The Glass Castle: A Short Story

194 Words1 Pages
I grew up with imperfect teeth. I had a terrible overbite, my teeth were all crooked from my mouth being too narrow, and a few didn’t even grow in properly. I knew I needed braces, but didn’t get them until I was in 7th grade. Unlike Jeannette Walls, I did not go out of my way to create my own “braces.” Instead, I used retainers and rubber bands given to me by the orthodontist. The retainers worked, however, I still hated the way my mouth looked when I smiled or laughed. Like Jeannette Walls, “every time I looked in the mirror, I longed for what the other kids called a barbed-wire mouth.” Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir. New York, Scribner, 2006, page 201. I wanted braces more than anything, and finally, in the Summer of 2015,