I was not yet 16. It was a typical Friday night, and Shelley and I stood in front of the preview window at the Mayfair movie theatre, waiting for the boys. We were deep in teenage girl talk when Stephen came up from behind me and put his hands around my neck - to be funny. I didn't see him coming, so I jumped and instinctively turned my head to look backward. The angle, the window, the speed, and the trajectory all lined up perfectly for my front left tooth to hit the glass at just the right point.

On impact, I knew something had happened, but it was not clear what it was. My tongue reached for the front of my mouth, and I felt the jagged upward edge of what used to be my smooth, boxy front tooth. I saw my reflection in the glass and felt sick.

Horrified and mortified, I didn't want anyone to see me and only wanted my mother. I tried to keep my wits about me, but when the woman in the ticket booth gave me a hard time getting in to use the telephone, I pushed through the theatre doors and made my way to the nearest phone booth. I vaguely remember her yelling with arms flailing behind me.

My mother answered the phone to the sound of my wailing on the other end of the receiver. She dropped what she was doing and came to get me. I stood outside the theatre like a statue for the ten minutes it took her to get there. I wouldn't talk to anyone or even acknowledge their presence. I refused to open my mouth. My mind was racing with the fear that I would look like a freak forever more.

I always had perfect teeth. My sister needed braces, but not me. I had straight teeth. No overlaps or spaces. Now this. It seemed like a horrible twist of irony. "Was I being punished? Had I mocked my sister when she got her braces, and this was payback? I don't think so, but why else was I being made to suffer like this?”

My mother pulled up to the curb in front of me, and I got into the car without uttering a word. I offered no goodbyes or any other parting words to my friends. I just wanted to get home and hide. We drove in silence but for my intermittent deep sighs and groans. I wouldn't show my mother my broken smile until we were behind closed doors.

We parked and walked to the house with my coat collar raised high so that only my nose and above were visible. Once inside, I dropped my coat and sunk into the living room couch, sobbing uncontrollably.

From across the room, my mother could see the dental carnage, previously known as my left front tooth. Without saying a word, she came over, sat down beside me, took my head into her hands, and pulled me close to her, wrapping her arms around me and gently rocking us both back and forth as she did in times of sadness. I closed my eyes and gave in to the gentle swaying motion until my crying eventually subsided and my breathing calmed. Even then, I stayed in my mother's arms, my face burrowed into her warm and comforting body. I did not want to move. I didn't want to leave the sweet, safe sanctuary of her embrace.

I tried to lie down and rest, but my imagination kept me wide awake. It was on overdrive. I kept thinking that when I woke up, I'd find more teeth had fallen out and were strewn all over the pillow. My mother tried to reason with me and soothe my fears, but I was beyond soothing.

We had been using the same dentist, Dr. Williams, for years, and he treated us like family. My mother didn't hesitate to call him at what was now 11:00 pm, and he readily agreed to meet us at his office.

After assessing the damage, Dr. Williams told me that no other teeth were affected and that my tooth could be fixed. Relief swept over me; however, that was just the good news. The difficult part was yet to come. He explained that due to my young age, a "permanent" fix would have to wait until my teeth were fully developed. Until then, I'd have to be satisfied with a "temporary" solution.

I stayed out of school and in the house until the new tooth was ready. Every mirror was my own personal horror show. I felt like I was looking at someone else's face. "That couldn't be me!" I'd say to myself in a panic and walk away with my hand covering my mouth and basically half my face. Nothing could make me smile—absolutely nothing. I walked around as if I was in mourning. I was. I lost my tooth and my smile at the ripe old age of 16.

My friends felt horrible about what had happened. I refused their calls and visits, partially out of anger and partially out of embarrassment. The next night, there was a knock on the front door, and my mother answered, finding herself eye to eye with a 5-foot-tall plush pink bunny rabbit holding a bottle of Arpege perfume in one paw and a "get well soon" card in the other. My mother called me to the door, and for the first time, my broken smile was unveiled to the world at large, but only my mother and the rabbit were there to see it.

Dr. Williams’ temporary solution consisted of a half-porcelain tooth lined with pins along the top edge that plugged into the bottom of what was left of my own filed-down tooth. It was far from perfect, but if you didn't look too closely, my two front teeth could pass for normal. I was relieved, but I soon realized just how "temporary" the new tooth actually was.

A few weeks later, as I sat eating a brownie in one of my favorite diners amidst the laughter and chaos of my friends and other patrons happily dining all around me, I happened to look down and, to my horror, saw my little half temporary tooth shining brightly from inside my partially devoured brownie lying innocently on my plate. My stomach dropped to my knees, my face was aflame with needles and pins, and I instantaneously locked my jaw shut. I grabbed the tooth shrapnel and stuffed it into my napkin, slid out of the booth, and headed for the bathroom. Once there, I wrote a note to my friend and walked back out to the table to give it to her. She read it and, without a word, got up and followed me out the glass doors to the parking lot. I saw my other friends’ confused faces plastered against the big windows, watching us walk towards her car. We left, and I went home for the first of many more such emergency sessions with Dr. Williams.

Over the course of the next year, my temporary dental companion caused me to suffer through numerous unplanned escapes that would come to fruition in a host of creative and repulsive ways. For example, one of the most common escape methods my little porcelain friend tortured me with over his tenure was deciding to jump ship as I enjoyed the crispness of a juicy apple or other hard food, causing me to endure the unmistakable dreaded crunch of biting down on metal, and knowing with great trepidation and even greater disgust, that I was also eating the tooth. I lived in constant fear for the rest of my appearance-obsessed 16th year, not knowing when, where, or if I had lost the artificial half-tooth.

Despite this heavy weight I carried with me, life went on, and so did the plans for my sister’s wedding. She was to tie the knot in late spring, and I was told I would have my unbroken smile back for the occasion. A permanent cap was to replace the unreliable, disloyal, runaway half tooth. As I hoped, by June, two months before my 17th birthday, I had both front teeth back, each one standing tall in its unbroken glory, serving as the pearly gateway to my mouth.

To the outside world, my new smile seemed perfectly at home. The nightmare seemed to be over. Unfortunately, that was not my reality. It was true that the greatest part of this horrific episode was physically resolved, but the mental anguish that I experienced going through this ordeal was not as easily rectified. In fact, to this very day, as I eat a crunchy apple or sticky peanut butter sandwich, I frequently find myself rushing to run my tongue along that tooth, panicking, until I'm sure it's still there, safe and sound. To me, that tooth is like a cheating husband; I can never really trust it again. It failed me once, and I live in fear, waiting for it to fail me again.

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