The closest I ever came was in 9th grade. I was in wood shop class, sitting around one of the square tables with a couple friends, my all time best friend included (we'll call him ATBF from here on). ATBF was sitting to my right and another guy was sitting to his right. ATBF is a super badass dude that nobody wants to mess with because he'll fuck their shit up without asking questions first. To my left was a dude named John who was HUGE and eerily quiet all the time. He was in ROTC and always walked around school in camo fatigues and other army apparel. He never smiled, never talked to anybody, just always went about his business alone. He was a freakishly intimidating guy. He was avoided by everybody in the school because he was so big and unpredictable.
Anyways so we're all sitting at the table, my friends to my right and him to my left. He was almost directly beside me so what happened next still defies the laws of physics and I have no idea how it happened. It should also be noted that I never ever had one issue with this guy before. The most we'd ever interacted was a head-nod and a "hey" when we'd end up sitting near each other. OK, so we're sitting there and I just picked a fucking GNARLY long stringy booger out of my nose. It stuck to the tip of my finger and as I pulled it out of my nose, the length of slapped down and stuck down half the length of my pointer finger. I showed it to my friends because we were 15 and it was funny. Then, I pointed my hand directly in front of me and flicked the boog off. I assumed it'd fly straight off my finger and stick to the wall or something, resulting in further LOLs from table.
Well, it didn't. It shot straight to my left and landed right smack across ROTC dude's face. I have no idea how, but it did. He was NOT happy at all. His face went from his typical "fuck you don't talk to me" expression to a crimson red "you're a fucking dead man" expression instantly. I apologized profusely right away and swore up and down that I didn't do it on purpose, but he just glared at me and didn't say anything. ATBF took my back and said "hey man, that was a total accident, don't freak out, it's cool." The guy just glared at him too and still didn't say anything. At this point I'm getting pretty scared because I never thought about the possibility of ATBF fighting this guy. This guy was way bigger than ATBF and he didn't look like he was scared of anything ever.
So the rest of the day went on and big dude still never said anything. The next day, more of the same. He still wouldn't talk but man he glared me down every chance he got. It must have been like a month and a half later when, for the first time, ATBF didn't show up for class. This day, when big dude glared at me, there was the slightest little tiny grin that went along with it, and I knew exactly what it meant. I'm not afraid to admit I was fucking SCARED for that whole class. Afterwards, as I waslking to my next class and getting closer I was starting to believe I might have been wrong about that grin. Then all of a sudden I lost my breath and found myself on my face on the ground. He'd come up behind me and shoved me as hard as he could. I fell down on my face, rolled over and got up. I knew now it was time as he stood there fuming.
I tried one last time to explain that what happened so long ago was just an accident, but again he didn't say anything. By then a large crowd had gathered in anticipation of the forthcoming beatdown. Fortunately for me, this crowd included a couple teachers that broke everything up. I was SURE I was about to taste my spleen until I saw them.
Dude was escorted to his next class huffing and puffing. He wanted to kill me. The first thing I did when I got home was call ATBF and tell him what happened. That big fucking chump turned out to be a pussy. He had to wait until my friend wasn't there to make his move.
After that, he never bothered me again. He even smiled sometimes when he passed me in the halls. He knew. He fucking knew I told ATBF what he did and that ATBF wasn't happy about it. He's scared of ATBF and the fact that he never messed with me again proves it.
ATBF is still to this day my ATBF, but he hasn't whooped anyone's ass since high school. He's definitely not the fighting type anymore, which is good... but goddamn am I glad he was back then. There's something to be said for friend so good they'll willingly jump in the line of fire like that for you.
