Whatever you do, don't smile.

No time to read? Paid subscribers can listen above.

In 10th grade, I was sitting in chemistry class, knees tucked under the cold and sterile lab desk in front of me, when the bell went off. I leaned to my right to grab my book bag as I had a hundred times before but this time, somehow, I slightly misjudged the distance. In the split-second that my right hand strained toward the floor, my mouth slightly open as I stretched, my front teeth collided with the edge of the countertop.

It didn’t hurt. There was no blood. And even as I moved my tongue across the spot of impact, felt it snag in a place where it should not, then noticed the small, hard piece of something floating in my mouth that was not there before, I didn’t think much of it. It felt so small. I pictured the tiniest chip, something barely noticeable. “I think I chipped my tooth,” I said, smiling at the girl next to me, a cool girl who was occasionally my friend.

It was the kind of friendship where we had little in common and I envied most everything about her — her perfectly highlighted hair, the fact that she had had a boyfriend since middle school, her ability to fill out a Hollister baby doll tank top. I can’t say I remember liking her as much as I remember liking the idea of being associated with her, but on this day, she did me a solid.

As she stood to move to the next class, I watched the color drain from behind her Dream Matte Mousse foundation. “Whatever you do,” she said, her voice serious and low. "Do not smile.”

I left my backpack right where it was, and I started moving.

This was before the days of the front-facing camera, so I had to guess the damage as I sped-walked to the nurse’s office, stomach churning beneath my school uniform.

By the time I looked at myself in the mirror, I was already crying. Half of my front tooth was gone.

It was also, of course, the day before picture day.

This was bad, I thought repeatedly, panic-dialing my parents from the office phone. This was very, very bad. I was 16, 6 feet tall, and had never kissed a boy. Now I was partially toothless? I wanted to shoot myself into the sun. If there was a phrase I uttered most often in those days it was likely, “I am going to die alone,” and this is undoubtedly what I thought as sat waiting for someone to pick me up, cradling a plastic cup filled with milk, the tiny tooth fragment submerged inside. For some reason, I thought this would ensure the dentist could reattach it. (They could not).

By that evening, my dentist had fixed the tooth with bonding. Not a perfect match, maybe, but not a change anyone would really ever notice but me. Now, at 33, I’ve had to get the tooth fixed every handful of years. The bonding easily chips and breaks and discolors. I still notice it. I’ve never loved my smile. My teeth have always felt too small, my grin too gummy. The imperfect tooth doesn’t help. But it’s hardly something that keeps me up at night.

For the last six months or so, I’ve been trying to get some quotes on different options to fix the chipped tooth. Occasionally, I’ve been told in these appointments that my bite is off. An open bite, is what it’s called. But I don’t notice it — I have zero jaw pain, zero issues eating. At my most recent dentist appointment, the dentist looked me in the eye before she gave me my options for the chipped front tooth. I was expecting her to say: “Have you considered veneers? Crowns? A combination?” Instead, she said, with zero hesitation: “What you need to fix this is jaw surgery.”