Braceface

William Beddick

I grew up with an underbite, a very bad underbite. I remember the dentist appointments where I feared that my doctor was going to point it out to my Mom and suggest that I see an orthodontist. Thankfully, that day hadn’t come. Anytime we went to see Dr. Klein, I was hit with a fresh smell of mint the second I opened his office doors. I would sit with my Mom, patiently waiting for my appointment as we flipped through the pages of a trashy gossip magazine. Every part of it felt adult, and I loved it. When my name was called, I would walk to the back room and sit in the same chair I had been sitting in since I could remember. Every time, I would grit my teeth together and wait until Dr. Klein entered the room.

“Hello, Will!”

I would sit up, ready to show Dr. Klein my not-at-all underbite smile. However, this time was different – he noticed something. I heard my Mom’s voice down the hallway as she approached my exam room and I knew: Dr. Klein had finally found my underbite.

As if I were Rapunzel, I was whisked away from the kingdom of trying to be an adult at the dentist and sent to the witches tower of orthodontists. I dreaded the car ride there and the walk up the dimly lit stairs as my Mom tried to reassure me:

“Every kid goes through this Will! You will be okay!”

My mom could have even been the one working on my teeth, and it still would have left me in tears. Entering the office felt like a daycare. It was filled with kids running around the waiting room playing with trucks, trains, and dolls that they left to keep us occupied while our parents did the paperwork. I didn’t need the trucks or the dolls, I wanted to read Us Weekly and find out if Tiger Woods was having an affair!

A woman would call my name and I would follow her to the exam room, which turned out to be an open room with ten exam chairs and accompanying stations with orthodontists sitting at each one. As soon as I walked in, I was stared at. I knew this was purgatory. I was plopped into a seat and transferred from the woman to a man, something I wasn’t used to at Dr. Klein’s. At the orthodontist, the doctors were playing a game of musical chairs, constantly switching from kid to kid. The man, who I would later know as Dr. Peters, tried to combine business and play, very unadult. He read my scans and determined then and there that I needed an expander. 

For two years, I would put that key in my mouth and crank my expander once, tightening my mouth so much it would bleed. These years were the most grueling, or so I thought, as my once untouched mouth had enough metal in it to set off security detectors. After these two years, I returned to the orthodontist expecting the expander to have worked and my time at the orthodontist to be done until Dr. Peters said the words:

“It’s not looking like the expander is doing the full job, we should try braces next.”

BRACES, I internally screamed so loud I shattered all the windows in the office. 

I thought I had suffered enough after leaving Dr. Klein’s magical dentist oasis and entering what I knew to be hell. Traded off like a piece of cattle, I was taken to another exam room to get my mouth mold, pick out my band colors, and schedule my braces appointment. The next week I stomped into the office, sat down in Dr. Peters’ chair, and let him chip away at my teeth. 

“Do you want to see how they look?” He grabbed a mirror to show me the finished product. 

Dear god, why on earth did I choose neon blue?

It became a constant rite of passage to see Dr. Peters on Thursdays after school. Over time, we began to talk like I perceived adults did. 

So how’s school?

Good, besides math. How’s your family?

Good! Stephanie is off at college studying Biology.

Since he talked like an adult, I decided that maybe Dr. Peters wasn’t so bad after all. I went from dreading the orthodontist to enjoying my time with Dr. Peters, who soon became a friend. 

Thursdays became filled with what I saw as adult time, hanging out with Dr. Peters while the other kids played with trains in the waiting room. It might not have been reading Us Weekly, but learning about Dr. Peters’ life felt equivalent to reading the tabloids. What once was something that filled me with dread and fear, now filled me with excitement and ease. For, having braces not only made me feel special, but it was my first chance to become the adult I always wanted to be.

Edited by Emily Finnegan & Elisabeth Kay