She Wouldn't Say Goodbye. (Guns N' Roses)

Chapter Forty-Two Pt. I

-Kat-

Axl slammed the trunk of the Buick Lesabre our suitcases all inside, we could all fit most of our belongings inside those cases. We had a trailer attached in order to haul all the gear that the guys would need over the next five or so shows, there was a nervous energy that seemed to radiate between all of us. We had instilled the help of Danny and JoJo two of our friends from the LA scene to act as roadies on this excursion. "Is everyone ready to head out?" Axl questioned lowering his aviator sunglasses over his eyes. "I think so everything is packed and good to go," Danny replied opening the door to the Buick which he had thankfully loaned us. "Let's do this shit." Slash grinned a half-burnt out cigarette between his lips. 

"I'll start off driving unless someone else wants to?" Danny spoke looking between us all. "That's good with us I think," Axl answered, ushering me to get into the backseat. I quickly climbed in and waited for Axl to follow suit, the door on the other side of the car opened up and Izzy climbed in from the left giving me a quick glance. I laughed, "How are we all going to fit in here?" Izzy grinned back, lifting his sunglasses up and placing them on top of his head. "I mean we'll fit but probably not comfortably." 

Axl sat down on my other side followed by Duff, it was extremely cramped in the back. Danny climbed into the driver's seat while Steven, Slash, and Jojo somehow managed to all sit upfront. Danny turned the key in the ignition bringing the car to life, the radio started blasting Aerosmith automatically earning a cheer of approval from Slash and Steven. Danny pulled the car out of the space and onto the road, our trailer bumping lightly as we passed over a pothole. Izzy rolled his window down slightly, cranking it open halfway so he could smoke a cigarette. I eyed him as he stuck a long Marlboro Red 100 between his pink lips, he patted down his jean jacket for a light finally producing one after checking both pockets thoroughly. He flicked the red Bic to life and stuck the flame against the end of his cigarette, he exhaled, the light grey smoke quickly rushing out the open window. He passed his cigarette over to me, his brown eyes meeting mine for a brief moment before darting elsewhere. "Thanks, Iz."  He nodded in acknowledgment before repeating the process once again and lighting his own from his pack. 

Izzy and I both glanced out the window, watching as our familiar surroundings passed us by. It was incredible to think we were going to get to see a new state as I had never seen any place other than Indiana or California. Axl sat contently beside me one of his feet propped up on the back of the seat in front of him, where he and I both sat in the middle we could perfectly see out most of the windows which was nice as it was a really beautiful warm day out. I took a drag off of my cigarette, a chill creeping up my neck from my lack of drugs in my system. I absentmindedly bit my lip wondering if Izzy had brought any smack or something else for us to take, I really hoped so as I didn't want to try to find contacts in the middle of Seattle. Even though it felt good and it was a way to not have to think for a while I knew nonetheless it was a horrible habit to have, worse than smoking but not as horrible as some things I guess. I knew I could make my own decisions but I couldn't help but blame my parents for the drug issues, lack of self-care and general bad behavior. I guess that's what you get when you have two drug addict parents; a mother who sleeps around and has no real maternal instincts, and a father that is in and out of prison for robbing and grand theft. 

"Are you okay?" Izzy whispered, his throat rough from the cigarettes. My eyes met his before looking down at his mouth than to the Rolling Stones pin on his blue jean jacket, "I'm fine for the most part." I answered my words sounding more melancholy than I wanted them to. His slender hand grabbed onto my shoulder lightly, his fingertips settling on my bare shoulder sending a jolt through my body. We went off the exit, entering the I-5 North which would take us all the way to Seattle if we followed it. I nervously looked around, reading the roadsigns. Izzy let his fingertips trail down my arm before pulling his hand away entirely, he went back to smoking his cigarette and looking out the window as I offered no further explanation. 

-Two hours later- 

We pulled to the side of the road, thankfully within walking distance of a convenience store. The car had smoke pouring from the hood, we weren't even that far from Los Angeles, maybe two hours out and were already having troubles. Danny quickly jumped out of the driver's seat after turning the car off. "Okay, what the fuck is going on?" Axl questioned sitting up in his seat to get a better look, he pushed his strawberry blond hair back with his sunglasses. "This isn't good," Duff muttered, opening the car door and getting out. "Should we go see what's going on?" I asked, looking towards Axl. "I guess so, you're good with cars we could give it a look?" He answered getting out through the door Duff had left open. "You wanna come too Iz?" He shook his head in response and we both got out of the car going towards the front of the vehicle. 

Smoke continued to pour out even though Danny had opened the black hood up, I walked around to get a better look as he carefully touched some of the parts as to not get burnt by the still-hot engine. "Of course this piece of shit had to break down again." Danny cursed lifting his head back up. "What do you mean again?" Duff questioned, crossing his arms. "This happened like a year ago and I could never figure out what had happened to the fuckin' thing, got some new plugs and a battery and it ran fine until now apparently," Danny answered getting increasingly ticked off. "Well, could we find some new plugs and shit this time?" Axl asked, but Danny shook his head, "I doubt that's the problem, it wasn't smoking like this last time." 

Slash, Steven and JoJo got out of the car and came around to where we all were standing. "What's going on?" Steven questioned, it went silent for a few seconds before Axl spoke," The car's fucked." "What do we do?" Steven asked, looking around at everyone. "We continue the tour." Duff answered, "If we can just make it to Seattle then we'll be fine, I know a bunch of people there that will help us out. We can stay there, play the show and they can take us back to LA." I glanced between Izzy and Axl trying to see their reactions to the predicament. Axl slowly shook his head, "It can't be that hard, we should finish this thing." "Well, it doesn't seem like we have anything to fuckin' lose," Slash interjected before puffing on a cigarette and grabbing a fifth of Jack from his coat pocket. He took a long swig from the bottle before holding his hand out as to offer it to anyone else, Duff grabbed it from his hand and lifted it to his lips. It was silent until Axl spoke up, "What do you think Izzy?" Izzy turned around and faced the group "Huh?" What do you think we should do?" Axl repeated, Izzy shrugged his shoulders, "It doesn't matter to me, I'm in if everyone else is." And with that, it was decided we were going to hitchhike to Seattle in hopes of playing the shows we had scheduled.