"So, we can either sleep in the bus tonight, get a real kind of camping vibe, or we can stay at the motel; management still books a room for me just in case," Izzy laughed, "we can always just sneak Ripley into the room, so what would you prefer? Mel?"

I could hear Izzy talking but it sounded like he was far away so I didn't take much notice of it... until I felt a big push on my shoulder. My eyes snapped open and I found myself still in Izzy's tour bus, and we were still on the road.

"Oh, sorry, babe, I thought you were awake."

I yawned and stretched out as best as I could, as my seatbelt restricting my movement, and I looked over to find Izzy contently driving. He was wearing a plain, black tee-shirt paired with tight, acid wash jeans. Seeing him in simple clothes were enough to drive me crazy and it certainly helped me wake up. I blinked rapidly and rubbed my eyes before speaking.

"Where are we?"

"We've just driven through Nampa, we're about to go into Oregon. We've been on the road for just over 5 hours."

"Do you need a break? I can drive for a bit if you want?"

"Don't worry, my dear, I've developed a knack for these long road trips. It's a great time to just get in the zone and not think about anything... you know?"

I smirked.

"Shouldn't you technically be thinking about the road and being 'zoned in' to your surroundings?"

Izzy lowered his eyelids and flattened his lips in a straight line with disappointment.

"You know what I mean." He eventually said, breaking a smile, before he turned his eyes back into the road.

We were driving towards Tacoma in Washington for Guns' next show. They had just played in Salt Lake City, which was yet another show where Axl decided to show up fashionably late. Since I had been on the road with Izzy I had really been thrown into the 'touring lifestyle' but just without the messy rock n' roll aspect of it. I was exhausted from the late nights, early mornings and travelling for hours on end. I had no idea how Izzy managed to do it as he was expending a lot of energy most nights sweating it up on stage. Sure, the rest of his bandmates were living up to expectations with parties, drugs, alcohol and women, but Izzy and I were touring 'boring married couple' style.

"But back to what I was saying, do you want to keep staying in the bus or stay at the hotel when we get to Tacoma?"

"I don't think we'll ever be staying in a hotel since we have your pup with us." I turned around to look at the back of the bus.

As expected, Ripley was sleeping happily on the built-in couch, on her back with some quiet snores coming out of her nose. Since joining Izzy on his tour, we'd visited 4 different cities and spent the majority of our time in the brand new, supercharged RV that he just bought without really telling me. When he'd call me to catch up when the tour first started, he never went into that much detail about how he actually travelled around. I knew he was travelling separately to his bandmembers, but he never once said one word about buying this massive camper bus. It had a double bed at the back of it, a well-designed small bathroom, a cute little kitchen with a stove top, fridge, microwave and sink, and a long couch along one side of the bus. It was incredibly luxurious and all I could think of how much it must have cost. Because we had Ripley with us, we stayed in the bus overnight since it had all the amenities you could ask for, and I could never bring myself to smuggle Ripley into a hotel room in case she pissed or shat somewhere.

"She won't piss anywhere if that's what you're worried about."

"Yeah, I know, but still I don't think I could handle the embarrassment if the cleaners found a whopper turd in the room."

Ripley's ears pricked up as soon as we started to talk about her, and soon I felt a wet snoot bump against my elbow. I looked down and there she was happily smiling away as she looked up at me, and how can you say 'no' to that? I gave her a big pat by rubbing behind her ears and leaning down to almost kiss her nose. Ripley had become a great distraction for me after I miscarried. Felt sad? She was there. Needed some attention? She was there. Wanted a cuddle? She was there. There was something about her fuzzy face that made me feel so much more secure and supported. Maybe it was something to do with that she had no idea what was happening, she may have sensed I was upset, but the fact she didn't ask questions and just gave me love whenever I needed it was great. Izzy and I had barely spoken about what had happened mainly because I couldn't bring myself to talk about it. He would try to ask how I was and try to talk about kids in the future, but I would just cut him off. What happened, happened, and all I wanted to do what put it behind me.

Izzy had told the band, and since I joined them on tour it was like the guys had no idea how to talk to me. I guessed they were just awkward as fuck, or just high, but I was grateful that Duff just gave me a big bear hug when he saw me for the first time. It was great none of them asked me about what had happened, but I would have liked it if they made some kind of conversation with me.

"Are you doing okay?" Izzy's voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, why?"

"You've got that look on your face again."

"What face? I was just thinking about nothing."

Izzy sighed.

"When are we going to talk about this? We can't sweep it under the rug forever."

"I told you, I don't want to talk about it. I'm not ready."

Izzy gripped the steering wheel and stared ahead at the road with aggravation, and at that moment I couldn't control my emotions any longer; the tears started to flow.

"Why do you keep pressuring me?!" I squeaked.

Izzy's expression immediately changed.

"Mel, I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm sorry."

I cried harder.

"It just kills me to see you like this and I feel like if you talk and get some stuff off your chest, you'll feel better?"

I couldn't respond, the tears had taken control of my voice.

"Fuck it." Izzy muttered as he flicked on his blinker and started to pull over off the road.

"What... are... you... doing?" I managed to squeak out between sobs.

Izzy found a spot on the side of the highway, turned off the engine, took his seatbelt off and moved to kneel beside me. He held my hands and looked up at me with his mesmerising hazel eyes

"What are you going to yell at me now?" I sobbed.

"What? No! I could never yell at you about something like this! I just really think we should talk about this."

"What is there to say, Izzy? You want me to say I'm a failure? That I probably can never have kids?"

"We don't know that."

"I lost a baby after having it for 5 months, Izzy, that's not normal!"

"The doctor said that sometimes these things happen."

"There is no point of talking about this! Just get back in your seat and start driving!" I sobbed.

"We're married, Mel. We should be able to talk to each other about anything."

I was shocked.

"How dare you guilt me like that. Pulling the 'married' card? Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Mel, I'm not guilting you-"

"Seems like it! What part of 'don't want to talk about it' don't you understand?" I ended up screaming at Izzy, with tears streaming down my face.

I felt like a hot mess, useless, enraged, and baffled that Izzy kept trying to pressure me. There would be a time I would be ready to talk, but I was no where near that point at the time.  Izzy stared at me intently until he sighed quietly and moved back to the driver's seat. He started the engine back up and merged back onto the highway, and for the next few hours, we didn't say a word to each other. I just sat in my seat quietly letting tears roll down my face, waiting for Izzy to say something to me or at least apologise. We were just about to cross over into Washington when Izzy finally spoke... we had not said a word to each other in over 6 hours.

"We can work through this, Mel. I won't pressure you to do or talk about anything you don't want to. I just want you to be happy."

He flashed a quick look towards me before turning his eyes back to the road... and that was enough to send me over the edge. It was obvious my brain was scattered as almost instantly tears started to spill down my face again.

"I'm sorry I got mad." I cried out, to which Izzy was quite surprised at.

"Please don't cry, Mel. I didn't mean-"

"No you didn't, I just have a lot of emotions right now," I said in between cries mixed with laughter, "I do want to talk about... this, but please just not right now."

Izzy quickly looked at me again, this time with a small smile that sat in the corner of his mouth. He didn't even need to say anything, his smile said everything. I could tell he understood and I could feel his love for me with just the look in his eyes. It was going to be hard for us to heal but it was something we were both happy to work on as long as both of us were in a healthy mindspace. 

~

Hey guys! Sorry this took me so long to write! I hope this chapter is okay, this writer's block is giving me grief big time. Let me know what you thought 💕 and thank you for being patient x