"Dr. Gomez is waiting for you upstairs," the receptionist announced to Logan, who was waiting in Rare Orthodontics' hall with his headgear on, ready to have his first braces tightening. As radiant as ever, Dr. Gomez and her assistant Camila welcomed the young patient into their studio with their million dollar smiles.
"Hi Logan! Please help yourself with the chair," said the orthodontist as she put her latex gloves on. "You've been wearing your headgear sixteen hours a day as prescribed... and it shows!" she exclaimed satisfied. "About seventeen more months like this, and we'll be halfway through with your treatment." Logan's eyes widened to the thought of having to go through one more year and a half of that, but he knew that if he wasn't to comply, the alternative would've been much worse. "And your expanders have been working well, but not well enough. Keep turning them twice a week for another month!"
"About the expanders," interrupted Logan, "I still haven't quite gotten used to speaking or eating with them. Is this normal, or...?"
Dr. Gomez started removing the ligatures from each bracket, and proceeded to change the wire. "You'll get used to them sooner than you think. They'll be with you for the rest of your treatment, and when they'll come off you'll have gotten used to them to the point you'll need to learn to speak without them!"
The orthodontist wedged a new, thicker wire into all of Logan's brackets, applied the ligatures of his color of choice--black, just like his mood, and put the headgear back on him before saying bye.
As Logan went back into the waiting hall, he saw a familiar face at the reception: it was Ethan, his bully! And he had just seen him in headgear... yikes! Ethan repressed a loud laugh out of decency and blurted a "loser" directed at Logan, who was trying to fix the next appointment as quickly as possible to get out and minimize the embarrassment. Before he could go, the receptionist informed Ethan that Dr. Gomez was waiting for him upstairs.
"Morning, Dr. Gomez! Camila!" said a confident Ethan as he entered the pristine office.
"Ethan!" exclaimed the two doctors in unison. As Dr. Gomez went into another room to pick the utensils needed for the visit, Camila proceeded: "So happy to see you in such a great mood on your fitting day!"
"Fitting day? Weren't we supposed to discuss treatment options? Because I..."
"Actually, no! Your parents came in earlier this morning, approved the treatment Dr. Gomez presented, and paid for it! So she decided to avoid wasting any time, and start your treatment right here, right now!"
"Uh... am I getting Invisalign?"
"Invaseline? We don't know or use that word here."
"Like, transparent braces or that stuff..." Ethan had a bad kind of butterflies in his stomach.
"Oh, clear brackets? If you wanted them so desperately, you should've said it."
Dr. Gomez appeared with a tray full of metal. "Please lay back and try to relax, this will take a while!"
Ethan was petrified, as Camila applied his mouth opener and quickly (and painfully) placed eight separators between his molars. Ethan showed no emotions, as he wanted to show that he was "the man", and not some whiny kid. In the next forty-five minutes, the two doctors were busy placing metal brackets on all of Ethan's incisors, canines and bicuspids.
Once she was done, Dr. Gomez spoke again: "Alright Ethan, this is your palatal expander. These bands at its ends will wrap your molars like a ring; we'll place a similar device on your bottom jaw as well. You will have to turn both of them with this special key twice a week for three months, as I need the jaws to widen slowly. This other smaller appliance is a tongue crib we will apply to your upper jaw for the first few months of treatment to fix your slight open bite." The two doctors proceeded to cement the appliances to a stunned Ethan's teeth, before bonding everything together with wires and, finally, steel ligatures.
But the tray wasn't empty yet. "One last thing--your headgear!" Camila slid a shiny facebow into Ethan's upper jaw, and then proceeded to show him how to attach the neck and the head straps. "This is to be worn twenty hours a day, that is pretty much all the time, except for sports, meals and showering."
Ethan tried to speak for the first time with his appliances, but his major lisp made it hard for him to express himself. Dr. Gomez reassured him: "I know this all looks kinda crazy (and not the good kind, maybe), but you know what--Camila has been into an extensive orthodontic treatment too, and look at her now!"
"Something's gotta give, and something's gotta break if you want perfect teeth," added the assistant with confidence.
"My parents agreed to this?!" exclaimed Ethan, incredulous.
"You were referred to Rare Orthodontics for a reason--you're a rare case! We turn a crowded mouth into a sweeter place. Your case might require a lengthy treatment, but it will all be worth it in the end. Now go home, and remember your instructions: two turns per expander per week, twenty hours a day of headgear wear. See you in a month!"
As Ethan arrived home, partly for the shock and partly for the overall numbness he felt, he fell asleep and didn't wake up until the next morning. Only then, for the first time, he managed to look in the mirror and closely inspect what was now to stay anchored to his mouth for a while. The tongue crib was noticeable anytime he opened his mouth; the wavy metal structure made his mouth look like a prison cell. Both expanders had bulky metal plaques that made speaking even harder. Each tooth was covered in a rather thick metal bracket, all intertwined by metal wires, and kept in place by steel ligatures. He was a certified metal mouth... and then there was the biggest embarrassment of it all, the vibrant blue straps of his headgear that wrapped his head. If until the day before he looked like a young Colton Haynes, with his defined jaw and model-like features, the most noticeable thing about him now was his extensive metalwork and all the problems that came with it. Still, as the brave man he was, he decided to head to school with his headgear as prescribed. He hid the straps under a hood, and promised himself that if it got too hard, he would have just taken it off.
He parked his car in front of school and headed in as confident as he could. Unsurprisingly, all he got was gobsmacked looks mixed with repressed laughs. Nobody dared to laugh at his face because of his menacing muscly body, but indeed, everyone was laughing behind his back. He got through four periods in that state, trying his hardest to keep his head high and show his signature confidence.
Before lunch time, as he was putting back his books into his locker and taking off his headgear, his girlfriend, Ariana, approached him. She knew very well he was gay, but his status (and his closetedness) had allowed her to become the most popular girl in school.
"floating / processing / scariana af / don't have words yet but i'm not vibin witchu anymore" was all she was able to say when she saw Ethan in that uncool state. His appliances made him hard to understand, but not as hard as his mumbling, slang-loving girlfriend.
"Scared of what? Wh-what do you mean by that?"
"i got one less problem without u. this is the part when i break free."
"Are you breaking up with me?" Ethan couldn't believe it. The girl who had made him break up with his girlfriend just because she was bored, the girl he'd bought seven rings for... was now giving him a big, fat thank you, next.
"yuh" was all she answered, before turning around and slapping her long ponytail against his face, leaving one or two fake hairs stuck in his braces.
Two of his teammates witnessed the scene and laughed as Ariana walked side to side, getting away from her ex. "You're embarrassing, bruh," they laughed and mocked him.
Ethan was on the verge of tears. He didn't want anyone to see him that way, so he decided to just go home early and rethink his life without his popularity, fake friends and fake girlfriend. As he was heading out of school, he crossed Logan... who, for the first time, wasn't scared of him and instead gave him a shy, shiny smile.
