I was a pretty quiet kid throughout most of my childhood. I was bullied sometimes, but most of the time, people just kinda left me alone (I was lucky, as I learned, since having made friends with kindred spirits in college, I learned my middle/high school experience was somewhat unique in this regard).
I grew up in a town away from the coast. When I was fifteen, the summer before my sophomore year of high school, my best friend and I went to the beach in the neighboring town together. Her eighteen-year-old brother was going with a few of his friends, and my friend and I were just tagging along. My best friend has a similar temperament to mine. It was exciting for us, however, since it was our first time wearing a two-piece bathing suit. We felt like proper adults.
My friend and I got there and went down to hang out in the water for a bit. We had been playing, not far from shore, when something knocked me over. My prescription sunglasses flew off. I can barely see anything without my glasses, so this was a big deal. My friend tried searching for them as I started to panic, and eventually she had to lock arms with me and start guiding me back towards the shore so that we could go to the towel/umbrella area guarded by two of my brother’s friends, where I had my normal glasses waiting for me.
As we were emerging from the water, a guy walked over to us. He was older – maybe eighteen, nineteen, twenty? – at any rate, older than my friend’s brother. He started talking to us, but me in particular. He rapidly switched back and forth from complimenting me to insulting me, and so covered a wide variety of topics – how the bathing suit complimented the shape of my body, the size of my breasts, and how pretty my eyes are, and how pale my skin is were just a few of the topics he covered. My friend and I were immensely uncomfortable, and we both told him to stop a few times, but being that we were very anxious people (and I was still nervous because I wasn’t able to see), this was very difficult for us, not that it would have been an easy situation for most teenage girls.
Eventually, some guy showed up, probably his friend, and said something like “hey dude, Schmidty wants to talk to you about the party tonight” or something else really fratty, I don’t quite remember. As the guy walked away, I heard him ask his creepy friend, “Don’t you think those chicks were a bit young for you?”
Eventually, we made it back to the towel/umbrella area. My friend and I relieved her brother’s friends, who went to join up with her brother and his other friends. My friend and I, I with my regular glasses, were finally able to see again, and we were lying on the towels under the umbrella just reading books.
Then, the creepy guy returned. He started his mixture of insults and compliments directed at me, my body, and my appearance. My friend and I were really scared. Her brother’s friends’ stuff was all with us, so we couldn’t easily pack up and move. We kept telling him to leave, but clearly it wasn’t working. Then a girl ran into the scene, nearly knocking me over. My friend and I recognized her as a popular girl at school, a cheerleader. I don’t think she’d ever interacted with either of us at school, despite us all knowing each other since the age of 6.
The cheerleader got between the creep and my friend and me, and she started berating him. She switched between shouting at him and insulting him in a way which I can only describe as a stereotypical cheerleader cattiness. He kept up his suave demeanor until it became clear that other people were listening to the cheerleader berate him, and especially when it became clear that other people knew he was hitting on underage girls. Obviously, you can’t always tell someone’s age from their appearance – I’m a prime example, even now, I’m in my twenties, people think I’m in middle school sometimes, but I was underage, and he clearly was not. He scowled and left, tail between his legs.
The cheerleader promptly sat down in a folding chair, crossed her legs, and stared after him until he was truly out of sight, then asked if we were alone here. Upon hearing our situation, she told us that she was staying with us until my friend’s brother and party returned. We asked about her friends, but she waved at a group of girls in bikinis, probably a furlong away, who waved back. She said they knew she had come to help us so she was going to stay as long as necessary.
And we got to talking. And we talked for nearly an hour until my friend’s brother and party returned.
We had very little in common; my friend and I had exclusively nerdy and/or old woman taste in media and everything. Also, this girl’s family was definitely in a much higher tax bracket than either of ours. But still, we walked away from that conversation having exchanged numbers, with promises of meeting up again. And we did. We never became super close friends, but the cheerleader is one of a handful of people from high school that my best friend and I are still in contact with.
