Bradley felt the tooth go while he was chewing a caramel. It didn't crack or break clean — it just sort of gave up, like it had been holding on out of politeness and finally quit. He tongued the gap where the molar used to sit solid. Three weeks ago it had started hurting. He'd told himself he'd deal with it after he made it through one good tooth day. Then another week went by. Then another. He was standing in front of a cheerful little cottage when it happened, the kind with bright shutters and flowers in boxes. The candy wrapper fell from his hand. He pressed his tongue into the hole again, tasting copper and something worse. His mouth felt wrong now. Incomplete. He knew he should find a dentist, but the thought made his hands shake, so he reached into his pocket for another candy instead. A woman stepped out from behind the dental office across the way. She'd set up a folding table on the grass out front, covered in pamphlets that caught the light. She smiled at him — not a pitying smile, just calm — and held out a bright blue flyer. "You look like you could use this," she said. The flyer had cheerful cartoon teeth on it and words about easy routines. Too easy, really. Brush twice, floss once, visit every six months. Like it was that simple. Bradley took the flyer because his hand was already reaching. "Does it work?" he asked. The woman tilted her head. "Only if you want it to," she said. He looked down at the smiling tooth mascot. He thought about how the candy just showed up, how he got shaky when he tried to stop, how a good day meant feeling normal for maybe an hour. He folded the flyer in half and put it in his pocket. It sat there next to three wrapped candies and a stick of gum he'd been saving. He didn't know if he'd look at it again, but for the first time in weeks, he hadn't said no.

Bradley walked toward the bakery the next morning with the blue flyer still in his pocket. He could feel it there, folded against the candy wrappers. The gap in his mouth where the molar used to be kept catching his tongue. He'd tried not to eat anything before noon, but his hands had started shaking around ten, so he'd unwrapped a butterscotch and let it sit against his teeth. Just one, he'd told himself. Just to stop the shaking. A man in a white coat stepped out from the dental clinic ahead and started following him. Bradley noticed because the man kept pace exactly, staying three steps behind even when Bradley slowed down to look in a shop window. When Bradley stopped to unwrap another candy — his hands were shaking again — the man caught up and cleared his throat. "I'm Dr. Stevens," he said, pointing at the clinic behind them with the bright glass front and potted plants by the door. "And you just ate four pieces of candy in ten minutes." Bradley's mouth went dry around the butterscotch. Dr. Stevens held out his hand, not for a handshake, but palm-up and waiting. Bradley dropped the candy wrapper into it without thinking. Dr. Stevens walked him straight to the clinic, one hand on Bradley's shoulder like he might run. Inside, the waiting room smelled like mint and something chemical that made Bradley's stomach turn. Dr. Stevens pulled a leather bag from under the front desk and opened it to show rows of shining metal tools. "We're going to take a look," he said, not asking. Bradley sat in the chair because his legs felt wobbly and he didn't know what else to do. Dr. Stevens leaned close with a small mirror. "Open." Bradley opened. The dentist made a low noise in his throat and pulled back. "You've got two more about to go. Maybe three." Bradley's tongue found the gaps and the soft spots. He knew. He'd known for weeks. Dr. Stevens set down the mirror and looked at Bradley for a long moment. "That place across the street," he said, pointing through the window at the pop-up shop with the cartoon tooth sign on top and the orange awning. "They'll tell you they can fix it fast. They can't. They'll make it worse." He closed the leather bag with a snap. "You come here Tuesday morning. We'll start with a cleaning and go from there." Bradley stood up, his legs still shaky. Dr. Stevens wrote the appointment on a card and pressed it into Bradley's hand. Bradley looked down at it — Tuesday, nine o'clock, no cancellations — and felt the weight of it like a promise he wasn't sure he could keep. But he put the card in his pocket next to the blue flyer, and when he stepped outside, he didn't unwrap another candy. Not yet.

Bradley woke up Tuesday morning with the card still on his nightstand and three new candies already in his mouth. He didn't remember unwrapping them. The appointment was in two hours, and his hands weren't shaking yet, but they would be soon. He made it halfway across the street before someone stepped in front of him. A woman in a bright pink vest held out a handful of candy — stars and spirals and little squares that caught the light. Behind her sat a gumball machine taller than Bradley, all red metal and glass full of colors. Next to it stood a sign shaped like a giant tooth covered in lollipops and peppermints, the word DENTAL spelled out in letters that looked like they were made of frosting. The woman smiled wide. "Free sample," she said, pushing the candy closer. "And we can see you right now. No waiting." Bradley's hand moved toward the candy before he could stop it. His fingers touched a green spiral. But then he thought about Dr. Stevens's face when he'd said that place across the street, and the way the leather bag had snapped shut like a promise. He pulled his hand back. The woman's smile didn't change, but her eyes did. "You sure?" she asked. "We do cleanings for half price. In and out in twenty minutes." Bradley's tongue found the gap where his molar used to be. Twenty minutes sounded better than two hours. It sounded easier. But Dr. Stevens had said they'd make it worse, and Bradley already knew what worse felt like. "I have an appointment," Bradley said, and stepped around her. His hands started shaking before he reached the other side of the street, but he kept the card in his pocket and didn't look back. The woman called after him about discounts and guarantees, but Bradley pushed open the door to the clinic with the bright glass front and stepped inside. The mint smell hit him first, then the chemical one. He walked up to the desk and set the card down. "I'm here for nine o'clock," he said. The woman behind the desk smiled — not wide like the one outside, but small and real — and wrote his name down. Bradley sat in the waiting room chair and kept his hands in his pockets so no one would see them shake.

Bradley sat in a chair near the window and watched the woman in the pink vest pack up her candy display across the street. His hands had stopped shaking. The waiting room smelled like mint and something sharp that made his eyes water a little. A man in a gray jacket sat down next to him. Bradley didn't look up, but the man kept staring. Finally he spoke. "You're the one who leaves the wrappers," he said. He pulled something from his pocket — a crumpled pile of candy wrappers, pink and yellow and blue, twisted into bright little knots. "Found these all over the trail behind my house. Same ones you've got falling out of your coat right now." Bradley looked down. Three wrappers had slipped from his pocket onto the floor, the colors catching the light. His face went hot. The man wasn't angry, just tired. "My kids collect them," he said. "They think someone's leaving treasure. But I know what they really are." He dropped the wrappers on the chair between them and walked to the coat rack by the door, hanging his jacket on one of the curved hooks. Bradley stared at the pile of wrappers. He recognized every color — the pink twists from the sour ones, the yellow squares from the lemon drops, the blue spirals he'd eaten yesterday. Or maybe last week. He couldn't remember. But someone else did. Someone had been collecting the pieces of him he left behind, turning his problem into their kids' game. He reached for his pocket, felt the candies there, smooth and waiting. His hands didn't shake when he pulled them out — five of them, all different colors. He walked to the trash can by the door and dropped them in, one by one. They made small tapping sounds against the plastic. The man watched him from across the room but didn't say anything. Bradley sat back down and pushed the wrappers from the chair onto the floor with his foot. His pocket felt light and wrong, like he'd forgotten something important. But when the woman behind the desk called his name, he stood up without reaching for more candy first. The man nodded once, small and quick, and Bradley walked through the door to the back.