I'm a fairly modest person. By that I mean that I don't like people to know private things about me or see me naked. However, accidents happen, and with my horrible luck/karma/ju-ju they tend to occur in very public places.
One summer I went to the beach with the guy I was dating and his family. This boy was incredibly fair-skinned and didn't like to be around people or spend time with me, so we only went to the ocean a couple of times. Watching Spongebob and eating chips seemed to me like something we could do back home, so I occasionally went with his sister and her friend to try and enjoy my vacation.
Us girls splashed around in the pool and chilled in the hot tub like typical hot teenage beach girls. I had my new bikini so I thought I was the sexiest, tannest person alive. Skin cancer hadn't occurred to my young mind yet. Then I started to feel guilty, having fun while my boyfriend sat upstairs by himself. He had exiled himself to the hotel room but somehow I still believed he wanted to break away from his boring cycle of TV, video games, and junk food.
So I went upstairs to present him with my whiniest, clingiest argument that he needed (and secretly wanted) to spend romantic quality time with me on the beach.
He either agreed with me or wanted me to shut up, because he put on his swim trunks and followed me out to the ocean. I skipped and giggled and held his hand, convinced that we were now on the fast track to spending happy-fun-time together.
Even though I'm deathly afraid to be in the water over my head, I trusted the ocean to respect my limits and only splash the waves mildly onto my legs so I wouldn't freak out. The ocean kindly obeyed.
Then we got a little brave and went out further, where we had to jump with the waves to keep our heads above water. I was delighted but kept getting saltwater in my eyes and couldn't see. Unable to see the waves approaching, not knowing when to jump, I started to get scared and told my boyfriend so. He eased my mind by getting behind me and picking me up by the waist when he jumped. It made me feel light and happy and in love, because I was a simple eighteen-year-old girl who read romance novels and expected a lot but often received very little.
After several times of us jumping together so adorably, I felt the bikini string around my back start to loosen. I looked down between waves and, through squinty saltwater-filled eyes, saw the strings floating on either side of me. My boyfriend reached for my narrow, toned waist to help me jump for an oncoming wave, and I screamed for him not to. "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" I cried, panicking and falling gracefully forward out of his reach, desperate to keep my buoys underwater. The wave crashed right on top of my face, and I lost all sense of direction.
The string that remained around my neck was being pulled out and down, trying to drag my body to the sharks. Wanting to stay alive way more than I wanted to stay clothed, I reluctantly ducked my head down and let my noose get rushed away by the violent ocean that was no longer respecting my boundaries.
My poor boyfriend saw his pathetic, topless girlfriend crying and letting herself get tossed around in the ocean, apparently having given up on life and dignity. He responded by heroically running to get his shirt off the shore to cover her shame.
I had been washed up pretty far on shore as I awaited his return. I sat, cradling my knees tightly against my chest, gasping for air, as merciless waves crashed on me and knocked me over again and again. They were like middle school kids coming across a fat girl crying in the bathroom. Perfect chance to kick someone while she's down.
Finally, he brought me his shirt and guided my pitiful, drunken steps to the safe sand. I reminded him that was my new bathing suit, and he sighed and looked at me for a while, surely contemplating whether I was worth the trouble and embarrassment I so often caused him. I watched from a distance as he wandered around aimlessly, waiting for a brown and blue cloth the size of a ship's mast to catch his eye. It never did.
I stumbled dizzily and blindly back to the hotel, where his sister and her friend were leaning over the balcony, waiting to hear what had happened. I shook my head and asked them to throw down a different bikini top so I could get in the calm, waveless pool that didn't want to marinate me with saltwater and eat my clothes for dinner.
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