Do You Remember

For some sick, narcissistic reason, you always loved pulling teeth.

Every time one ever felt even the slightest bit loose, you would spend hours at a time with your fingers in your mouth, attempting to remove the small, white body part that would inevitably make you ‘rich’ the morning after it was pulled.

You always tried to make me do the same. If ever I told you that I had a loose tooth, your eyes would light up and you would insist that I show you the tooth.
Then you would get this evil look on your face before suggesting that we try and get it out.
Every time, I would shake my head furiously and your face would drop before I explained that I really, really hated the sight of blood and that I even hated watching you pull your own teeth because of the chance of your mouth bleeding from the torture that you inflicted on your gums.

Anyway, the tooth. I’m sure you remember.
It was nearly Christmas and one of your front teeth were missing already and a few days before Christmas Eve, you discovered that the other one was loose.
Of course, being the hyper child that you were (and still are), you spent a lot of your time singing that stupid song “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”.
The rest of the time, your fingers were in your mouth, tugging at the tooth and making your gums bleed, because, as I explained to you several times, obviously the tooth wasn’t ready to come out yet.
Each time I mentioned this fact; you would glare at me and mumble something unintelligible through your hand that was almost always stuck in your mouth whenever I saw you.

The day before Christmas Eve and you were frantically trying to get the tooth out.
You told me that, for some strange reason, your other front tooth had to be out by Christmas day and you begged me to help you remove it.

In a moment of weakness, I agreed.

We tried everything.

The ‘string tied around the tooth at one end and a doorknob at the other and then slamming the door’ trick. That failed; you just went with the door and ended up running into it and giving yourself a bruise on your forehead.

You ate a lot hard chocolate. That just made you feel sick.

You bit into an apple. It was overripe and all squishy and horrible.

You told me to punch you in the mouth. I tried to, but my punch didn’t have any momentum whatsoever because I didn’t want to hurt you.

Nothing worked, and you were all depressed.
I tried to cheer you up, but you wouldn’t smile. It was kind of funny to me actually, but I never showed you my amusement.
You wanted to try the string-door slam trick one time, and I helped you set everything up, to humour you.
Same as before, it didn’t work and you were upset. You were leaning against your wall right near your door.
You looked like you were going to cry from sheer frustration. I placed my arm around your shoulders.

You sighed and said something about how you were never going to lose the tooth and that we should go downstairs and play with Puppy in the backyard.
You shrugged my arm away and turned to exit the room.

It still makes me smile when I think of what happened next.

Obviously you didn’t judge the distance between where you were standing and the doorway very well because you walked right into the doorframe.
Hard.

I groaned in sympathy for you; it must’ve hurt, and you turned around.
You mouth was gushing with blood and it made my stomach churn, but I didn’t dare look away.
Your hand was in front of you, palm up and you were looking down at it. It was covered in blood from your mouth.

Sitting in the middle, was a small, white object.
I looked up at your face and you were grinning triumphantly, your teeth stained with red that came from the tiny wound at the front of your mouth where your tooth once sat.

That was it for me.
I bolted from your bedroom and found my way into the bathroom and puked up all the chocolate that you forced me to eat with you earlier.

You wandered into the bathroom and shook your head at me before carefully placing your bloody tooth on the counter and grabbing a plastic cup.
You filled it with water and took a big sip, sloshing it around your mouth before spitting it into the sink.
The red water made me heave, but I’d already emptied my stomach.
You repeated your actions until the water ran clear and you smiled widely at me and grabbed my hand before hauling me back to your bedroom, with your tooth firmly held in your other hand.

You threw an old camera at me and told me to take a photo of you.
I gave you a puzzled look and you explained that whenever you lost a tooth, you would take a photo to show your grandmother who lives in a different state.
I snapped a picture of you before you insisted that I get in a photo with you.
With a sigh, I held the camera out in front of me and pulled my mouth up into a smile before clicking the shutter button.

That photo has been on my bedside table ever since you got it developed and your mother insisted that you give me a copy all those years ago.
Next to it is a photo of us taken just nine months ago.
Both photos remind me constantly of everything we’ve been through together, of the journey we’ve been on.

I just wish our journey could’ve continued, like my love for you always will.