2:30~a.f.i

~4~

"So every six weeks you're going to have to have an appointment so that I can tighten your braces. Also, brace yourself." He stopped mid sentence just to laugh at his own pun.

I mean it was kinda funny and I giggled, but I mainly giggled because his laugh was adorable. He could tell I thought the pun was funny.

"You had your appointment at tooth hurty right?" He said while looking at his watch. Wow, the puns they are so cringe worthy, but so cringe that it's funny. I think Dr. Irwin is his own comedian, because he's laughing so hard from his own puns.

He finally stopped laughing and cleared his throat.

"Uh, anyways, I was saying that the tightening appointments are going to be worse because I can tell that you're already experiencing pain now, which should die down in a few days. Also, no sticky, chewy, crunchy, or hard foods, including gum." He said as he glared at me, emphasizing the last part.

I nodded as he smiled and got up from his rolly doctor's chair.

"After you." He motioned towards the door.

I gladly got up out of the chair, said my quick thank you, paid, and got the heck out of that office.

~skip~

I. Hate. My. Braces. It's been about six weeks, I've had my first tightening yesterday and it was so painful, my whole mouth still hurts. The appointment wasn't bad, except for the tightening, Dr Irwin had taken some X-rays to show progression but I doubt that there was any. Dr. Irwin gave me a lecture yesterday about not eating bad foods or else my brackets will come off, yadda, yadda. There is so much food that I used to be able to eat and now I can't eat like anything without "ruining my braces".

School has been okay. I've joined half of the school population that still wears braces, so I'm not like a loner. Lunch is the best part of my day, because I get to talk to friends and eat food. Today the cafeteria served these somewhat hard brownies with chewy caramel, and never in my life, had I eaten a really hard brownie that was actually good from the cafeteria. Kudos to them.

After lunch, there is supposed to be some stupid assembly today, I'm sure half the population will be on their phones anyways, nobody ever actually cares to pay attention and we only have to go because they monitor the gates for people trying to leave. So the whole school is stuck in a crowded auditorium for one very long hour, listening to some boring person.

My friends and I found our normal spot on the side wall of the auditorium, they were already starting to get on their phones and it hasn't even started yet.

I saw on the stage there was the speaker stand and a screen so obviously, the amazing speaker has a presentation for us.

I decided to join my friends in going on my phone, I decided to check my Insta because I haven't checked it all day.

I heard our principal come onto the speaker and announce to be quiet but nobody was paying attention, I continued to scroll through my Insta while everybody ignored her.

There was some clapping for the speaker that no one actually cared about.

"Hello everybody!" The speaker said.

But wait.

I know that voice.

I stopped scrolling to look up and see my orthodontist starting at the crowd of people on their phones.

He saw the only movement in the crowd, which was me, and immediately looked at me and smiled, but I immediately looked down as face turned a dark shade of crimson.

By the time i looked down and back at my phone, my friends started to become curious as to why my face was so red and looked at the speaker, whispering an "oooohhh".

Obviously Dr. Irwin got a few people's attention and decided to continue his presentation.

"So how many of you have or have had braces?" He started.

Quite a lot of hands went up, I didn't put mine up which cued Dr. Irwin to glare at me.

"Now you won't believe how in 6 weeks with braces, your teeth will already look better." He said as he clicked to a slide with x-rays, they kinda looked familiar.

"These x-rays are the scans one of your classmates' who recently got their braces." He said as he quickly glanced at me but then looked away.

"As you can see, their braces are already correcting their teeth and their braces should only be on for another 18 months." Dr. Irwin says while discussing the rest of the presentation, which I didn't listen to, I just admired him. He wasn't nervous or awkward or anything, he just looked so perfect. (Haha, I'm punny).

The presentation didn't feel like it took forever, it was only about a quarter of an hour long.

I was walking out with my friends when I saw three cheerleader preps went to go gawk over Dr. Irwin, as soon as he stepped out of the auditorium they surrounded him and started to flirt with him.

I just threw them an eye roll and kept walking until I felt an arm grab my wrist.

I twisted my body around to see Dr. Irwin holding my arm, along with three star struck preps behind them.

"Did you have something really hard and/or chewy today?" He asked as he let go of my arm.