Crunch! My best friend, Bella, pretended to slip off the yellow plastic slide and fell onto the floor of our school playground. I rushed over and brushed the mulch out of her mousy brown hair. “Are you okay, daughter?” I said between hasty breaths. We made eye contact and broke character, giggling at our absurdity—our two missing front teeth paralleling each other. Closing her eyes to get back into character, she scrunched up her face and began fake crying. She spun a story about her “brother”—who, in reality, was our other best friend Nathan—pushing her because he was jealous that she had a “better Christmas present.” This “present” was nothing more than a pile of leaves, twigs, and a whole lot of imagination. We were playing my favorite game, House, for the hundredth time that week. I pulled Bella into a hug, comforted her, and had a heartfelt discussion with my “son,” Nathan, about why he felt the way he did.
Later that night, I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, playing with my two Barbie dolls and imagining what our next scenario should be. I looked up at the popcorn ceiling and started thinking. How can I make the game even better? Should there be a secret sibling? What new character should be introduced? I smiled a gummy grin at all the different possibilities twirling in my head.
Crash! My head snapped toward the door, my freshly washed hair whipping my face. Not again. I hesitated before moving. I got up, peeled the strands of hair from my cheeks, and crept toward the door. Opening it just a crack, I peeked out. Mom and Dad were screaming—again.
My dad’s keys slammed into the wall, inches from my mom’s head. Not even a second later, he ducked as my mom retaliated with pieces of silverware. My hair clung to my face again—this time not from water. A lump formed in my throat, and my chest tightened. I’m hyperventilating… and crying uncontrollably, I realized. Why won’t they stop? My older sister appeared beside me, her shoulders shaking as she tried to stay strong. She pulled me back into the bedroom, and we hid inside the closet. We shut the thin doors, a fragile barrier against the shouting. My sister retrieved the coloring books we’d stashed from the last time this happened, and we began aimlessly filling in the blank spaces. Tears blurred the colors on the pages, so we hummed softly to drown out the noise the doors couldn’t block. Just wait till tomorrow, I told myself.
The next day, we played House for the hundred and first time that week. I included the secret sibling storyline I’d imagined the night before, and our friend Jenny joined in. Near the end of recess, Bella and I broke character again, our toothless grins mirroring each other’s. But as the dismissal bell rang, hers grew bigger while mine began to falter. Bella rushed over to her mom and dad, who walked in holding hands. They pulled her into a big hug and gushed about how much they had missed and loved her. A dull ache formed in my chest. In the distance, I saw my mom’s car pulling in—she was alone, again. Her face looked worn; she seemed to have aged five years overnight. I forced my smile to be bigger and brighter than ever. “Mommy, I missed you!” I squealed, running into her arms.
As we walked out, I glanced back one last time at Bella and her picture-perfect family. That’s when I realized— even though we both didn’t have our two front teeth, I was the only one who was truly missing something.
By Anonymous