It is the beginning of May, and I’m sitting in my dorm room, hunched over my desk. It’s nearly finals week, and I have assignments upon assignments due soon. The sky outside is dark and rainy. It’s colder than normal outside, but that’s okay– I have bigger things to worry about. My fingers tap, tap, tap on the keyboard. From across the room, my phone buzz, buzz, buzz-es in response. The room is filled with noise- soft piano from the background of my laptop, with an accompaniment from my keyboard and backup vocals from my phone. Tap-tap-tap, buzz, tap-tap-tap, buzz. Buzz, tap. Buzz, tap. Buzz-buzz-buzz, tap. I pause. My phone does not. I figure I may as well take a break. It’s been hours, after all.
I open up the phone. The notifications are all from the same group chat– my politically active friends from high school. It was an active group chat– hardly a day would go by without someone posting a meme or an article that would’ve definitely pissed off some people at our Catholic high school. But the frequency of these messages, the amount appearing in all caps, the incessant buzzing of my phone– this is unusual. I glance at my laptop from across the room, the soft piano music reaching for me, calling me back to the homework I’ve been working on. But if the activity of my friends is anything to go by, I have bigger things to worry about.
I open the chat to an onslaught of messages. I scroll to the top and read the message that started it all. “OMG. The Supreme Court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade!” I freeze. The statement echoes in my head, bouncing around my head like a tennis ball. I scroll back to the newest chats, asking for clarification, for details– what’s happened? How do we know? Quickly, but somehow still too slowly, I am brought up to speed; there’s been a leak from the Supreme Court. That’s silly, I think. Leaks are for video games and movies, to increase hype online; they’re not for draft official government documents from the highest court in the land. That doesn’t happen. In disbelief, I scroll up and click the article, looking to see for myself. If this is real, I’ve got bigger things to worry about. Who would have done this? And for what reason? Are we not already divided enough? Are our politics not already flowing with anger and vitriol? What must have been going through the leaker’s head when they did this? I try to breathe. It’s only a draft, I tell myself. The Supreme Court is known for taking ages to do anything, I tell myself. Abortion will be returned to the states, not outlawed, I tell myself. And then it hits me; this is an election year. This leak, regardless of what comes from it in the end, will stir up politically-savvy Americans and make them vote. For one side, to defend a right they think is attacked; for the other, to try and ride the momentum of their perceived victory. Either way, the internet is about to go up in flames.
A month passes by. I’ve just woken up to the late morning sun, glaring at me through my window. It knows something. My phone buzzes. As I look for it, it buzzes again. And again. And again. I grumble, unable to find it. It buzzes at me in response. When I find it, I know immediately something has happened. The group chat is in turmoil again. I begin to glance over the chat bubbles, but my eyes freeze on one message in particular, near the top. It reads “ROE V WADE IS GONE.” I sit up. I hear my mother call me from downstairs. For now though, I have bigger things to worry about.
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