"Ten o’clock at Lewis Dental—I’ve booked us in." She said it at the end of the office corridor on Wednesday morning, her smile bright as fresh toothpaste. Or I want to remember it that way; I questioned my own ears even as she spoke. Yet the appointment card in her hand burned. When she laid it on my palm—“Don’t lose this”—her fingertips lingered for 0.7 seconds. That brief touch turned my entire day inside out. I didn’t sleep that night. A dull throb rose from my lower molars, but the real ache was elsewhere.
An Appointment Etched Like a Callus
9:47 a.m. Lewis Dental lobby. The nurse behind the white placard regards me with cool eyes. I sit alone. Will she come, won’t she—I already know the answer; I’m only here to verify it. At the counter I ask, "Appointment for Park Ji-hye?"
"Changed to two p.m.," they say.
Two. I arrived at ten. She shifted the time so I couldn’t make it—or rather, so she could leave without me.
A Cavity Deeper Than Any Drill Reaches
While I lie in the chair, the dentist says there’s a hole in my upper incisor. Not an old cavity—fresh. I clawed at the spot with a fingernail last night. That’s when I understood: she hadn’t abandoned me; I had abandoned myself. One sentence from her derailed my entire day, folded my schedule, and left me pacing outside the clinic. It wasn’t affection. It was fixation.
Men Snared in the Same Trap
"Me too. The closer the appointment got, the harder my heart pounded, like it would burst."
Sung-min, 31, endured the same scene a month earlier at this very clinic. "She told me she had to take me. Then that morning a text: ‘Too sick to come.’ I sat in the waiting room for two hours. Why? Because I was gripped by the delusion she might still appear." He wrote her name on the wall seventeen times—tiny letters in ballpoint ink. They’re still there, faint but indelible.
The Final Appointment
The following week I returned—alone. The dentist asked, "Shall we skip the anesthetic this time?" I nodded. I needed the pain; only pain could sort this chaos. As the drill whirred and my jaw vibrated, a question finally surfaced.
Why Do We Fall Into Such Traps?
I thought she had deceived me. In truth, I had deceived myself. When people are abandoned, what terrifies them more than the abandonment itself is confronting how wretched they can become. So we grow more pathetic in front of that rejection: "Why me?" and "I had no choice but to wait." A pill cured the toothache. But this wound?
At this very moment, what dental appointment are you standing in front of? Will she arrive? Or is the real question this: Is the person you’re actually waiting for someone other than her?