I was starting to get nervous then, because Mama timed my trips to the store, and I worried that she would know that this one took too long. We shifted around again, and that’s when I saw a girl my age with that Buchanan head, her hair slicked over in a side ponytail. But this girl wasn’t standing all confident like the Stacia I would soon become friends with. She wasn’t popping gum; she was scared. I didn’t know her well at the time—she was just a kid in my class who everybody was afraid of because her family ran the gang on our block.

The elevator left the tenth floor and went express all the way up to sixteen. Its doors didn’t even open. It dropped back down to the nine, like some ride at Six Flags. Everybody started cursing. I looked over at the corner where the girl was, but I couldn’t see her well; most of her body was covered up by this man who had her face pressed against the elevator wall. It was bizarre, especially since there was elbow room now. I couldn’t stop staring at them. At first, it looked like a couple getting it on in the elevator, something you’d see, then look away from, which is, I know now, how so many public assaults happen.

When the door opened on seven, everyone else had had enough, and hurried off, cursing about the elevator. I stayed on and as I looked closer to see if she was Stacia, I realized the guy was a grown man, and that while he seemed calm, the girl was not enjoying herself. She was crying.

I knew she was in danger, but then I started doubting what I was looking at. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he mumbled something in her ear, not paying any attention to what the elevator was doing. He hadn’t turned around once since I’d noticed them. I moved to get a closer look at the girl, who struggled to get her face off the elevator wall, and that’s when I saw that she was Stacia for sure.

I didn’t think before I pushed his shoulder as hard as I could and said, “Leave her alone!”