The dentist appointment

16. Bring your tools home

When I had emptied my glass of wine I decided it was time to go and talk to Nina. I took our wineglasses in my hand and blew out all the candles and shut the TV off. I put the glasses in the sink in the kitchen and walked upstairs. I could hear small sniffing sounds from our bedroom. I went inside and Nina was not giving away any sound. She probably are trying to to pretend that she's asleep so I could leave her alone. I went into our master bathroom, washed my face, flossed and brushed my teeth. I stripped down to my boxers and walked back to our bedroom. I knew Nina still was awake so I went into bed and put a hand on her back rubbing it slowly. She refused my comfort and shrugged away from me. «Nina, I am so terrible sorry. I had no intention to hurt you in any way. I don't know what I can say to make your pain go away. You have had a horrible two days and after what I can now officially give myself a diploma for being the worst boyfriend in the world. I didn't run after you because I knew that would only make things worse for you and I wanted to think about the whole situation before I talked to you. I have thought it all over and when I thought about the conversation yesterday I remembered you said that you always been insecure about your teeth. I realised that this was a very sensitive subject and I think that's the thing you have been insecure about all the time. You can not be insecure about your bite, you have a lovely bite, one of the most perfect ones I've seen in my entire career. Your teeth are very straight, so I realised that it must be the colour of your teeth.» She started bawling and quickly moved around holding on to me for her deer life. My heart dropped by her actions and I started crying too.

Nina's point of view:

I was clinging to Harry as I've never done before. Yeah he hurt my feelings, but I do love him with all my heart. He knows everything about me now; everything of what makes me happy, my favourite music, movies and TV-shows, my favourite colour, what my needs are when I'm on my period, he knows what makes me angry and what makes me sad. But he also now know that my biggest fear is the dentist and that my biggest insecurity are the colour of my teeth. I'm still dressed in my jeans and my swather, but yet I feel completely naked. He knows everything, there is nothing that I need to hide anymore. It's both very relieving and terrifying at the same time. I started calming down and I suddenly heard that Harry was sniffling. I lifted myself up a bit and looked at his face. He held his hands in front of his face. I sat myself over his lap and took my hands in his and removed them from his face. I've never in the three years of us being together seen Harry so sad or upset. I don't care what he said earlier, I don't care about our differences when it comes to dental stuff. All I care about right now is that my boyfriend is hurting. «Don't cry baby» I cracked out to him with my broken voice from all my crying. «I'm fine. Yes it's my biggest insecurity but at the same time I've learned to live with how my teeth look. There is not much I can do about it. I've tried a huge amount of different toothpastes over the years but nothing change the colour. It is what it is. When we started dating and you told me you were a dentist I was so scared that all you saw in me was my teeth and I was scared that I wasn't good enough for you. I tried to hide my true self to you by smiling without showing them cause I didn't want you to break up with me. I actually did have a few rounds with myself if it was worth invest meeting you again after our first official date when we went to the coffee shop and a walk in the park. Do you remember that? (He nodded with a sad look, tears filling his eyes again.) But I liked you so, so, so much. At that point I had never met a more interesting person in my whole life. Everything you said made me interested in having more conversations with you. You made me realise that life and love is a wonderful and magical thing and I didn't want to turn my back to just. I've never met any person that can make me laugh so much as you do. After a few weeks I was completely lost in you and there was no turning back. I've always believed in love and all things sweet, but you have fulfilled my life in ways I never knew was possible. Please don't cry about it anymore. I hate to say it and I hate to show it, but my teeth looks like this (I said while biting my teeth together showing them off to him.) I can't do much about it.» Harry gave me a sad smile.

«Thank you for sticking with me and my dumb ass since our first date. I have been a pain in the ass a few times since that date, and I probably will be in our future years. But I am so happy and glad that you took the chance to meet me for another date, and for another one and for the rest of them and for every day since. I would never choose a date, girlfriend or wife by the look of her teeth's. That's some overrated shit I would never understand myself up on. I chose to become a dentist because I wanted to help people. When I was graduating from collage I stood between choosing to become a dentist or a doctor. I sat down at my desk in my small dorm, wrote down on a piece of paper ups and downs for both of the studies and career. Both of the studies kind of grossed me out for a bit, cause let's be honest, there is a lot of gross things you have to do whilst being a doctor. But not to mention all the gross cases of how peoples mouths can be.» I just made a ugly face just thinking about what he might have been seeing during his career.

«But how did you decided to study dentistry when you knew there was going to be gross cases to handle?» «Even though I knew about it, I also knew that I would learn to deal with it. There isn't a case anymore that I get grossed out by. I've seen so much I just don't care about anymore.» «Oh, yeah I can understand that. Was there anything else that made the dental pathway different from becoming a doctor?» It was really interesting asking this stuff, cause we have never had a good conversation about this. «Yeah, well there were a few other things that I took into my consideration. Both of the studies required lots of studying at my spare time, I knew that my social life would be the same whether I chose medicine or dentistry. In medicine you need to know everything about everything, you can never be fully outlearned. In dentistry you kind of know everything if you keep updated to the new researches. If there is any cases that need special treatments that a ordinary dentist can't do I send my patients to the right qualified dentists. I did also want a job where I had regular working hours so the choice to applying dentistry was very easy. I am lucky that I have a 8 am - 4 pm job with weekends and other holidays off. I also love that I can work with people in every age from 3 years old children to the older people.»

«You are such a sweetheart Harry, do you know that?» I gave him a massive hug. «I'm sorry again love, I didn't want to hurt you. Don't ever feel embarrassed about your teeth okey? You have a lovely smile.» He kissed me. «I know Harry, it's just a touchy subject for me, I wish there was something I could do about it.» «I understand. If I knew about your insecurity I would never had said anything about it. Don't look so sad love. If you really want to there is something we can do about it.» My face got into a surprised look. «What, there is? Tell me all about it.» «I could give you teeth a whitening if you want. But I'm only doing it on you if you promise me that you want to do it for yourself and not because of what I said earlier.» «Harry, is that true? I never new that you could do that, being a general dentist.» «Yeah I know everything about it. But I am not one of those to promote it, cause I'm not a big fan of cosmetic dentistry.» «I'm sorry to ask, but if you aren't into cosmetic dentistry why did you mention the colour of my teeth?» «Don't be sorry Nina, ask away all you want. I don't need for you to feel you need cosmetic treatment, but your teeth have naturally been discoloured over the years.» «In what way do you mean?» «Well you do drink a lot of black coffee and you love some red wine in the weekends. I do not blame you for neither of them. But after a while with lots of intake of coffee and wine it will stain your teeth and give you a discolouration that won't get away naturally. The only way for your teeth to get whiter is a deep cleaning and then a teeth whitening. I can do it all myself I you want to have it done, but if you don't want to do it, it's totally fine too. It's your teeth and there is no need for it to be done for the health of your teeth.» «I think I want to take some time to think about it. At least I first need to learn how to calm down when you are doing your job.» «That sounds like a perfect plan.» I kissed him and ruffled his hair a bit causing him to laugh. «We are two messed up people. But I love you.» «Haha, that for sure we are. But we are a great team. I love you too.» «Harry, tomorrow before we go over to Meagan and Erik, can we drive to your clinic first.» «Well yeah of course. Did you forget something there yesterday?» «No, I just want you to take home some of your tools, masks and gloves. I think we should start practising as soon as possible.» «You are the bravest person I know Nina. Of course we can do that. But for now we should go to sleep. It's 2 am in the morning already.» «I agree. Goodnight.» «Goodnight».