She chuckled. "They're aching alright." Although, she didn't think she could ever get enough of his honeyed words. 
"But seriously, there's absolutely nothing that you want to tell me?" JJ asked seriously, before he attempted to joke, "No childhood trauma that you'd like to unpack?" Except he was also sort of serious about that.
"It kind of sounds like you're fishing for something specific."
"No! Not at all. Just... if you did want to talk to me about something, you can, whatever that something may be." His neck burned hot with embarrassment. He was coming off too pushy. He didn't want to pressure her into trauma dumping out of coercion. He wanted her to want to tell him these things out of her own free will. "I'm sorry, forget I even said anything."
Biting her lip as she hesitated to utter her next words, Collins stared down at her notebook, knowing full well that written on its pages were parts of her life that had left crater sized holes in her. She thought about how honest JJ was with her the night before, how special she felt to know something about him that shed a different light on him from the person he always tried to emulate. He'd been able to be vulnerable with her, to open up and be candid about a part of his life that he struggled with. 
If he could be transparent about himself as much as he was with her, it only felt right that she was the same for him. But it wasn't just that it felt like the right thing to do, it was also something that Collins wanted to do, and that felt important to distinguish. 
"When I was little, there was a brief period of time where my parents were actually pretty good at their job and we were an actual family for once. My mom was clean, her parents had sent her to rehab for the very last time and she'd managed to stay on track for a personal record of 3 months. Within that short window she'd managed to sweet talk Charlie into going to some wilderness retreat for boys that cost way more money than she had back then, but all that convincing and planning kept her mind off her addiction." Collins swallowed back the lump in her throat that was making her voice sound all croaky like she was about to start crying at any minute. She hadn't even gotten to the sad part yet, why was she already choking up?
JJ placed a gentle hand on her arm to show her that she had his full attention, and he was there for her. She feigned a small smile in appreciation for the gesture. "So that just left her, me, and Dad at home for the summer. It's the only one where I remember them fondly. I think I ate more toasted marshmallows that year than I have in my whole life because we spent every weekend next to the bonfire and my mom liked the idea of S'mores Sundays. She said it had a nice ring to it. I also think a heavy proportion of sugar in her diet helped her cope, but I don't know, it was a long time ago."
"No, it sounds familiar. My dad did the same thing for a while, but he hasn't tried to stay clean for years. Peanut butter chocolates were his favorite sugar fix." Collins brought her hand up to squeeze his comfortingly. How messed up was it that they could bond over something like that? It appeared that both of their parents had done a number on them. 
"She'd almost made it the whole summer without tripping up. I suppose third time's the charm because she'd been through the whole rehab thing and relapsed both times only weeks after being released. But she'd managed to hold off longer after the third rehab visit, so there was hope that maybe she could stay that way. Until one night, I guess it all just became too much for her." Collins took a deep breath. "She wasn't thinking straight that day. She'd been stuck at home with me while my dad was at work and for some reason, she just couldn't fight it anymore. I just remember her grabbing my hand so tight I thought the bone would shatter, and she dragged me along with her to her dealer's place a couple blocks away."
JJ wondered if it was the same one that his dad used to go before he started going to Barry. It was a dingy old place that had been busted a couple of years ago after a bad batch took out enough of its consumers for the police to trace it back to the source. JJ's dad had been lucky to not have been one of the unfortunate souls. The only reason why he was still able to sit on his recliner was because around that time, he'd been scamming the hospital into giving him prescription pain killers after a work injury, he was on the ban list now obviously.