She's No Good for Me

“No Mom,” Owen said in a flat voice for the third time in ten minutes. She stared directly in front of her from her position in the large arm chair, trying to follow along with the lame sci-fi movie her father was engrossed in.

“Owen your cousin needs help,” Cathy practically pleaded.

“So, that’s not my problem,” the stubborn eighteen year old mumbled.

“He is family,” her mother tried to reason. “Do our family this favor.”

Letting an annoyed sigh escape her lips, Owen threw her hands in the air. “You are out of your damn mind, I swear.”

“Owen Marie, watch how you speak to your mother please,” Tom growled, glancing over at his daughter.

“Dad come on!” Owen shouted, slamming her feet down against the hardwood floor and sitting upright. “Are you okay with this?”

“Yes, what were you planning on doing all summer?” He questioned, not amused that the two women were interrupting his weekly fix of cheesy alien movies. “You need a job Owen, this is a good opportunity. Give it a chance, you might actually have fun.”

“Fun? Highly doubtful,” Owen scoffed, blowing her bangs away from her eyes before shaking her head. “I can’t believe you’re okay with the thought that your daughter will be in some rusty old van, driving around the country with a bunch of immature boys and strangers. What if we break down in the middle of no where? How am I supposed to shower? I can’t live off of fast food for two months!”

“Stop being so dramatic.”

Owen glared at the two people now staring at her. There seemed to be no fighting the inevitable, she didn’t have a choice. “This is poor parenting, I hope you both know that,” she finally said, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is like child abuse.”

“Your cousin will be so grateful,” Cathy smiled brightly, knowing her daughter had given in. “You’ll have a good time Owen, you’ll see.”

“You’ll have a great time,” Owen mocked her mother’s excited tone as she ripped her drawers apart. “What the hell do you even pack to go on tour?”

“Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity,” a dainty voice said from the doorway.

“It’s the only intelligent conversation I can have Katie,” she retorted, glancing behind her before tossing more clothes to the floor.

“Hurricane Owen strikes again,” the teenager mumbled, tip-toeing over the mess to plop down on her sister’s bed.

Rolling her eyes, Owen held up a shirt and looked it over. “Are you in here for a reason squirt?”

“I just wanted to see if you were actually going or if you were staging a sit in as protest,” Katie shrugged.

“I’d watch your back; it’s become very clear that Cathy and Tom are aiming for an empty house this summer,” Owen pointed out. “Chris is going to camp, I’m going to be part of some traveling freak show, mom might volunteer you for something next.”

“You are such a drama queen, it’s not like you were doing anything this summer.”

“How do you know that?”

Letting out a short, sarcastic laugh, Katherine stood up from her sister’s bed. “Make sure you pack enough underwear O,” she smirked, retreating from the disaster zone.

This was the last thing Owen Price wanted to be doing with her summer. She wanted to be able to sleep in her bed, wake up whenever she wanted, eat whatever she wanted, take a shower whenever she wanted, lay by the pool or enjoy a night out with her friends who would be leaving for college in August. She did not want to go to bed early, only to have to wake up before noon and hit the road with people she didn’t even like.

This was going to be a disaster.

The shrill sound of an alarm clock rang through Owen’s peaceful room causing the brunette to groan loudly. Reaching out from under the warmth of her blanket she slammed her fist down, turning off the offending object. Smiling happily she snuggled back into her covers and dozed off, only to be woken up by the buzzing of the clock again.

“Okay I get it,” she shouted angrily pounding at the gadget. Mumbling to herself, she slid out of the bed and shuffled towards the bathroom to begrudgingly get herself ready for the day.

She was not looking forward to this; her father had popped his head in the bathroom while she was brushing her teeth to say good-bye before he went to work. Her little brother had burst through her bedroom door while she was getting dressed to borrow a few of her CDS for camp. She didn’t have much privacy in her own home, which she knew would suddenly mirror what her summer was going to be like. However, Owen would take this over living with her cousin for two months.

As Owen dragged her large suitcase down the hall, she opened her sister’s bedroom door and sighed.

“I’m leaving Katie,” she called towards her sister’s sleeping form.

She received a muffled good-bye in return, a hand popping out from under the covers to give a small wave.

Owen wanted nothing more than to crawl back into her bed and to be sleeping as she shut the door to Katherine’s room. Instead, she continued towards the steps with her belongings trialling behind her.

The smell of breakfast wafted up to her nose once she hit the bottom step causing her mouth to water and her stomach to growl.

“They’re really trying to get me to stay,” Owen mumbled to herself, leaving her bag where her feet had landed before she walked into the kitchen.

“Baby did you want syrup for your pancakes?” Her mother questioned sweetly to her son as she stood over the stove.

“Do I get any?” Owen grinned, leaning her chin on her mother’s shoulder.

“You don’t have time to eat breakfast Owen, you’re already running late,” the woman dismissed.

“Can I at least have a coffee?”

“There’s some already in the pot, help yourself.”

“But nobody makes it like you mom,” Owen pouted.

She rolled her eyes as she broke away from the stove. Cathy was the type of mother that people dreamed of having, she dropped everything for her kids, constantly cooked them meals, did their laundry, cleaned their rooms and never asked for anything in return.

“Do you have everything?” Cathy questioned as she handed her daughter, a travel mug filled with coffee.

“Yeah,” Owen mumbled, taking the mug from her mother and refraining from making some sarcastic comment about missing her bed.

The pair were now walking towards the door, her mother had grabbed Owen’s suitcase for her before she dropped it at her daughter’s feet.

“You’ll call us right?” The women sniffled.

Owen laughed softly and grabbed her car keys. “Yes mom,” she sighed, turning to look at her.

“Well, you can’t blame me for thinking you’d just go and never speak to us again.”

Pulling Cathy into a hug, Owen assured her mother that wasn’t going to be the case. She had thought that last night sure, but looking at her teary eyed mother made Owen feel bad about having such a thought.

Smiling happily, Cathy picked up the suitcase and walked her daughter towards her car. After one final good-bye, Owen pulled away from the house and began the ten minute drive to her aunt’s house.

Pulling up along side the curb, Owen saw what she would be calling home for the rest of the summer and shuddered. Taking a large sip from her travel mug, she climbed from the car and grabbed her luggage.

“Hey cuz,” Alex said in a cheerful tone.

Throwing him a sarcastic smile she nodded towards her black bag. “Where does this go?”

“Just throw it in the pile with all of ours, we’ll put it all in the trailer after we finish loading up the gear,” he instructed, pointing to an accumulated pile of bags.

Rolling her eyes, Owen dropped it down and looked around. Three boys she knew, Marshall who had never spoken a word to her, Cash who had said far too much, and Johnson who had always been just as sarcastic as she was, were loading up their gear with an unfamiliar face.

“You look like shit,” the long haired boy smirked, rustling his hand through Owen’s already messy hair as he walked by.

“You still haven’t gotten a hair cut Johnson?” She returned with a roll of her eyes, slapping his hand away.

Glancing down at her outfit once his back was turned, Owen sighed. He was right, she looked like a mess. A pair of short denim shorts and a plaid button up that seemed small enough to fit a child had been plucked from her floor no less then twenty minutes ago. Her face was free of any make-up, her tired eyes covered by the black ray bans that were going to stay there all day if she had anything to do with it.

“You don’t look too bad,” the unfamiliar boy chuckled as he extended his hand out to Owen. “I’m Bryan.”

“Owen,” she returned in a flat tone, shaking his hand unenthusiastically. “What happened to the other one, the one with the puffy hair?”

“Ian left the band,” Alex sighed, looking at Bryan apologetically. He had assumed that his cousin had grown up a little bit, maybe gotten a little bit nicer since she stormed away from him at their last hometown show.

“At least somebody had the right idea,” she smirked.

Alex had clearly been wrong.

Once everything had been loaded into the trailer and everyone was set to make the long drive they had ahead of them, Owen stopped short of the open side door.

“What’s that?” Owen asked in disgust, eyeing the white van over her sunglasses.

“That’s the mule,” Alex smiled brightly, stretching his arms out as if he were one of the girls on a show case showdown.

“The what?”

“The mule,” he repeated, his bright smile fading away quickly.

Glancing over at him she raised her eyebrow. “You’re kidding me right?”

“Nope, welcome home Owen,” he smiled once again and tapped the side.

“You expect me to live in that with you guys for the whole summer?” She questioned, using her finger to animate who she was talking about.

“Sorry we’re getting the private jet cleaned; it won’t be ready in time Ms. Jolie,” Johnson mumbled as he walked past them, crawling inside of the door.

Scrunching up her face at him, Owen turned her attention to her cousin once more. “Why don’t you have like, a bus or whatever?”

Alex perked up, thinking of the perfect come back to make her laugh. “It’s called being a true gypsy, living like a real band, integrity, something you wouldn’t understand.”

Giving him a bored look, Owen clicked her tongue against her teeth. “You realize how stupid that sounded right?”

“Will you just get in the van!” Alex exclaimed in an exasperated tone, yanking the passenger side door open and settling in the front seat.

Letting out a long sigh Owen reluctantly crawled inside of the van. It smelt funny; she knew it had been cleaned before this trip but that cleaning didn’t seem to help the odd musk that came from every corner of the vehicle.

Her eyes traveled to the front seat, Bryan trying to figure out how to type their destination into the GPS with an annoyed growl, her cousin leaning over to help. The slamming of a door brought her eyes to the side; Marshall was the last to climb in, shutting the van door behind him. This made her panic, Owen was trapped; there was no turning back now.