Dream Logic by Brooksie C. Fontaine
When I get anxious, my teeth fall out. It’s no big deal – it’s usually just one or two, and I just have to hold them in place for a couple minutes till they take. But it sucks for social situations.
Every time the cheerleaders talk to me, I just have to smile, holding my incisors in place with my tongue and nodding politely. When they ask me questions, I have to pretend to hold my hand over my mouth in thought – you know, like The Thinker. They probably think I’m such a weirdo.
And don’t get me started on when Alexander – the coolest boy at school, who drives a motorcycle and looks like a big cat turned into a person – told me I was looking good.
“Fank you!” I blurted, and my two front teeth fell to the ground like sickening marbles.
He looked at me in amused horror as I crawled around looking for them.
I sobbed quietly as I washed them off with soap in the bathroom sink, and then hid in one of the stalls holding them in with both my thumbs until they stuck.
I don’t know why I auditioned for the school production of Romeo and Juliet.
Okay, I do know why. I want to build up some confidence, so this won’t happen so easily.
You can imagine my horror when I realized Alexander had somehow gotten roped into playing Romeo. At least I’m the nursemaid, not Juliet.
During opening night, they fall out right as I’m coming onstage. I put them in the pockets of my costume, and have to pretend it’s part of the act.
To my surprise, the audience seems to be eating up my performance of the toothless-yet-sassy nursemaid. I play up the way I lisp over words, and though my nervousness hasn’t gone away, the worst thing I thought could happen to me happened already. I’m free.
As I conclude my lines, a molar falls out. I reach into my mouth, pinch it between my fingers, and hold it up to the audience. “Whoopth!” I improvise. “There goeth another one!”
Even Juliet – or the cheerleader playing her – is laughing uproariously.
I go backstage to find Romeo – or Alexander – hunkered behind a clothes rack, half naked.
Seeing me, he swears.
“What are you doing?” I squeal, covering my eyes.
He swears again, hopping on one leg to get his pants on. “When I get nervous, my clothes sometimes – fall off.”
“What!?”
“Yeah. Sorry I didn’t tell you that when I was laughing at your…tooth thing.” He buckles his belt. “I’m just glad it hasn’t happened onstage yet.”
“I lotht my teef onthtage, and that worked out fine.”
He smiles a bit. “Yeah, I heard. You improvised pretty good. Don’t misplace them.”
I grin, showing the gap. “There’th alwayth dentureth.”
He laughs, and to my surprise, plants a kiss on my toothless mouth as he walks by. I pinch myself, just to make sure I’m not dreaming.
Brooksie C. Fontaine has MFA degrees in English and Illustration. Her work has appeared in over thirty literary journals and anthologies, including trampset, Bending Genres, Literally Stories, Fiction on the Web, Fahmidan Journal, and Ghost Parachute, and her story “The First Day of November” was included on the Wigleaf Longlist for 2025.
Instagram – brooksiessketchbooks
Illustration by Brooksie C. Fontaine
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