Bad Obsession (Guns N' Roses: Izzy Stradlin)

Epilogue

(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.