settled in for the final stretch.
     
    ***
     
    Meanwhile, a funny thing happened. Since I was sixteen, pregnant, and didn’t have a real job, my mom got the idea to look for maternity modeling opportunities for me. While she was browsing different listings on the internet, she came across a casting call for a new teen pregnancy documentary on MTV. Lo and behold, they were looking for people between the ages of fifteen and seventeen who were expecting a first child.
    When she told me, my first response was “Absolutely not. I’m not going to be on TV because I’m sixteen and pregnant. That is not a good idea!”
    “Well,” she said, “they’re gonna pay you, and you never know what it could turn out to be. You might as well write in. They probably won’t even pick you.”
    Eventually I came around to the idea, enough to write in just a short introduction message. Just a week later, a woman from the casting department called me. I started wading in. Before I knew it, I’d had three different phone calls with this girl that lasted about three hours each. She wanted to know everything, from how many times per year I went to church to what my favorite car was. And when she’d had enough of that, she told me she’d be mailing me a flip cam and a sheet of questions for me to answer. Once that was done, it was off to the races. I just didn’t know what that meant.
    The show hadn’t gotten the green light yet, so the producers were only showing up to film the pilot. At that point Ryan and I were already in the apartment together. Even though we all knew it was legit, my mom made my dad come over so he could be there when the producers arrived. “You never know!” she said, like there might be some criminal conspiracy afoot. But I didn’t end up kidnapped. Instead, the producers sat in the living room with my dad and me and talked about what they had envisioned for this documentary.
    Like most of the other girls on the show, I never imagined I was signing up to be part of some cultural phenomenon. Most of us thought it would be a one-off special, if anything, like the typical hour long TV documentary format featuring some random person with an interesting story. It didn’t strike me as a long-term project, and I certainly didn’t factor fame or fortune into my considerations. My big concern was that it would be done well. More specifically, that it wouldn’t be scripted or fake. I appreciate good trashy TV as much as the next person, but I wasn’t interested in becoming a reality TV personality. The only reason I considered the show was because it was conceived as a