Think About You (Izzy Stradlin)

Chapter 17: Suspicious Minds

Friday, March 1987

Emily woke up to the startling sound of someone mumbling to themselves in her bedroom.

Her green eyes shot open, and she sleepily glanced over to see someone with long, red hair rummaging through her cluttered closet. She felt her heart beat slow down at the relief of seeing her brother, instead of a stranger or an intruder.

"What're you doing?"

Axl peered over his shoulder at his little sister, who hadn't moved from her cozy, black sheets. He gave her a little smirk, before turning his attention back to the many clothes that were hung up and scattered around.

"You're always dressing like a boy, I know you have something I can wear."

Emily scoffed and sat up against the headboard, rubbing at her tired green eyes, "I don't dress like a boy!"

The red headed singer chuckled playfully, before pulling off a hanger from the rack. On the hanger was a men's leather jacket, and it happened to be Emily's favorite jacket. He then pointed to a pile of guys jeans in the corner, they were skinny and tiny enough to fit the brunette's small frame, but she had bought them from the men's section.

"Get bent," Emily replied, but she couldn't keep the sleepy smile off of her face. Axl just laughed again, and started searching through a pile of t-shirts that his sister had in the bottom of her closet. There was Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Alice Cooper, and a gray t-shirt that caught the red head's eye.

He pulled the familiar shirt from the messy pile and held it up; it was a worn, gray, Rolling Stones t-shirt. It looked like it had been worn everyday for the last ten years, that's how soft and stretchy the fabric had become. Axl actually recognized the shirt, he remembered complimenting Izzy on it at the coffee shop awhile ago.

"Why do you have Izzy's shirt?" Axl asked with a cocked brow, twirling around to hold the shirt up for his little brunette sister.

Emily's green eyes grew wide in nervous shock, although she had the rhythm guitarist's shirt for innocent reasons, "He let me wear it at the beach the other day, I was cold."

She hoped her reason was enough to remove that suspicious gaze her redheaded brother had, but Axl was way smarter than he let on sometimes. The brunette singer was surprised he had never caught them together, except for one other close call, back in 1978.

~1978

It was a bitterly cold and rainy Saturday night in Lafayette. Emily was home alone, her mother was doing some shopping and her older brother William was god knows where. Her stepfather was somewhere inside the house but she had no idea where, she hadn't heard a peep from him in hours.

It was nights like this that the young brunette really wished she had girl friends, or any friends really.

Em was in a constant state of anxiety as she sat at her small desk and wrote little poems, trying to stay as quiet as possible in case her step father was sleeping; he didn't like being woken up.

Poetry was something the young brunette girl was really passionate about, although sometimes her poems appeared to be more so lyrics. She glanced over at the beautiful Gibson guitar in the corner of her bedroom, the one the boys had stolen for her birthday. There was no way she would be able to play it if her stepdad was sleeping, and that was what usually kept her from practicing.

Suddenly she jumped at the loud, booming sound of a door slamming, followed by a familiar drunken voice.

"William! Emily! Get the fuck down here."

Emily froze, not daring to make a sound. William wasn't even there, he had slipped out of his bedroom window hours ago, probably to attend a party or go see a girl. The pretty brunette didn't even know, but she knew she didn't want to deal with her step father alone.