Later the St. Bernadette coach was asked for a comment about the unfolding story. “It’s very unfortunate that our hard working team and coaches are now being tarnished by this scandal. A championship game like this should be decided on the court, not by the outside intimidation of an individual player. I can assure you that no one connected with the team, including all of our players, had any idea that this was going on. Tonight you witnessed a very fine and competitive game. Both teams had a chance to win at the end. My congratulations go to Team Merriam for their last second victory.”
Chapter 25
The St. Patrick’s Day Dance
(March 17)
The week following the big game was quite enjoyable for the students of Merriam High School. There was the good feeling and pride around campus because their basketball team had won the northern California championship game. And there was a short week of school due to a teacher in-service day on Friday, that would give the student body a three day weekend. Thursday was St. Patrick’s Day, and the student government had planned a big dance for Thursday evening from 7 – 10 PM.
Laura was on the planning committee for the dance, which was themed “Go Green!” With the basketball season now officially over, the committee had access to the boy’s gymnasium for two days after school to get the decorations up and ready for the dance. Refreshments at the dance would include green punch and shamrock-shaped cookies decorated with green sprinkles. Everyone attending the dance was encouraged to wear green.
On Thursday, when Jason came to pick up Laura, she had to smile at his outfit. He was wearing a bright green tee shirt underneath a plaid shirt with green and brown colors. On his feet was a brand new pair of Kelly green high top chucks. “Jason, you really got into the spirit of things!” Laura exclaimed. “And I love those shoes!”
“I happened to see those at the mall and had to get them,” Jason answered. “They won’t replace my favorite red high-top chucks, but are perfect for tonight. Look at you, babe! I like your outfit, too.” Laura had on a white peasant blouse with a bright green skirt. She had combed her hair back in a ponytail with a large green braid, and was wearing shamrock earrings.
Jason escorted Laura to the dance and soon they were having fun dancing to the music and socializing with their friends. Daniel and Diana were there, as were most of the basketball team players. It was another good opportunity for the team members to celebrate their championship season.
Laura and the other dance committee members were complimented about the decor by Mr. Davis, the school activities director, and by the several teachers who were at the dance to chaperone. It was the second hour of the dance, and things seemed to be going smoothly when suddenly there seemed to be a buzz going through the students. More and more of them were taking out their cell phones, looking at the screens and talking in excited whispers.
Daniel, who was seated at a table with Diana, Laura, and Jason said, “I wonder is going on? Everyone seems to be looking at their cell phones!”
“I don’t know, Daniel,” Jason said getting out his smart phone. “I don’t see anything new on my phone.” Just as he said that, a new message arrived.
When Jason opened the message it read, “Look who likes to show it all.” Attached to the message was a picture of a young teenaged girl without her blouse or bra on.
“Oh my God!” Jason exclaimed. “Can you believe this? Someone is sending compromising photos of one of our students!”
As Jason was saying that, copies of that email were arriving on Laura, Daniel, and Diana’s cell phones. “Who is doing this?” Daniel asked. “Do you know who the girl is?”
“Who would be so foolish as to take a picture of herself like this and then post it on the Internet?” Diana asked.
“I don’t think that the girl herself would do such a thing,” Jason replied. “She probably sent this originally to her boy friend, never dreaming that it would be made public!”
“I know who the girl is!” Laura said with some shock in her voice. “Her name is Victoria Romano. She was in my Social Studies class last year.”
“Look!” Daniel called out. “Another email has arrived with another compromising photo of Victoria.” All around the dance, the buzz of voices got louder as other students were receiving the same email.
“Who is doing such a mean thing?” Diana asked. “I can’t see a name on the email.”
“Whoever did this had to be very computer savvy,” Jason said. “How else would they be able to acquire so many individual email addresses and then disguise how they are sending out the emails with the photos.”
“Even more remarkable would be how whoever did this got these photos in the first place!” Daniel replied.
As they were talking, Laura was looking around the dance. “Look!” she said, “Victoria is seated over there at that table. I wonder if she is aware of what is going on?”
“Somebody had better warn her quick about what is going on!” Diana said. “She is about to become the laughing stock of the entire student body. How horrible for her!”
Just as Diana was saying that, Victoria Romano jumped up out of where she was sitting. Her face was beet red with shame. She ran toward the exit of the gym, tears streaming down her face, literally pushing people aside to get there.
“I think she knows now,” Jason said. “Somebody had better go after her. She is probably going through some kind of total meltdown right now!”
“Do you know who any of her friends are?” Diana asked Laura.
“We were only casual acquaintances in class last year,” Laura answered. “I’m really not sure who Victoria hangs out with. I do know where she lives, however. She lives next door to Francine, one of my friends on the dance committee. I happened to see her one day when I gave Francine a ride home.”
“I think we need to do something right away!” Jason exclaimed. “I can’t sit here and do nothing when clearly Victoria is in trouble.”
“What can we do?” Laura asked.
“I think we should go after her, see if we can find her, and get her some counseling at least. I think we need to tell the school activities director what’s going on if he doesn’t already know!” Jason said.
Jason got up and went over to where the activities director was talking with a couple of the teachers. “Mr. Davis, are you aware of what is going on?” he asked.
“I just noticed one of our students leaving, quite upset about something,” Mr. David replied. “Two of the teachers went after her, but she ran away to the parking lot and drove away before they could talk to her!”
Jason showed him the picture that was on his cell phone. “Her name is Victoria Romano. Someone sent these photos to nearly all of the students here tonight. I imagine that there are a lot more students getting these pictures as well!”
“This is very serious!” Mr. Davis said, shocked by the image on Jason’s cell phone. “I am going to call her parents right now. I’ll have our security officer call 911 so the authorities can be on the lookout for her.” Davis went over to the security officer and then hurried off to the school office to look up the Romano’s telephone number.
Jason went back to the table where Daniel, Laura, Diana were still seated. “I think we need to go over to her house right away. Are you with me?” he challenged his friends.
“I am!” Daniel exclaimed, getting up. “If nothing else, we can be moral support for her when we find her.
“Come on, Laura and Diana,” Jason urged. “I think you two could help her feel better just by being there! Laura, we need you to navigate!”
Laura and Diana got up, put their coats on, and followed Jason as he hurried out the door of the school gym.
Chapter 26
Victoria’s Crisis
(March 17)
Victoria Romano was in a state of mind that was total panic. When she first saw the pictures on her cell phone, it was bad enough. She had sent them to her ex boy friend, Brice Henderson, as a last ditch effort to keep their r
omance going, but it had backfired. Instead of making him feel more attracted to her, it made him feel that she was both desperate and promiscuous. What little rapport their relationship had left was now completely gone and he broke off the relationship. That was bad enough but now the pictures were being sent around to all the other students at school! She couldn’t believe that Brice could be so cruel to her.
Her mind was now haunted by all of the taunts and slurs she would be hearing from anyone she would meet at school. She imagined in her head other kids pointing at her and calling her names like slut, whore, and tart. Or if they didn’t say anything, they would smirk at her, or walk away when she came near, not wanting to associate with such a low life, immoral person.
She ran to her car as fast as she could and got inside. She could hear people calling her name from a distance, but did not want to deal with anyone. She revved up the car and raced out of the student parking lot. Not knowing what to do, Victoria decided to drive home. Luckily, it was less than a mile away, and in the condition that she was in, she was sure a policeman would pull her over to cite her for bad driving.
When Victoria arrived home, she realized that she would have to face her parents, and explain about what happened. Her parents were deeply religious, and would be quite offended by what she had done. Victoria was sure that she would be severely punished for taking sexually explicit pictures of herself. She would be grounded for a long time (not that she would have anywhere to go or anybody to see after what happened), and then constantly lectured about how what she did was evil, immoral, and brought shame on herself and to their family.
Victoria decided that she couldn’t deal with that right now, and in fact she couldn’t deal with her life anymore. She realized that she had become a totally unworthy fool and her life was now worthless! The thought of being everyone’s object of scorn and ridicule was becoming too much for Victoria to bear.
I can’t deal with this any more, I have to end this life of shame and humiliation before I embarrass myself and my family any more! kept going through her mind.
Now the question was, How can I end my life before someone grabs me and locks me up inside a room with rubber walls?
Victoria had no access to any kind of drugs or weapons. She had no interest in those kinds of things until this evening. She would have to get inside her house to get any kind of drugs, and doubted that her parents had any kind of drug that would do the trick anyway.
She got out of her car and looked around her neighborhood totally frustrated. Then her eyes focused on The Towers. The Towers were two new five story buildings that were part of a large scale development that included a shopping mall and condominium units. The overall plan was quite controversial when it first was proposed, but eventually the zoning board approved the project, and The Towers opened last year.
Victoria suddenly saw The Towers development in a new light. She could end her miserable life by jumping off of the top of one of the two buildings. Impulsively she began running toward The Towers. Now she had a plan that would work.
When Victoria arrived at The Towers, she was exhausted and out of breath from running and the emotional drains on her body from what she had experienced this evening. To get to the top of one of the buildings, she would first need to get inside. The apartment buildings were kept locked and she would need to get inside without raising an alarm. She watched the front door for a few minutes, and realized that her best bet to get in would be to burst inside just as someone else was leaving. But timing was essential for that to work.
Victoria stood near the front door. A few minutes went by and then the door opened as a couple was leaving. Victoria rushed by them and yelled, “Thanks!” She was now inside the building. Not wanting to risk being seen, Victoria decided to avoid the elevator and instead climb up to the top using the stairs. She opened the door to the stairs and began climbing up. Again the tears streamed down her face as she equated her climb as a walk to her execution! She imagined a stone-faced judge pronouncing sentence, as the jury of her peers cheered their verdict of death! And now she was walking those final steps to her doom!
When Victoria reached the fifth floor of the building, she could find no immediate access to the roof, except through a door that was locked. Frustrated, Victoria looked around. She went to the window, but it was sealed shut. She looked outside and noticed that there was a fire escape nearby. In a narrow corridor to the right of the window was another door! It was the door to the fire escape and it was unlocked. Victoria opened the escape door and went outside on to its metal scaffolding. The scaffolding led to the roof. Victoria got on it and climbed to the top of The Towers. Now it was just a question of jumping off!
Meanwhile, Jason, Laura, Daniel, and Diana had driven over to the Romano house. When they arrived, they went to the front door and rang the doorbell. Mr. Romano answered the door. Jason asked him if Victoria was at home.
“Victoria’s not here. We thought she was at the school dance. Now we just heard from the school that something horrible has happened to her!”
As quickly and diplomatically as he could, Jason explained what had happened to Victoria at the dance. “We saw her run out of the gym very upset. We are very worried about her, especially with the state of mind she was in.”
Mr. Romano’s face darkened when he heard what Jason had told him. “Are you friends with Victoria? I don’t remember seeing you before.”
“I knew her in Social Studies class last year,” Laura explained. “But that’s not the point. We think that she could easily become suicidal after what was done to her!”
By that time, Mrs. Romano had come to the door. “Look!” she pointed out to her husband. “There’s her car parked on the street!”
“She must be around here somewhere then,” Daniel said. “Where do you think she might have gone? Does she have any close friends around here?”
“There is Francine next door, but I don’t think that they were particularly close,” Mrs. Romano went on.
“If someone was very upset and possibly suicidal, where do you think that they might go around here?” Jason asked.
As Jason was asking that question, Diana, Daniel, and Laura began focusing on The Towers buildings a couple of blocks away.
“Oh my God!” Mrs. Romano shouted with deep concern. “The Towers are five stories high!”
“We are going to drive over there now!” Jason exclaimed. “In the meantime, call 911. Explain to them that Victoria could be suicidal and is somewhere in this area, most likely at the Towers. Get them to send their suicide prevention team out there. If we spot her we will call 911 to confirm her location.”
The four teens got in their vehicles and hurried over to The Towers. Although it was nine o’clock at night, the shopping mall area was well lighted and the Towers buildings themselves had lighting. They hurried over to the two high rise building and looked up. Sure enough, Victoria Romano was up there at the edge of the roof. Jason opened his cell phone and dialed 911. He confirmed with them that they had spotted Victoria Romano on the roof of the right tower.
“Don’t worry, a suicide prevention team is on its way right now,” the 911 operator told Jason. “Don’t try to do anything on your own,” she continued. “Leave this to the professionals. They have a lot of experience talking people down.”
Jason relayed what he was just told to Laura, Daniel, and Diana. “I sure hope that they arrive soon,” Laura said. “She’s very close to the edge up there!”
“We need to stay here and be like a support group for her, so that she knows not everyone is against her, or laughing at her,” Jason replied. “Right now it doesn’t appear that she is about to actually jump.”
A couple of minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Romano arrived. Jason went up to them and told them what he had just heard from the 911 operator. “I can’t believe that our daughter would contemplate suicide!” Mr. Romano said. “I know she wasn’t brought up that way!”
“Right now Victoria is probably f
eeling that her life is at an end, because of the guilt and shame she feels for what just happened. Her whole psyche is very fragile. The last thing anyone should do at this point is add any additional guilt to the mix! But I can assure you that if and when she is talked down from the roof, there will be plenty of help available to her and to you.”
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Romano asked.
Jason then took a few minutes to explain about the mission of the Whatever Foundation, and how they were set up to cover situations where a teenager has been victimized. “The foundation will cover all of the costs of counseling for her, yourselves, and any other family members as needed.”
As Jason was finishing his explanation to the Romanos, a series of flashing lights appeared in the parking lot. The suicide prevention team had arrived, and were beginning to set up their equipment. A man with a powered megaphone came up to Jason and the others. “Hi, my name is Oscar Velez. I will be working to get Victoria down from the building. Has she said anything to anyone here? Have you talked or yelled at her at all?”
When Oscar heard that both answers were ‘no’, he said, “Good! I can start from the beginning with her. I understand her name is Victoria. Is that correct?”
With the answer to that question in the affirmative, Oscar requested that everyone move back of a police barricade that was being set up around the building. “One more thing, I may need to call upon you to yell some supportive things to show Victoria that not everyone thinks she is a bad person. Can you folks do that?”
Days of Destiny Page 20