Cavity

I wasn’t completely sure if it was his perfect smile or the way he walked through the school halls with his head held high in, not cockiness, but confidence. But whatever it was, Cody Freeman had me wrapped around his finger the minute I laid my eyes on him. He wasn’t just fascinating to look at, but he was great to talk to. I didn’t exactly have all that much experience in that area, because I had been an admirer from afar but that didn’t stop me from dreaming. And everyone that knew Cody only had good things to say about him. Plus, he was so thoughtful and hardly ever thought of himself before anyone else. I knew that from when we adopted a dog from a kennel and he was working there with his mom. And he had been in the same class as me for years, but even though I never worked up enough courage to keep up a conversation with him for more than two minutes, I had seen the way he would act around his peers. He was practically an angel.

I could have been out with friends on Valentine’s Day so I didn’t have to feel so bad about being just another single girl dreaming of her prince landing a fat one on her before the fifteenth of February hit, but instead I was stuck in the dentist’s office for a good hour to get a filling placed in. The days leading up to the dreadful love fest were even worse than the actual day itself, because it was like a countdown until that time where you would be in even more of a shame spiral. It gave you a moment to race around at the last minute, aiming high but usually landing low for someone to be your Valentine just so that feeling of utter loneliness wouldn’t engulf you for another year. But I had given up after three years of being single with not even a hint of hope to be taken on Valentine’s Day.

It was just going to be me and my cavity this year.

“Josie Sharpe?” one of the dentists asked, looking up from her clipboard and scanning the room. I glanced up from my magazine when my mother gave me a nudge on the arm. “Dr. Freeman will see you now.”

“Freeman?” I whispered under my breath, eyes wide. I knew that Cody’s father was a dentist, but I had no idea he was my dentist. My mother had switched office’s months ago and they did a checkup on me, but it had been a woman and her last name was something foreign and complicated on the tongue. I stood up and walked through the glass doors, passed the white rooms with heavy duty “power tools” and water picks buzzing into patient’s mouths as they lied there like dolls, staring at the ceiling tiles and most likely counting however many dots they could concentrate on to occupy their time until they were done being operated on. The woman led me to a room in the back and closed the door behind me once I was inside. Dr. Freeman turned around from his table and smiled at me.

“Hi Josie, how are you today?” he asked, and patted the dentist’s chair. “Have a seat.”

I nodded and sat down with my hands folded in my lap.

“So sorry I wasn’t here for your checkup in December,” he said, opening my folder and looking at a chart. “Lydia tells me you’ve got a cavity at the back of your teeth but I’m sure it’s totally manageable. It’s not like you’ve got a rogue tooth or anything. Probably all that Christmas candy.” He laughed whole-heartedly and I smiled. He reminded me of his son. “All right, well just lie back and we’ll sort this thing out.”

“How long will this take?” I asked while I had the chance, before he started sticking his hands and a bunch of mechanical instruments in my mouth.

“About an hour or so. Not too long,” he replied, and held up a finger to his lips. “No talking.” I adjusted my position and cursed him in my head. That was the problem with dentists; they would tell you beforehand not to talk while they were trying to fix your teeth but all the way through, they would be asking you questions and expect an answer that wasn’t just “uh huh” or “nuh uh.” But when you had someone’s fingers shoved nearly halfway down your throat, it made it quite difficult to form coherent sentences.

Dr. Freeman gave me a pair of sunglasses in exchange for my regular ones, and I slipped them on while he put mine on the counter beside him. Another lady came in about five seconds later, both of them now wearing mouth covers like they expected me to projectile spit into their faces. I sat there silently while they talked to each other about their kids, scrubbing and scratching on my teeth. I felt a small pinch on my back gums and winced.

“Are you okay?” he asked and I nodded. “It’s just the freezing. You’ll be thanking me for it later.”

He acted like I had never gotten a filling put in before.

“So how’s school going for you, Josie?”

I rolled my eyes under the sunglasses. “Goo,” I managed to get out. I needed the roof of my mouth for the d, but since it was opened and too far away, I couldn’t get very far into the word. “Ick ind uh ard ish shemeher.”

Dr. Freeman nodded. It was like they formed their own language, but always knew exactly what we were talking about.

“What are you taking?”

“Mah, Englih, ioluh-hee, an hishory.”

“Sounds like a tough one. Say, what school do you go to?” he asked and when I answered that to him as well, he stopped working and sat back. “Really? My son goes there. Do you know him? Cody Freeman?”

I nodded.

“Is he a good guy?”

“Hesh ohay,” I blurted because even though he wasn’t doing anything, he still had two metal poking devices in my mouth. “I ont really oh hiw.”

Dr. Freeman laughed. “I see. Well I’ll just get this done now. I won’t make you talk anymore.”

Thank you.

An hour passed and Dr. Freeman was just finishing with the filling at the back of my mouth, but the freezing had spread from the bottom left corner to every single part of it. In the process of giving my mouth a little wash out, he had decided to do a full cleaning, and since I apparently had sensitive gums, he didn’t want to hurt me too much so he applied the freezing everywhere else. But it was the really strong stuff, so it was going to take even longer for it to fade off. And my lips were tingling like crazy.

“Okay.” Dr. Freeman sighed and wiped my mouth off with the apron he had tied around my neck earlier to catch any runaway water. “You’re all set. You can sit up now.” I did as I was told and unclipped the apron, tossing it in the garbage. I touched my bottom lip and smiled on impulse because of how funny it felt. He spent the next five minutes going over how I could improve my overall teeth quality and how to go easy on my gums, while I just sat there like a mute, nodding dumbly since I couldn’t speak without sounding like a complete idiot. The freezing had left me feeling like a fat-lipped freak.

“Now, you shouldn’t drink or eat anything for about an hour, and try not to talk very much.” Dr. Freeman paused and then shook his head. “Actually, on second thought don’t talk at all. You’re heavily sedated right now and it’s going to take longer to work off and it’ll just hurt if you’re clenching down or if your back teeth are pressed together for too long. So maybe keep your mouth opened just a little bit.”

I opened it wide and he laughed.

“Not that much.”

“Hey dad?” Cody stepped into the room as the other dentist walked out and looked from his father to me. He smiled. “Hey Josie. How’s it going?”

And, of course, I just sat there, staring at him with my mouth half-opened and my eyes fuzzy because I still hadn’t picked up my glasses off the counter.

Dr. Freeman laughed. “She just got some freezing in. She can’t talk right now,” he said, taking off his disposable gloves and putting them in the trash can. “What can I do you for?”

“Right. Mom just called and she wanted to know what time you’ll be home,” he said. “She said you guys had plans or something and I have to babysit?”

“Did we not tell you about that?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Our mistake. We need you to look after your sister tonight.”

“Not a problem.” Cody shoved his hands in his pockets and looked back at me. “I’ll uhm, I’ll see you at school Josie?” He seemed to stumble over his words for a second before he disappeared out of the room, and I hadn’t even gotten the chance to attempt to say something back, or give a friendly nod. I turned to Dr. Freeman and he winked at me.

“Do you need an Advil?” he asked. “I know that a visit to the dentist can cause headaches sometimes.” I shook my head and opened my mouth to tell him I was okay without it, but he pointed a finger at me, moving it back and forth. “Careful.”

I stepped out of the room grimly and walked down the hall back to where my mom and my sister, Lorelei were waiting for me. I sat down while my mom talked to Dr. Freeman and paid the bill, arranging the next date for me to come back for another checkup. I didn’t have to worry about seeing the dentist for another six months, but time flew but and being placed in a chair while people hovered over me, digging into the deep crevices of my mouth just freaked me out.

“Ew!” Lorelei exclaimed, pointing at my face. I looked at her.

“Wuuuh?” I asked unintelligently.

“Involuntary drooling!” she cried. My hand flew to the side of my mouth, eyes wide with horror. Dr. Freeman and my mother stood at the counter laughing, but I couldn’t have been more appalled if I tried. What’s worse; I could see Cody through the glass door talking on the phone with someone, but watching me. He smiled, then vanished around the corner.

I dropped my head in my hands and moaned, defeated.

“Did I embarrass you?” Lorelei asked, loudly and obnoxiously.

Yes, I wanted to yell, but I couldn’t even bring myself to say that.



“So what happened?” Karlee Hawthorn asked, sitting down next to me on the couch in my living room that afternoon. I shot her a glare to tell her I was useless and she smiled. “Right, I forgot. You can’t say anything.”

“Why don’t you write it down?” Andy Dwight-Fairweather suggested, holding up the notepad sitting beside the phone that my mother was overly obsessed about if it were to be replaced. I grabbed it, and the phone pen, and started scribbling things down.

“Freezing, Cody, accidental drooling, Lorelei is an idiot,” Karlee recited and laughed. “Oh, that clears things right up.”

“Cody, as in Cody Freeman? The one I work with?” Andy asked, jabbing a finger to her chest. I nodded and she began to gush out “awh’s” of adoration. “He’s such a cutie, and what a sweetheart! If I was your age, I’d be all over him too.”

“If you were her age and single,” Karlee reminded with a smile and a foot nudge. “I’ve met Cody before. He seems very charming.”

I nodded and wrote down “he is.”

“I was talking to him yesterday about Valentine’s Day and he said there’s some girl he’s interested in at our school,” Andy said, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “I wonder if it’s you!” Chances were slim, and I wasn’t about to get my hopes up. If anything, what she had said just made me feel worse even though she was trying to cheer me up. The doorbell rang and I stood up, lightly tapping my lip in hopes that it would unfreeze miraculously. I opened the door and was shocked to find Cody standing in front of me.

“Hey,” he smiled. “Uhm . . . you forgot these at the office.” He reached into his pocket and pulled my glasses out, wrapped in a red silk cloth. “I figured, you know, if I just shoved them into my jean pocket then they would get scratched so I got my dad to find me one of these things.”

I took them from him and slipped them onto my face. I had never felt like a bigger nerd before in my life “Hang hoo,” I said, trying desperately to get out a normal “thank you” as a reply but luck did not seem to be in my favour today.

Cody laughed. “You’re welcome. So listen, there was something I’ve been meaning to tell you for . . . a really long time now but I’m not exactly good with words, and I wasn’t sure how you would react either.” It was then that I noticed his face had gone from relatively pale to a deep shade of red—definitely not from the cold—and his palms were sweating. He rubbed them on the back of his thighs and cleared his throat. And a creak from the living room had me turning around to see Andy and Karlee leaning back on the couch, watching Cody and me from down the hall.

“This is actually a good time to tell you this so you can’t exactly turn me down right to my face since your lips are swollen and you can barely talk,” Cody laughed awkwardly, and I covered my mouth, humiliated. “For the past two years or so, I’ve actually really liked you,” he went on. “And I know we hardly talk but I just think you’re such a cool girl, and very down to earth. And I love how you never judge anyone for who they are. I don’t know, I guess I just like how you can be so utterly crazy but at the same time, so normal.” He scratched the back of his head. “That sounded better when I was running it over in my mind on the way to your house.”

My face burned.

“Anyway, I thought what better of a day to tell you than Valentine’s Day.” He shrugged. “So, you don’t have to come back with anything right away. I just wanted to get that off my chest.”

“You’re adorable, Cody!” Andy screamed from inside the house, beginning to laugh along with Karlee while Cody blushed. He started to turn away but I quickly grabbed his arm.

“Wait!” I exclaimed, and nearly screamed with joy because I was able to get a word out for the first time in nearly two hours. “I ike you oo!”

Cody looked confused, but then caught on and laughed. “You do?”

I nodded rapidly.

He smiled. “Well, then in that case . . .”

And he leaned in to me and planted a nice, gentle kiss on my frozen, waiting lips. It tickled me, had butterflies flying around inside my stomach, caused my heart to leap into my throat and a shiver to shoot right up my spine. It was hilarious, gut-wrenching, and nothing less than perfect.

And the last rational thought that entered my mind before his fingers intertwined with mine, was how much I absolutely loved Valentine’s Day.