Coach Reeves stands in the wrestling room with folded arms and a look that says nonsense will not be tolerated. Beside her is Principal Halloway, trying very hard to look as though this whole situation is educational and not an improvised response to a campus power shift. Also present: six girls from different grades, ranging from terrified freshman to track-team senior, all looking at you with a mix of awe and awkwardness.
Coach Reeves nods toward them.
“Turns out,” she says, “a lot of students have spent years getting pushed around by the same handful of idiots. So we’re starting an after-school self-defense program. Officially it’s about confidence and safety. Unofficially it’s about teaching girls in this building they do not have to shrink just because boys were raised like untrained golden retrievers.”
You choke on a laugh.
Your mother, when you tell her later, sits down at the kitchen table and covers her mouth.
“Are you serious?”
You nod.
“She wants me to help.”
Your mother studies you for a long moment. Then something in her face gives way. Not fear. Not exactly. More like surrender to a truth she was hoping the world would politely ignore forever.
“You’d be good at that,” she says quietly.
You had expected another warning.
Instead, she says, “Maybe I asked the wrong thing of you.”
The sentence hangs there.
