My grandmother always used to tell me how pretty and pearly my teeth were. Meanwhile her's were what looked like when a ship sunk to the bottom of the ocean. There were lined grooves coated with dark brown. The gums were blackening, a mixed trash of ombre. As a girl I always knew it was from those cylinder things she'd drag a puff of a smoke from. I would watch her do just that on the front porch as my bare feet helped sway me back and forth on the tree swing.

Once my adult teeth set in I would lean as close to the mirror I could, admiring them. All the empty change I found would go towards strawberry colored floss, dollar store brushes and paste. The mouth wash I would steal by putting in an empty water bottle. Every time my gums first stung from the use of the floss, I would just think real hard of the rank breath of my grandma and how black wet vile things were in between the cracks in her teeth for days, sometimes when she talked it would go flying and hit me in the face. Now every-time I floss, I think of that damp feeling on my face from it and the pitched scream and fevered swipe of my face that would follow. My hands still shake with the panic that I'd need to hide all my tools for my teeth, it takes me a second to remember I'm all alone.

When I finally did run away, I looked back once, to see that lonely swing one more time. It had a special place in my heart and always would. But I never would see it again. Not since the old hag went up in flames with the whole property. They say it was from someone burning grass nearby.

By the time they figured I wasn't in the picture I was already legally an adult. I pride myself on the fact that I, completely alone in the world, made it. I fought to climb higher.

I went to the burial. Of course there was no one there accept the priest they pay to come out, she pushed everyone else away - and yet, there I was. I hid in the trees and watched. It seemed fitting for her to have her final sleep in a cheap coffin since all her money went on booze and a pack of camels. I felt a certain satisfaction watching her be lowered into the ground, knowing she could never harm me again. I had the scars to prove it.

As a baby, they say you don't remember anything. It's a weird thought, not remembering those first years of your life. It seems like it should be a right to know about them. I guess young minds just aren't ready to support so many firsts in memories.

That is why when I wake up, I know something is wrong. There's a strong pull in my heart telling me there's an absence of something. I'm surprised by how long it takes me to realize what it is. It's a forgotten memory.

Of what it was like without having any teeth.

I sit up in bed and my hand rises to my mouth. But my tongue beats my hand because I can't wait any longer. It's met by deep indentions in the gums. My tongue isn't used to this and my whole body sparks up. The hairs on my neck rise. I yank the sheets back and freeze.

There's blood stained on the sheets. It leads to a trail out onto the carpet out the bedroom door into the living room. I let out a sort of strangled noise but manage to scramble out of bed and yank open the door.

The blood continues, but I stop before the first tooth.

I pick it up. The roots are long and of course, the exposed part is white and gleaming from all the tender and gentle care of long hours I put into my teeth. My first set of baby teeth were horrid from the pictures. But what grew in its place was beautiful, immaculate teeth and I took care to make sure they stayed that way.

My first job, after I was all on my own, I paid for my first whitening strips. It was a surreal moment and all of those memories just come flooding back. I feel a wave of dizziness and sit on the plush carpet, trying to make sure I get enough air. I grip the tooth in between my thumb and index finger.

After a few deep breaths, I pull out my phone and turn the camera around to face me. There's blood all around my lips that I look like someone who's sunken her jaws into a carcass of a deer. My brown eyes are wide and unbelieving. I slowly lift my dry lips. The blood cracks into a hundred different lines.

The look of the absence of them hits me. I tilt my head side to side, they're all gone. Every single one of them. Including my wisdom teeth, because I see an even darker hole and I think I spot a line of black stitches that's crudely sewn.

Someone took out my damn teeth!

I drop my phone and put my hands near my mouth. They shake, shake! I fall to my phone and pick it up and just stare into a space. I take a few deep breaths then stand back up. I click the camera back on.

Just by stretching my jaw far enough there's a tugging sensation and some blood leaks into my mouth so I snap it closed. I turn off my phone. I need to find all my teeth and get to the dentist at once and maybe when I'm there I can get someone to call the police for me. I try to talk just then but the words sound more like a toddlers, gurgled but manageable to understand I think.

In all my years I've had no one to ever rely on. I didn't need that. After I left what was supposed to be home, I didn't want to depend on anyone else. Not for myself. Not for my needs. And now in this moment I've realized just how bitterly wrong I was. I never intentionally pushed anyone away like the old hag did, I just was never close enough to someone.