{"id":287573,"date":"2025-02-06T07:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=287573"},"modified":"2025-05-29T13:15:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T17:15:29","slug":"fake-teeth-will-solve-all-my-problems-edgar-gomez-alligator-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/fake-teeth-will-solve-all-my-problems-edgar-gomez-alligator-tears\/","title":{"rendered":"Fake Teeth Will Solve All My Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cFake,\u201d an excerpt from Alligator Tears<\/a> <\/em>by Edgar Gomez<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Junior year of high school, my mom took me to the dentist to have my teeth filed down into sharp, flat daggers, then covered with perfect, shinier teeth, like press-on nails. They were called veneers. All the Hollywood It Girls like Hilary Duff were getting them at the time, whereas my broke-ass classmates could barely afford fake vampire teeth for their Halloween costumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technically, Mom couldn\u2019t afford to buy me veneers either. Once as a kid, I asked her if she could take me to the library, and she told me we couldn\u2019t go because gas was too expensive. It wasn\u2019t the first time I realized we were poor, but it was the first time our poverty seemed cartoonishly inescapable: we couldn\u2019t even afford to drive five blocks for free shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d been obsessed with my teeth since the fifth grade, when being gap-toothed stopped being cute, and the kids with naturally straight teeth started pairing off to preserve their superior evolutionary lines. My teeth weren\u2019t endearingly <\/em>bad. I\u2019m not talking about a tiny gap I could rebrand as quirky<\/em>. Some of them were missing, the rest looked like rotting toenails. There was one stubborn baby tooth at the very front of my mouth that refused to fall off no matter how hard I tugged at it. I watched in horror well into my teenage years as all my other teeth began to crowd around it, strangling each other, fighting for air. I brushed them as soon as I woke up, after every meal, plus two or three times in between, to be safe. I thought making them whiter would distract from how awful they were, but after almost a decade of fanatical brushing, all that happened was my gumline receded. Google said I might even need gum surgery. Surgery!<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I\u2019d been bugging my mom for years about braces. During a trip we took to Nicaragua to visit relatives, I practically dragged her to a dentist, who said he could put some on me for cheap, but there was no way to get around having to fly back every few months to get them adjusted. I promised I would figure out a way to pay for the plane tickets myself, that the second we were back in Orlando, I would get a job and save every penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still: \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe next year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a year might as well have been an eternity, and I understood perfectly what she meant by \u201cmaybe.\u201d I told her not to worry about it and stayed quiet the rest of the afternoon, brooding out of the car window on the drive home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time I made it to high school, I\u2019d added my teeth to the growing list of things I hoped would simply resolve themselves in the future: being gay, my acne, whatever mental illness I had that compelled me to stay up all night watching rom-coms and biting my nails until they bled. It was easier to tell myself that adult me would find solutions to these problems than to fixate on what I couldn\u2019t change in the moment. For a while, this strategy worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I was expelled on drug charges from the criminal justice program Boone, after a classmate lied to the campus police that I was a drug dealer, and suddenly the future became just as unreliable as the present. I spent the summer between getting kicked out of Boone and starting at my new school, Oak Ridge, pacing my bedroom, spiraling. What if the expulsion stopped me from getting into college? Would adult me still be able to get a good job, or at least one with dental insurance? What if my smile always made people cringe? Who could love someone like that? Broke, with fucked-up teeth. What now? I used to think I was smart. Used to think that was something. But I was wrong. What was I supposed to do now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

My mom was the first person to teach me the importance of being beautiful. Ever since I was a child, she kept our fridge stocked with homemade creams she\u2019d concocted by blending aloe and avocados from our yard. She\u2019d lock herself in the bathroom once a month and emerge with her hair tinted a slightly different shade of red: Radiant Ruby, Cinnamon Sensation, whatever was on sale at Sally Beauty Supply. She wouldn\u2019t leave the house without applying lipstick, mascara, blush, and her signature smoky purple eye shadow, or without high heels on, which she swore she was more comfortable in than flats. She lived for press-on nails and leopard print, for people to smell her perfume before she entered a room. At home, she walked around with her breasts hanging out and peed with the door wide open. Mom was proud of her body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of them were missing, the rest looked like rotting toenails.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But she also had a pair of flippers, those creepy, removable fake teeth they make little girls wear in beauty pageants to look like dolls. She\u2019d bought them for a hundred or so dollars in Nica and only took them off at night, keeping them in a Starbucks mug by her bed, ready for her the second she woke up. I know a part of her remembered what it was like to have bad teeth, because it was still evident in all the small mannerisms we shared. The way we pressed our lips tight in pictures. How we instinctively covered our mouths with the back of our hands when we laughed. Mom knew how it felt being afraid to smile, and the impact that had on everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That isn\u2019t what changed her mind about fixing my teeth, though. What was different, the year she finally took me to a dentist in Orlando, was that she was declaring bankruptcy. In the early 2000s, it seemed everyone was. The country was scrambling to get back on its feet after the recession. For years, banks moved in the shadow of the crumbling economy, offering predatory loans like the one Mom received to buy our house, trapping her in an endless payment cycle during which she could hardly cover the interest. Desperate for help, she\u2019d called the number of a lawyer she saw on a billboard who said a bankruptcy would give her a fresh start and wipe out the mountain of credit card debt that had been accumulating since she divorced Papi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What he didn\u2019t say, but she must have inferred, was that it was also her chance to make one last big purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was only vaguely aware of the bankruptcy the day Mom drove me to the dentist. Part of me was convinced she was taking me just so I\u2019d get off her back, and once we arrived at the clinic, she\u2019d tell me no again, like in Nicaragua. I was sixteen by then\u2014skeptical of anything trying to pass itself off as good news. This clinic was too nice for people like us, I thought, taking a seat in the waiting room. Portraits of happy blond families hung on the walls, their cruel white smiles beaming down at me as elevator jazz piped in from hidden speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the dentist, Dr. Franklin, emerged through a door and called out my name, I slid lower in my seat. He was younger than I\u2019d expected, dressed like a former jock in a button-up shirt rolled up to his muscular biceps, and we were about to waste an hour of his time discussing my biggest insecurity. Mom forced me up by the arm. We followed Dr. Franklin to a screened-off room, where he instructed me to lie down and open my mouth wide so he could inspect inside with little silver tools. Just in case I\u2019d ever deluded myself into thinking my teeth weren\u2019t that bad, he began to list their various flaws: crooked, not enough room, growing inward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo cavities, though,\u201d he said, sounding surprised. \u201cGood for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lay there, trying not to choke on my own saliva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, Dr. Franklin gave Mom the same monologue I\u2019d already heard from the last dentist. Braces weren\u2019t a one-and-done thing. In my case, they required a minimum two-year commitment. He rattled off prices I didn\u2019t bother paying attention to. I would have preferred he slapped me on the face; it would\u2019ve been less humiliating than pretending to take him seriously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was preparing for us to go when, out of nowhere, Mom asked about alternatives to braces. My ears perked up. What was this about? So did Dr. Franklin\u2019s, because he reappraised us, as if trying to fit a newly discovered piece into an already complete puzzle. My dirty sneakers. Mom\u2019s bamboo earrings. He shifted in his chair, then mentioned that a popular new option was veneers, but it was a more extreme route that most clients found too expensive for\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fine,\u201d Mom cut him off sharply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked at her sideways from the bed. That\u2019s fine? Fine for who? <\/em>Where was the lady who bought underwear by the Ziploc bag at the flea market?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Franklin nodded apologetically and went on to say that I was an excellent candidate. Because my baby tooth had never fallen off, after removing it there would be a large space in my smile that would take years for the braces to correct, but veneers could cover that problem area up instantly. In fact, he said, he could do some X-rays, order the veneers, and give me a brand-new smile all within a month. The veneers were $900 per tooth, plus installment fees. About $16,000 in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Mom who shifted in her chair now. She lowered her eyes and bit her lip, trying to calculate how much credit she had between her cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat if we do just the top half of his teeth?\u201d she asked after a while, lifting her eyes to Dr. Franklin again. \u201cThose are the only ones people can see anyway, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cleared his throat. \u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s . . . possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total would come out closer to $8,000, but I wouldn\u2019t need to return for readjustments, as with braces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d Mom said. \u201cWhat do we have to do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pointed at the best tooth, at the end of the slab, imagining it in my mouth and the doors it would open.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When Dr. Franklin\u2019s assistant marched over in a pair of Minnie Mouse Crocs to hand Mom the paperwork, I felt dizzy with disbelief, as if I\u2019d stepped into the most incredible movie and none of the actors had realized I had locked the actual star, a spoiled little rich boy who casually did rich people shit like get veneers, into his trailer and taken his place. I didn\u2019t dare speak or move, worried the wrong action on my part would alert the cast and bring the film to a screeching halt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom, swiping several credit cards before signing on the dotted line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Franklin, shaking my flabby hand, kindly ignoring the sweat gathered there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His assistant, guiding me to a blank wall, an explosion of light as she took the Polaroid she explained would be used as my Before picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few minutes later I found myself in a cozy, dimly lit office, where she placed in front of me a ruler-sized slab of wood with a dozen teeth glued to it, side by side, in shades ranging from Beige to Pastor at Megachurch. It looked like something she\u2019d fished out of a radioactive swamp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhich color you want for your veneers, hun?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was so close to getting away with it. I hesitated, wondering whether this was one last test. It didn\u2019t make sense\u2014what idiot would pick a shade other than the whitest? Surely no one would be so tragic as to settle for mediocrity when they could be great? But even if it was a test, Mom had a receipt in her bag and a date set. There was nothing stopping us now. I pointed at the best tooth, at the end of the slab, imagining it in my mouth and the doors it would open. With a full set like that, I could get any job, date anyone I wanted. Images of myself as a doctor or a lawyer flashed behind my eyes, clinking wineglasses with my husband in our tasteful brownstone in Manhattan, the two of us cracking up about the time I got kicked out of school and thought I\u2019d ruined my future. I felt an awkward pull in my cheeks, the muscles contracting in a way I wasn\u2019t used to. I couldn\u2019t help it. I was smiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis one!\u201d I practically cackled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo.\u201d The assistant frowned. \u201cYou don\u2019t want that one. It\u2019s too white for you. Trust me. Choose one with a little yellow, or no one is going to believe they\u2019re real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Since starting at Oak Ridge, I\u2019d mostly minded my business, trying to focus on my grades and prove to Mom I wasn\u2019t a complete mess. The memory of the afternoon I came home from Boone and told her I\u2019d gotten expelled still haunted me. I\u2019d anticipated tears, a fight. She was not one of those chill American parents who let stuff slide. Energy drinks were drugs to her. Walking around the house barefoot: a war crime. But she\u2019d listened to me tell her about my failure in silence, didn\u2019t even flinch when I mentioned marijuana charges. That crushed me more than the expulsion itself. It was like she expected me to disappoint her. I was Papi\u2019s kid, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the initial shock started wearing off, I felt relieved to be free of Boone and my majority white classmates who were probably glad I was gone. As the new kid at Oak Ridge, I was a novelty. In the early days, the predominantly Puerto Rican and Haitian students in my classes all climbed over each other to be my friend. Did I play sports? they asked. Have a girlfriend? Could I sit next to them? The kindness they welcomed me with confirmed that Oak Ridge was where I\u2019d always belonged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months in, riding on the wave of my popularity, I told a boy I was gay. We were at the bus stop waiting to be picked up. Something about the way Angel sat, with one leg tucked under his butt, made me feel like he wouldn\u2019t be weirded out. And he was in drama club, so there was that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gold cross around his neck glinted in the sunlight. \u201cI think I am too,\u201d Angel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything happened quickly, like we\u2019d both been starving before we showed up in each other\u2019s lives. By the next day, we were boyfriends. Making out behind the theater at the far end of campus, me on my tiptoes to get on his level. Switching hoodies between periods while our teachers shook their heads. I was so smitten that I had a boo I could touch and kiss and text good morning and goodnight to that it didn\u2019t bother me that my reputation around school was changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being out wasn\u2019t the automatic death sentence it\u2019d been in the past, but it wasn\u2019t anything to be celebrated either. These were the days of Mean Girls, <\/em>of Christina Aguilera wailing You are beautifullll <\/em>on the radio, and yet a common argument on every morning talk show was that if gays were given the right to marry, next people would start marrying their dogs. My straight classmates didn\u2019t know what to do with me. Initially they followed the script their parents must have in the \u201980s, their questions turning from curious to accusatory. How did I know I didn\u2019t like pussy if I hadn\u2019t tried it? What did I do about all the shit when I had sex? Did one of my uncles touch <\/em>me? Nothing I hadn\u2019t heard in some corny after-school special. But it was like they also understood how tired those jokes were, and gradually their disgust faded into ambivalence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caught up in the excitement of being in love, I shrugged at the warning signs: how Angel and I only kissed in hiding, the worn Bible he carried around in his backpack. When we broke up\u2014he made a mistake, Angel said, a phase, he told people\u2014 I was suddenly aware of how compromised I\u2019d become. I was okay with him by my side, but now I was out on my own, my loneliness multiplied by my classmates\u2019 avoidance of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One boy who I\u2019d been eating lunch with found out I\u2019d tried to \u201cturn\u201d Angel gay and said we couldn\u2019t be seen together. He said he\u2019d made real friends he\u2019d be having lunch with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gay Kid was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, after all, not real <\/em>friend material, not worthy of sharing meals with and too pathetic to even enjoy bullying anymore. The same classmates who\u2019d wanted to know me when I was new had long ago backed away. Their offer of community, just as I began to believe I deserved one, withdrawn. I took their rejection as another expulsion, except worse: I never expected anything from kids at Boone. But at Oak Ridge, I\u2019d started to think I could be someone. At lunch, I went to the library, laid my head down at an empty table, and pretended to sleep as the cheerful din of students eating outside echoed in my ears. I did that for a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The day of the procedure, Mom picked me up from school right after she got off work. We arrived at the dentist\u2019s office twenty minutes early and parked under a shady tree. While we waited, Mom pulled a thin cardigan out of her purse, buttoned it over the green Starbucks mermaid sewn onto her uniform, then lowered the driver\u2019s seat mirror to dab concealer under her eyes and apply a fresh coat of mascara. She must have been exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReady?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I leaped over the divider and wrapped my arms tight around her chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She kissed the top of my head. \u201cYou\u2019re welcome. Now you can\u2019t say I don\u2019t love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before he began, Dr. Franklin gave Mom and me a lecture on upkeep. There were hard foods I\u2019d need to avoid for the rest of my life: no apples, no candy. And I shouldn\u2019t try opening bottles with my veneers, he winked. I nodded politely, as if any of those things mattered to me. I would have given him my soul. He said the veneers were made to last about ten years, though with proper care they could last up to fifteen, and then I\u2019d have to replace them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, actually, gave me pause. It meant there\u2019d come a day when I\u2019d need to come up with $8,000, an impossible sum of money, nearly half what Mom made in an entire year. Yet I also knew that once I had veneers, money would never be a problem again. They\u2019d cover all my ugly parts. My drug record. My brokeness and broken-ness. I brushed my uneasiness away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After asking Mom to wait in the lobby, Dr. Franklin had me lie back on the operating bed and open my mouth. I stared up at the strip of bright white lights on the ceiling as he wrenched out my baby tooth with a pair of pliers, turned on what sounded like a power drill, and proceeded to slowly sand down my teeth, bone particles filling the air. When he was finished, he brought out the tray of off-white veneers his assistant had recommended and cemented them one by one over my newly flattened teeth. The whole process took about two hours. It was heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, he had me sit back up and placed a mirror in my hand. My heart pounded as I brought it up and pried my lips open. It took a second for what I was looking at to sink in. The veneers didn\u2019t merely close the gaps in my teeth, they also made my face fuller, my jaw rounder instead of tense and jammed tight, like I usually kept it. I scrutinized my reflection, turning from side to side. I looked like myself<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked like the real me, not that other, shame-filled version of me I\u2019d been living as before. A startled giggle shot out of my mouth. Instinctively, I reached up to cover it with the back of my hand, but I stopped and lowered it halfway. I didn\u2019t need to hide ever again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Franklin summoned Mom from the waiting room, and within minutes, she and half of the office were hovering over me, oohing and aahing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmazing work!\u201d they patted his back. \u201cIt\u2019s incredible!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a genius, Doctor!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPrecioso,\u201d Mom said, kissing my cheek. \u201cMi ni\u00f1o lindo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A flash went off. I was back against the blank wall for my After picture with Dr. Franklin\u2019s assistant. She snatched the Polaroid from the camera and waved it in the air, then fit it into a plastic sleeve inside a binder next to dozens of other clients\u2019 Before and After photos. It reminded me of a yearbook, all our smiles vulnerable and self-conscious. As I stared at my Before photo, a strange pang of grief shot across my chest. I\u2019d been that person my whole life. Whatever I\u2019d felt about myself over the years, they\u2019d kept me alive through everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sitting in Mom\u2019s truck as we drove home that day, the world beyond the passenger seat window seemed to glow with possibility. Wildflowers bloomed along the edges of retention ponds, flocks of egrets swam across the tangerine sky. That week I laughed the loudest at everyone\u2019s jokes at school, savoring the new sensation of my jaw growing sore. I was the first to volunteer to work out problems on the board so my classmates could get a better view of my smile. Some offered compliments, most didn\u2019t notice a difference. I\u2019d thought their opinions would matter to me more, but they didn\u2019t. At least, they didn\u2019t like before, when I measured my self-worth by their approval. I had $8,000 teeth now. There was no denying my <\/em>worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had $8,000 teeth now. There was no denying my <\/em>worth.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On a sunny afternoon not long after the procedure, while I was still floating on the high of my transformation, Mom and I went to Saks Fifth Avenue to use a coupon they\u2019d sent her in the mail. Ordinarily, I didn\u2019t even like walking through Saks to get to the other stores inside the mall. The prices intimidated me, the bored rich ladies sighing miserably as they rifled through racks of European designers. But those things also made Saks a safe space in a way. Nobody made a scene there. You had to be on your best behavior. As Mom and I stood at the Clinique counter waiting for someone to help us, a voice in the pit of my stomach told me it was time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do it, <\/em>the voice said. You\u2019re going to have to eventually. Come on. She\u2019s not going to freak out around all these rich white bitches. Get it over with now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMam\u00e1?\u201d I heard myself say. \u201cI have to tell you something.\u201d \u201cYeah?\u201d she answered while looking around for a salesclerk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My legs started shaking, preparing to make a run for it. But the voice was right. I couldn\u2019t keep postponing the conversation forever. I laid my head on my mother\u2019s shoulder and held it there for a few more seconds, breathing in her sweet perfume, just in case she\u2019d never let me do that again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think I like boys,\u201d I told her. \u201cI think I\u2019m gay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right then a salesclerk appeared in front of us. Mom\u2019s posture stiffened. I lifted my head to try to read her face. \u201cOkay,\u201d she said, then dug through her purse for her sunglasses and put them on, I understood, to cry. The salesclerk didn\u2019t seem to notice. Behind her sunglasses, Mom acted totally fine, cheerful even. She accepted the samples the woman offered like nothing had happened, and in the end, we left the store with a three-month supply of face wash and several bags of free makeup that came as a gift with purchase. All paid for with credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterward we walked through the mall holding hands, not speaking. I assumed she was processing what I\u2019d said, but the fact that she hadn\u2019t pulled me to the car yet buoyed me. She didn\u2019t disown me or kick me out. Just a few tears, but maybe those were normal. Wasn\u2019t coming out supposed to be sad? The moment we entered the next store, I grabbed a random pair of jeans from a stack and fled to the dressing room. Inside, I sat with them folded on my lap, laughing. I did it, the thing I was most afraid of, and she\u2019d said it was okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t, though. That night I heard her sobbing on the phone with an aunt in Nicaragua. Over the next few months, she\u2019d begin to avoid me at home, leaving food for me in the microwave after work and disappearing into her room, locking the door behind her. My mother was born in a country where it was illegal to be gay. When she immigrated to Miami in the \u201980s, the queer community was in the throes of the AIDS crisis. Like my classmates, I could see her struggling to bridge the gap between then and now. In her mind, being gay would lead to a lifetime of discrimination, if I was lucky, and death by a disease or a hate crime if I was not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things would get worse between us before they\u2019d get better. There\u2019d be long, painful screaming matches, kicked-down doors. Nights when I\u2019d fall asleep hugging my pillow tight, remembering how close we used to be. She was my best friend, my co-conspirator. When I was younger, the mere thought of her being upset with me would have destroyed me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet I wasn\u2019t destroyed. In the morning, I\u2019d wake up, take a shower, make an effort to keep going. It\u2019s a parent\u2019s job to raise their child to the best of their abilities and prepare them for the real world. Looking back, that\u2019s what she did. What Mom had been doing, since long before I\u2019d come out, all those years she\u2019d modeled for me how to be clever and resourceful, to never allow anyone to make you a victim. Every time she\u2019d told me I was beautiful, even when I didn\u2019t believe that myself. She\u2019d given me what I needed to survive. I just hadn\u2019t thought I\u2019d have to do it without her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

From one month to the next, something shifted inside me. It was as if I\u2019d used up my lifetime\u2019s supply of sadness in one short, aggressive period of time and now I had to find another emotion to run on. A coldness spread around my heart, not unpleasantly so, like ice on a bruise.<\/p>\n\n\n