Chapter 14

Patient Narrative - Christina Melendez - entry fourteen: The awful truth

I started the DSU summer session classes just a few weeks after that let-down graduation from high school. I took a full load of classes. I went on several field trips with my Geology 101 class and joined the Paleontology Club. I competed in the election to the be our dorm student representative at the DSU housing board and won. By the end of the summer I had two groups of friends on campus: some classmates from the Geology Department and some people from the Art Department. I hung out with the Art Department classmates just for fun: I knew they weren’t the sort I could rely on in a crisis.

I also started a new relationship, the one I now have with Brian. He’s a classmate and another geology major, so we have a lot in common. Things between us just sort of happened. We always hung out together on our field trips, we worked as lab partners, and we studied together. I suppose that would be “friend zone” type stuff for most people, but over the summer we connected.

I had to come to terms with my sexuality the first time when Brian and I kissed each other. I was surprised when I realized I was attracted to him. For a while, I had thought guys wouldn’t interest me after my time with Yvonne, but that turned out not to be true. I realized I’m bi-sexual. I can go either way, depending on the person. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, but I know that people are kinda weirded-out by it. Anyhow, Brian is a nice, quiet guy, all about his major and sharing that with me. And, I know he kinda had a rotten relationship when he was a senior, and is recovering from that. So, we really do have a lot in common.

I never talked about Yvonne. When I cleared my SIM card, I completely deleted her from my life. At least that’s what I thought. I had no evidence in my possession that she ever existed at all. She wasn’t even in my high school annual, because, typical of her, she had missed photo day for the annual.

So, with my new home, my new major, my new classmates, and my new boyfriend, I was starting a completely new life. Everything seemed to be working out.

One detail of my life that didn’t change from high school is that I still love being naked. I’m always naked in my dorm room and I like going to the nude beach that we have just down the road. One of the student organizations I belong to is the campus “free-the-nipple” group. Since at DSU it’s allowed, a lot of the time I run around topless on campus. I’d go fully nude if it was legal. I wish it was, but at least at DSU women can be “top-free”, and no one will say anything. Fortunately, Brian’s kinda the same way, so we always go to the beach together and he’s gone to support me when I’ve attended “free the nipple” rallies with my group in Sacramento.

Anyhow, the reason I’m saying all this is that Brian and I planned, from the beginning of the fall semester, to join the annual DSU Halloween streaking event. He hadn’t actually gone streaking before, so for him it was gonna be a new experience. I had told him that I went streaking a couple of times around my neighborhood with a friend in high school, but made it sound like it was short and casual. I didn’t, for example, share with him that I had climbed a construction crane in the nude at 2:00 in the morning and was totally exposed 20 stories above the city.

We dressed up for Halloween. We made matching rock costumes out of cardboard and spray-paint: Brian was quartz and I was feldspar. Yes, I know, it was totally lame, but we’re geology majors, so we decided to go with some inside humor. Anyhow, we were totally naked under our rock costumes. Shortly before midnight we went with a bunch of other people from my dorm to the student memorial center, to the big party they have there every year. We partied, danced, and drank: it was a lot of fun. When the DJ shouted: “OK all you perverts and sexual deviants! It’s time to get NAKED!” all Brian and I had to do was lift our rock costumes over our heads, and we were ready to run.

It was when we were running that something snapped in my head. For a moment I saw her. I saw Yvonne running with us. Then everyone else vanished. I was running alone, with her. I stopped. She looked at me over her shoulder and then vanished.

I stood still, trying to catch my breath. I don’t know how long I was there, but it must have been a while, because when I came out of whatever was happening to me, everyone else was gone. Only Brian and a couple of my dorm-mates were still with me, trying to get my attention.

“I’m sorry. Sorry. I guess I ... I ... I gotta go back to my room. Sorry I messed this up for you guys. But ... I ... gotta go back.”

We didn’t bother going back to get our rock costumes. While the others went back to the student center to get their outfits, Brian simply walked me back to the dorm.

“Call me? Text me? Please? I need to know you’re OK.”

“Yeah-yeah. Just ... go ... I’m ... sorry...”

I was really spooked. I mean, for a moment she was so real, as real as anything else on campus that night. I sat on my bed, running my fingers through my hair and wondering what I should do. Was she somehow trying to reach out to me? Did she need my help? How would I even know?

Finally, I thought of something I should have done when she first went missing: trying to look her up online. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that earlier. Anyhow, I didn’t get my answer right away. I found out there’s a bunch of Yvonne Jacksons all around America, with all kinds of stuff on the Internet, but not the one I was looking for. I started narrowing down the search with different filters and trying different things with her name. And then, finally, I saw it:

Teenager dies during raid at local massage parlor Eastwood District, Tri-Cities - April 04

The chief of the Eastwood District Police Precinct declined to give any comment about the death of a teenager during a raid last week that targeted a local adult business, Gi-Gi’s Healing Touch. Police records show that Gi-Gi’s Healing Touch was under investigation by the Tri-City Vice-Squad Task-Force for alleged prostitution. The raid resulted in the arrests of the establishment’s manager Betty Kim (also known as Gi-Gi), five employees, and four customers. Kim, the employees, and the customers will be charged with prostitution and solicitation and prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law”.