"No," I said, shaking my head. "I didn't exactly have that big of a supply that they could go missing somehow."
"Okay," he said, his hand sliding down the column of my neck, my shoulder, down my arm, and grabbing my hand, pulling me into my own apartment until he lowered down onto the couch. Not really having any other option, I sat down as well. "Talk to me."
"It's not your problem," I insisted. "It's my problem."
"And since I'm the one who is really fucking enjoying being inside you and being at your side and sleeping with you in his bed, your problems are my problems. It's not a hard concept," he added with a small smirk that took some of the edge off his words. "Who were the guys in the BMW?"
I didn't even bother to ask how he knew about the BMW.
Mitchell had a thing for BMWs. Not because he particularly liked any of the styles or because they had great safety features, but because of the BMW symbol that was an homage to aviation, which Mitchell was downright obsessed with.
"That's a long story."
"In case this part hasn't been made clear yet, this you and me thing? This is not some fling, some short-term thing. I'm in this. So since when I say I am in something, it means I see a future in it, I'd say I have all the time in the world to listen. So start at the beginning."
Start at the beginning.
I could do that.
Hell, maybe it would even be cathartic to go back over it all, to see it progress to the point where it left me dying in a back alley on a weeknight.
"After my mom died, after I got all her arrangements made, I needed to, well..."
"Get your life back," he supplied, his hand landing on my thigh just above my knee, giving a little squeeze then just remaining there, giving me an anchor that I didn't realize I needed so badly.
"Exactly. So I went on some interviews and got a job at an office. They were going through some renovations and needed to move all their old file boxes. The only other person working the desk was this really old, frail woman and I was pretty sure if she lifted more than one file at a time, she might break something."
"So you carted them all."
"And pinched a nerve in my back. I didn't think much of it at first, I figured I pulled something so I took it easy then, well, went right back to it because the job needed to be done. But then it got so bad that if I sat down for more than a minute, when I tried to stand again, my leg would give out and the pain was... the pain was honestly impressive and would shoot both up and down at the same time. It was crippling."
"So you went to a doctor."
He was assuming it was that simple.
I went to a doctor who was too heavy-handed with the pills and I got addicted.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for me.
"I went to see Dr. Christopher Andrews," I supplied, the words spitting like bile from my lips. It tasted like it on my tongue. "He told me what I had, gave me a pretty mild script and told me to take it easy and take my pills as prescribed and come back in six weeks. The pills were daily. I did what I was told because, well, it hurt too much not too. Then I went back after the six weeks, after some rest, feeling a lot better. Which was when he suggested I go do some rehab just in case."
"You weren't hooked by then?" he asked, brows together, tone confused.
"Not at all," I said, shaking my head. "Then I went to therapy and I met Sunny Andrews."
"Related?"
"Brothers." I nodded. "And we started easy, doing some stretches that genuinely seemed to help. Then as the days progressed, they got harder and harder until in my second week, he was helping me into a stretch and I... I can't even describe that pain. I actually blacked out for long enough to slam down to the floor and not even realize it. He helped me back up and by that point, I was sobbing. It was excruciating. I could barely move at all. I couldn't lay down. I couldn't sleep. Sunny gave me a card for another doctor."
My smile went a little bitter, hindsight being twenty-twenty and all that. At the time though, all I knew was it hurt bad enough to want me to throw myself off a cliff to end it. Enough that I understood that guy who jumped off a bridge and left a note that said 'no reason, I just had a toothache'.
"He sent me to Dr. Mitchell Andrews."