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"His father." He was tense beside me, maybe already knowing where this was going.
"Exactly. And his father had a specialty in pain management."
"Fuck," Lazarus said, shaking his head. "He sent you to a pill mill."
That was exactly what it was too. It was a phrase I had never even heard before, not being in the kind of lifestyle where things like that even factored into daily life. Pain management doctors weren't in the business of helping you and your body recover from pain. They were in the business of handing out scripts.
I hadn't even seen it as seedy or wrong or corrupt that when I showed up for my appointment at a typical doctor office- all beige walls, uncomfortable seating, and generic artwork- and went to hand my card to the girl at the desk with bugging eyes, the pupils only pins, her hair greasy, her body frail and underweight, only to have her tell me that we don't take insurance, just cash.
All I saw was an end to the pain.
So then I became a client of a pill mill.
I was back every month like clockwork for my refill, which I paid Dr. Mitchell Andrews five-hundred dollars to prescribe me. Five hundred dollars for a prescription.
But it made the stabbing sensation ease up. For a couple hours at a time before I needed another dose. And then another. Like clockwork. It became such a habit that I didn't really even stop to consider when I reached for the pill bottle if I truly needed it anymore or not. It wasn't long before the urge for the pills wasn't because of pain anyway- just a cliched, good old fashioned addiction.
It made me ugly.
It made me forget about work.
Forgetting about work made me lose my paycheck.
And without a paycheck, well, how the hell was I going to pay Dr. Mitchell those five-hundred dollars for my next script?
By the time I was out, I was a full day into withdrawal- sick, in pain all over, clawing at my skin, going slowly insane it felt. I had never felt anything like it before, not even close. I was so sick that it didn't even occur to me that my back didn't hurt anymore. Not even a little twinge of pain. Nothing.
But it was too late.
I was a full-blown addict.
It was that easy, that effortless, that unintentional.
As it so often was.
And the withdrawal, it stole my pride, my dignity, my normal everyday personality. It had me driving over to Dr. Mitchell's office, having to pull over to throw up twice, sending me in there completely sweating through my wrinkled, two day old clothes.
There was no one at the desk and I would later find it was because the girl with the greasy hair and bugging eyes had overdosed in her bathtub, leaving her to drown and not be found until three days later when the neighbor complained about a smell.
A glamorous life addicts led.
With almost always a tragic end.
But I thought nothing of it as I stood there shaking on screaming legs, calling into the back until Dr. Mitchell walked out, eyes raking over me, a smile that I didn't recognize as evil on his lips.
"I'll prescribe you," he said, nodding, making relief course like a wave through my body, enough to numb the withdrawal symptoms for a blissful moment. "In exchange for you working here."
There was really no choice.
I needed to not feel so bad.
By whatever means necessary.
At that point, if he asked me to drop to my knees for a hit, I might have been low enough to do it. As much as that made my newly- sober stomach turn sour just even thinking it.
"You were paid off the books," he said oddly, making me shake out of the memories that were so vivid I realized my hands were curled into fists and my heart was pounding.
"What?"
"I had Reeve call in Janie and Alex to look into you so we could try to find you. They didn't find any current work."
"Yeah, they ah... paid me under the table, minus the cost for my refills."
He nodded at that, not judging - understanding. His hand moved up, gently touching the space next to my eye. "Why would they do this though?"
"Because in working for them, I learned their secrets."
Lazarus' eyes went guarded; his body tensed and, had I not been so close to him, I might not have noticed the shift. As it was, there was no mistaking it. He was trying to steel himself so he didn't make any outward reaction to the answer to his upcoming question.
"What was their secret?"
"That Mitchell wasn't just a pill mill," I plowed on, knowing it was best to just get it all out there. "It was an operation. Chris was the one to scout out new clients, get them comfortable with casual pill use, making sure no one actually got addicted so they had no actual fear of doing so." It had worked so, so well on me. It didn't even phase me when Mitchell gave me the scripts because I knew that I had handled the ones from Chris so well.
