(A/N: Just an FYI, I slightly added more and edited the previous chapter if you haven't read it yet 🥰)
Mel's P.O.V.
~ 2004 ~
"Once I quit drugs," Stradlin began. "I couldn't help looking around and asking myself, 'Is this all there is?' I was just tired of it; I needed to get out ... "When you're fucked up, you're more likely to put up with things you wouldn't normally put up with." I read in the freshly printed magazine that I held in my hands.
"What are you reading?" Izzy came out into the backyard, placed down two mugs of freshly brewed coffee on the table closest to me and took a seat.
I was stretched out across the freshly cut, green grass, basking in the sun as my fingers turned glossy page after page. Izzy groaned and rolled his eyes when I showed him the front cover, on which he was printed.
"You're seriously reading my interview? I still can't believe I let that journalist convince me to come out of my hidey-hole and share all of my secrets." Izzy joked, but I believed there was some underlying truth in his sentence.
I decided to ignore his 'hidey-hole' comment.
"Oh, yeah of course! Since you won't tell me what you said I had to go out and buy a copy... and the chick looked at me weirdly when I bought it."
"Why?"
"Probably because she knows you're my dude," I smirked.
Izzy scoffed then paused. I could just see Izzy in my peripheral vision when I noticed him turn his head towards me.
"What?" I said flatly while I tried to hide my smile and not look at him.
"You haven't called me 'dude' in so long."
I couldn't help but smile.
"Just trying to cling onto my youth, you know?" I replied, still keeping my eyes on the magazine before me.
"Oh, is that so?" he questioned and without letting a moment pass, he leapt out of his chair and somehow managed to gently tackle me on the grass, and began to tickle me.
"Oh my god, you guys are so embarrassing!"
Standing before us with her hands over her eyes, was our 11-year-old daughter, Ingrid. She had come out onto the deck, without us noticing, with another girl we had never met before. The new girl gawked with awkwardness as Ingrid was no doubt almost dying from cringing at her lame parents; the idiots in love sprawled out on the grass.
"Hi there. We're uh...," I started, trying to get up to straighten my clothes as quickly as possible to act as if nothing happened. Izzy did the same.
"We're Ingrid's parents," I smiled as I walked over to the girls.
"Hello Mrs and Mr Isbell," the friend blurted out almost mechanically, "I'm Tiffany." She abruptly stuck out her hand for me to shake.
"It's nice to meet you, Tiffany," I smiled as I gently shook her hand.
"So you're the new friend Ingrid's always talking about, eh?" Izzy walked over beside me as he put a hand around my waist.
"I guess so..." Tiffany replied laughing nervously.
Ingrid cringed yet again, letting her gaze drop.
"I'm not supposed to tell you this, but my dad always talks about you. Well, I think it's you." Tiffany suddenly blurted out while she stared at Izzy.
"What do you mean?" He asked as he raised his eyebrows.
"He's always saying that he can't believe I go to the same school as "Izzy Straddling's" kid? I think it's because he listens to the band you used to be in or something, I don't really know. But I don't really get it because I don't know anyone with the last name of Straddling, so he might be wrong." She talked so fast I could barely keep up, and Tiffany soon shrugged and looked down at her feet.
Izzy laughed quietly beside me and rubbed his forehead.
"Oh, god." He mumbled under his breath.
Ingrid rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, my parents are dorks."
"Excuse me? Lady, if you want to hang out with your friends you better behave yourself or we can send her home and you can get on with that science assignment that's due next week." Izzy said sternly.
Ah, the joys of parenthood, right? Ingrid if you hadn't already guessed, was just starting to go through the "I'm-so-cool-too-cool-for-school" and "early-double-digits-means-I'm-a-teen-now" phase, and Izzy hadn't been very happy about it. I wasn't too concerned as I had also gone through my own sulky stage when I was roughly her age. It was just a normal, and no doubt hormonal phase that any kid eventually went through, and I knew deep down that Ingrid was, all in all, a good kid.
Ingrid sighed loudly and Tiffany looked terrified and somewhat amazed at Ingrid's confidence.
"Sor-ry." She scoffed
"Hey, watch it," Izzy said lowering his voice and pointing a finger right at Ingrid.
I spun around quickly and winced at Izzy.
"Just let her go. Don't be one of those cranky parents straight away in front of her new friend." I whispered.
"Anyway, we just came in to tell you we're going for a quick bike ride. See you." The girls shuffled around and walked out of sight until we heard the front door slam shut.
"I don't like her attitude lately." Izzy sounded worried, "She's been the best kid; well behaved, shy and everything; where has this behaviour of hers slipped through? I mean what if she turns into those high school clichés that dates the guy on the football team and she's the cheerleader leader and..." he rubbed his eyes, clearly getting stressed out.
"Hey," I wrapped my arms around him and rested my head on his chest, "she'll be fine she's just going through that stage that all girls go through eventually. Even I went through it, Iz. Also, I'm pretty sure those clichés you're thinking about only exist in the movies."
He smiled half-heartedly.
"You went through a phase?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure any kid goes through some sort of-"
"Well, then we should be worried! Look at the way you've turned out!" Izzy interrupted me.
He squeezed my shoulders and let slip that same cheeky smirk that had made me turn to goo over 15 years ago.
Because of that smirk, I just couldn't help myself and I leapt towards him. Surprisingly, he caught me in time before I face-planted, and I crashed my lips into his while tangling my hands through his hair.
Without warning, he suddenly, yet deliberately, collapsed on the grass, with me falling on top, but he then flipped us over. He crawled over the top of me, nestling himself between my legs, and pulled them up to wrap around his waist, as he lowered his lips to mine. I couldn't help but moan into his mouth when he started to grind against me, and I felt his lips curl against my mouth.
"OH MY GOD EW!" A voice screamed from behind us, making us both jump out of our skin.
Izzy turned his head around and I looked over his shoulder to see our daughter wincing with her hand over her eyes.
"Ingrid!" Izzy squeaked.
"I just came back to get my helmet and you guys are... doing that on the lawn. Ew!" She shuddered.
Since she still had her hands over her eyes, no doubt only moments away from cringing to death, Izzy made a snap decision to jump off me and was able to sneak right up to her. He scooped her up and spun her around while giving her a big kiss on the temple. Ingrid squealed when he grabbed her, her hands flung to his shoulders and her cheeks slowly turned crimson.
"Please let me go ride my bike." She whined, trying her hide her smile.
"Yeah, yeah." Izzy smiled plonking her back down on her feet.
"Don't be too long; it'll be dark soon." He said rubbing her arms and quickly kissing the top of her head.
"We won't be." She smiled, grabbed her helmet and ran off.
"Have fun... Love you." Izzy awkwardly mumbled just as Ingrid disappeared into the house.
Noticed that Izzy said 'love you'? Well, he normally never says that to her since he gets a little embarrassed about it. Since she didn't reply, Izzy tried to hide his rejection while he was walking back towards me.
"Oh, dad?" Ingrid suddenly stuck her head back outside, smiling sheepishly, and Izzy turned around, "I love you too. Please don't be humping when I come home."
That certainly put a smile on his face; again, he tried to hide it, until she made him laugh with her 'humping' comment.
"See, she's not all bad," I smirked while laying back down on the grass as I soaked up the afternoon, autumn sun. It was so nice and calming that I decided to close my eyes and just lie there on the warm grass for a while.
It was amazing how tame our lives were now. From the unorganised, drug-riddled and rock-filled 80s and early 90s, to the quiet, clean and peaceful 00s where we lived on a hobby farm in Indiana, as a family. I somehow found it quite unbelievable that we were still together after everything we went through back in the day. But then again, as our relationship continued, the more we had to adapt and become mature about certain situations.
Speaking of maturity, it was somewhat amusing to watch Izzy continuously freak out when Ingrid was about to be born. He handled my pregnancy without a drama and the pure joy that lit up his face when I was finally able to fall pregnant. It had taken us a long time to heal after my second miscarriage, and even though the both of us had started to become more comfortable talking about it, we just never tried being "intimate". It wasn't until Izzy did a minor stint touring with Guns N' Roses again halfway through 1993, even though he didn't like to get into the messy, nitty-gritty detail with me about money, but I believe the band still owed him some. Also, his replacement, Gilby, had broken his wrist, so Izzy was convinced to do a few token shows. When he returned after touring, we could barely keep our hands off each other. I had felt like a horny teenager again, he must have too, and after that night I fell pregnant, and not one complication affected us.
My water had suddenly broken just as we were cleaning our teeth together one night before bed. I began to feel a slow trickle of water run down my legs, and I honestly thought I had just wet myself again (something I experienced through the last few months of my pregnancy), but this time, the colour was more pinkish than yellow and there was more liquid compared to a little wee slip. I slapped Izzy's arm next to me and I stared at ourselves in the bathroom mirror above the sink. He looked back at me confused, while I stared at him with absolute terror.
"Dude, look." I pointed down at my legs, and soon afterwards Izzy started to freak out more than myself.
"Fuck."
"Come on quick we gotta get to the hospital!"
"Are you in pain yet?"
"Where's the overnight bag?!"
"Do we need to bring towels!?"
"Fuck!"
Those are just some examples of his vocabulary that night. Funny thing, the more he started to freak out, the calmer I became, and I ended up being the one who had to do the 'calming down' talks, while I was casually going through contractions in the car ride over to the hospital. When we arrived, we received a private room, and we ended up spending hours just waiting until I was ready to give birth. We spent those hours with me calming Izzy down, while Izzy sat with his head in his hands, as I walked around the room with my hands on my back. Every so often we'd have a midwife come in and check on me, which usually consisted of her sticking her fingers up me to see how much I had dilated. By about 4 am, the fatigue had hit me quite strongly; I ended up squatting down next to Izzy's chair while he massaged my head gently.
"I'm scared, Izzy," I remember whispering to him.
"Me too." He replied eventually.
Minutes later, the nurse came in, stuck her fingers up me and told us it was 'go time'. The nurse threw me down on the bed, more nurses entered the room, and then they all started yelling at me to 'push'. Well, I couldn't do it; I couldn't pop out a baby while lying on my back because gravity doesn't fucking work that way. So, after some aggressive arguments, the nurses let me go on my hands and knees, and after a few pushes and some yelling, out came Ingrid. It was interesting to watch Izzy's expression change to something I still can't put a name on to this day. When I rested my back against Izzy, who was kneeling behind me on the bed, I looked up and watched his face while I was sighing with relief. He stared down at little Ingrid wriggling around on the towels, with nurses surrounding her, and his expression was something similar to fascination and awe. He was silent for a long time, and also he didn't have much chance to talk because, within minutes after Ingrid was born, I fell asleep against him.
Heading back towards the present day, we had sold Izzy's cute Venice Beach house and decided to move away from the city, and back to Izzy's stomping ground of Indiana. Izzy didn't think it would be good for any child to grow up in L.A., but I honestly think that that city might be just a tad traumatising for him.
After soaking up the afternoon sun, I opened my eyes to find Izzy lying next to me with his eyes closed as well. He opened one, looked at me and smiled, then closed it again.
"What?" I grinned as I shimmied over and rested my head on his chest.
"Just thinking about how much I love it when you call me dude."
THE END