The Fault in our braces

Chapter 1

Late in the winter of my 17th year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a bit a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about straight teeth.
   Whenever you read a braces booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of having braces. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of getting braces. Depression is a side effect of imperfect teeth . (Getting braces is also a side effect of imperfect teeth . Almost everything is, really.) but my mom believe I required treatment, so she took me to see my Regular Doctor Jim, Who agreed that I was veritably swimming in a paralyzing and totally clinical depression, and that therefore my wires should be adjusted and also I should attend a weekly Support Group.
   This Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of orthodontic-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of imperfect teeth.
   The Support Group, of course, was depressing as hell. It met every Wednesday in the basement of a stone wall Episcopal church shaped like a cross. We all sat in a circle right in the middle of the cross, where the two boards would have met, where the heart of Jesus would have been.
   I noticed this because Patrick, the Support Group Leader and the only person over 18 in the room, talked about the heart of Jesus every freaking meeting, all about how we, as young braces survivors, we're sitting right in Christ's very sacred heart and whatever.
   So here's how it went in God's heart: the six or seven or 10 of us walked in, grazed at a decrepit selection of acid free lemonade and mushy cookies, sat down in the Circle of Trust, and listened to Patrick recount for the thousandth time his depressingly miserable life story-How he had braces, rubber bands, turbo blocks, and a power chain and they thought he was going to have to get them again but he didn't and now here he is, a full-grown adult in a church basement in the 137th nicest city in America, divorced, addicted to video games, mostly friendless, eking out on meager living by exploiting his metaltastic past, slowly working his way towards a masters degree that will not improve his career prospects, waiting, as we all do, for the sword of Damocles to give him the relief that he escaped lo those many years ago when braces pulled out two of his teeth but spared what only the most generous soul would call straight teeth.
   AND YOU TOO MIGHT BE SO LUCKY!
   Then we introduced ourselves: Name. Age. Date of application. And how we are doing today. I'm Hazel, I'd say when they get to me. 16. Originally set for November 30th but then got changed to October 7th. And I'm doing okay.
   Once we got around the circle, Patrick always asked if anyone wanted to share. And then began the circle jerk of support: everyone talking about fighting and battling and winning and removal and scanning. To be fair to Patrick, he let us talk about imperfect teeth, too. But most of them didn't have imperfect teeth. Most had a few crooked teeth, as Patrick had.
   (Which meant there was quite A lot competitiveness about it, with everybody wanting to beat not only braces themselves, but also the other people in the room. Like, I realize that this is irrational, but when they tell you that you have, say, a 20% chance of getting your braces off in two years, the math kicks in and you figure that's one and five... so you look around and think, as any normal person would: I got to beat four of these bastards.)
The only redeeming fact of Support Group was this kid named Isaac, a long-faced, skinny guy with straight blonde hair swept over one eye.
   And his bottom teeth where the problem. He had fantastically improbable crooked bottom teeth. He had braces when he was a kid, and now he wore braces with a power chain that hid his teeth (both the top and bottom row) so that it looks like his teeth were generally straight, like his mouth couldn't fit over his own teeth. From what I could gather on the rare occasions with Isaac shared with the group, a reoccurrence had placed his comfort in moral peril.
   Isaac and I communicated almost exclusively through sighs. Each time someone discussed keeping healthy gums by scrubbing them with pee or shoving rubber floss up your brackets or whatever, he'd glance over at me and sigh ever so slightly. I just shake my head microscopically and exhale in response.
  So Support Group blew, and after a few weeks, I grew to be rather kicking-and-screaming about the whole affair. In fact, on the Wednesday I made the acquaintance of Augustus Waters, I tried my level best to get out of Support Group. While sitting on the couch with my mom in the third leg of a 12 hour marathon of the previous seasons America's Next Top Model, which admittedly I had already seen, but still. Me: " I refuse to attend Support Group."
Mom: "One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities."
Me: Please just let me watch America's Next Top Model. It's an activity."
Mom: "Television is a passivity."
Me: "Ugh, Mom, Please."
Mom: "Hazel, you're a teenager. You're not a little kid anymore. You need to make friends, get out of the house, and live your life."
Me: "If you want me to be a teenager, don't send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, Drink vodka, and take pot."
Mom: "You don't take pot, for starters."
Me: "See, that's the kind of thing I'd know if you got me a fake ID."
Mom: "You're going to Support Group."
Me: "UGGGGGGGGGGGGGG."
Mom: "Hazel, you deserve a life."
That shut me up, although I failed to see how attendance at Support Group met the definition of life.
Still, I agreed to go-after negotiating the right to record the 1.5 episodes of ANTM I'd be missing.
   I went to Support Group for the same reason that I'd once allowed nurses with a mere 18 months of graduate education to poke and prod around my mouth with exotically named tools: I wanted to make my parents happy. There's only one thing in this world shittier than not having straight teeth when you're 16, and that's having a kid who doesn't have straight teeth.

Mom pulled into the circular driveway behind the church at 4:56. I pretended to fiddle with my rubber bands for a second just to kill time.
   "Do you want me to go pick up more for you?"
"No, it's fine," I said. The multi colored bands were thick, but light, and I had a case I had a little bag in it that contained them. They yanked my two fang-like teeth down into their proper position, rubber attaching to four hooks installed in my mouth, they hooked onto one and onto the other and then vice a versa for the other side. The contraption was necessary because my teeth sucked at being teeth.
"I love you," she said is I got out.
"You too, Mom. See you at six."
"Make friends!" She said through the rolled-down window as I walked away.
I didn't want to take the elevator because taking the elevator makes you seem a whole lot more important than you actually are, so I took the stairs. I grabbed a soggy, droopy cookie and poured soda into a Dixie cup with A straw permanently attached inside and turned around.
A boy was staring at me.
I was quite sure I've never seen him before. Long and leanly muscular, he dwarfed the molded plastic elementary school chair he was sitting in. Mahogany hair, straight and short. He looked at my age, maybe a year older, and he sat with his tailbone against the edge of the chair, his posture aggressively poor, one hand half in a pocket of dark jeans.
   I looked away, suddenly conscious of my myriad insufficiencies. I was wearing old jeans, which had once been tight but now sagged in weird places, and a yellow T-shirt advertising a band I didn't even like anymore. Also my hair: I had this pageboy haircut, and I haven't even bothered to, like, brush it. Furthermore, I had ridiculously fat chipmunk cheeks, a side effect of multiple sharp objects stabbing me in the mouth and causing swelling. I looked like a normally proportioned sized person with a balloon for a head. This was not even to mention the gum scar situation. And yet-I cut a glance to him, and his eyes were still on me.
It occurred to me why they call it eye contact.
I walked into the circle and sat down next to Isaac, two seats away from the boy. I glanced again. He was still watching me.
   Look, let me just say it: He was hot. A non-hot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy... well.
   I pulled out my phone and clicked it so it would display the time: 4:59. The circle filled in with the unlucky 12 to 18's, and then Patrick started us out with the serenity prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." The guy was still staring at me. I felt rather blushy.
   Finally, I decided that the proper strategy was to stare back. Boys do not have a monopoly on the Staring Business, after all. So I looked him over as Patrick acknowledged for the thousandth time his metal-lessness etc., and soon it was a staring contest. After a while the boy smiled, and then finally his blue eyes glanced away. When he looked back at me, I flicked my eyebrows up to say, I win.
   He shrugged. Patrick continued and finally it was time for the introductions. "Issac, perhaps you'd like to go first today, I know you're facing a challenging time."
   "Yeah," Isaac said. "I'm Isaac. I'm 17. And it's looking like I have to keep my braces on for a couple more years, after which my teeth will be inevitably, permanently straight. Not to complain or anything because I know a lot of us have it worse, but yeah, I mean, having braces on for seven years straight does sort of suck. My girlfriend helps, though.  And friends like Augustus." He nodded toward the boy, who now had a name. "So yeah," Isaac continued. He was looking at his hands, which he'd folded into each other like the top of a tepee. "There's nothing you can do about it."
   "We're here for you, Isaac," Patrick said. "Let Isaac hear it, guys." And then we all, in a monotone, said, "We're here for you Isaac.