Once upon a time...

... there was a mighty volleyball match. The winner got to say a speech at the interschool speech competition. The volleyball game was to decide the second place winner as two had tied in the class vote (because a naive little girl had thoughtfully not voted for herself). The idealistic teacher had (randomly) divided the class into two teams. The naive little girl (okay, it's me) got the team with all the younger kids, who were unco-ordinated, the scrawny kids, who couldn't hit the ball, and the fat kids who couldn't move. All her friends were put on the other team, the older kids (who were co-ordinated, could hit the ball, and could also move). Half way through the game, saddened by the unfairness of it all (after all, her excellent speech was on dragons, who doesn't want to hear about dragons?), the girl started to cry. Her team sucked. Seeing this, one of her very closest friends (to this day), came up to serve... and botched all his serves on purpose, much to the anger of the teacher. The game was, of course, supposed to be played fair.
Although slightly embarassed by this display of sympathy, the girl did feel comforted by her friend's concern, protected by his unwillingness to see her be hurt.

*** Skip ahead 10 years.

The two are still friends. The boy and his girlfriend come to visit the girl and their other friends at university. Many things, better and worse, have happened to the girl since that volleyball game.
In a cafe, sitting at a table, the girl, the boy, her boyfriend, his girlfriend, and two others, the conversation turns to the girl's least favourite name. Some at the table are aware of how much it hurts the girl to hear the name spoken, others are not. She sits her eyes downcast waiting for the subject to change. The boy, seeing her distress, pretends that he has forgotten the name, and doesn't know who they are speaking of, and in doing so effectively changes the subject. The girl looks up and catches his eye. He shrugs...

...suddenly, she is eleven years old again, and he has just botched another serve, given her another point of protection.