It was the pre-game pep talk. But I was alone, so I had to close my eyes and imagine everything. In my mind, I was the coach and the players. 

The denim that covered my legs, almost silk after two years of wearing them five, six, maybe seven days a week, showed white fibers weaving through deep navy blue, taut against my thighs.

Just below my knees, though, they dropped into bell-bottoms, landing a few inches from the floor, enough to show the black, steel-toed shipboard boots reflecting the edges of my face because of the light hanging low above my head.

I was in the locker room at the schoolhouse, sitting on a bench that was like most others, hard and cold. Arms resting on my legs, back straight, coffee cup warming my hands.

It could have been any other Monday, but it wasn’t.

This was the first time I realized that I had to be the hero of the story, that no one was going to save me—not my mom, not my sisters, not my grandfather, and not my friends.

I was twenty-three years and three months old.

Ten minutes before the start of class, I strutted to their room.

As I walked to the front of the classroom, I made eye contact with one of the three boys who were already in their seats.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Waiting until all of you are here,” I answered.

My voice shocked me like it wasn’t mine at all. It was deeper. Powerful.

“Why?” he smirked. 

I didn’t answer him but held his gaze. He shrank in his seat, hunching over, shoulders falling. I’d never seen one of them so vulnerable.

I wondered if he remembered me because I didn’t remember him.

I barely recognized any of them. I only knew this was the class of boys at the party. The ones who saw what was happening. The ones that chose to do nothing.

A few more walked in through the door at the back of the classroom, all of them matching me, US Navy on patches above their hearts.

More and more entered the room. Loud stories of the weekend turned to silence as they noticed me.

As the last one took his seat, I stood like Superman before them.

“Listen up! I know what you saw, and if I hear that you’re talking about it, I’ll find you and make you sorry. Got it?”

Wide-eyed, necks wrenched back in their chairs, a few nodded.

“It never happened. Do you hear me? Say ‘Yes, Ryan!’”

“Yes, Ryan,” they all said in unison in their gritty response voices like the well-trained, smart sailors they were.

“Good. Have a great day.”

I walked out of the room, around the corner into my class, greeted my classmates, sat at my usual desk, and locked the memory of that Saturday night in a box so deep inside that I didn't think about it again for twenty years.