Stacy & Owen

 "God Damn you, Owen!" Stacey screeches once they get back to the truck. It won't be long til daylight and her stomach is hungry. She knows they have less that forty bucks. 

"What?" His dark eyes wince and for the first time she thinks Wylie Coyote might be his spirit animal.

"You'll be the death of me," she looks him in the eye as if it should be over. Completely. But she knows it won't be. She crawls up into the truck while he's waiting with the engine cranked, ready to go. 

Her legs feel weak. The heat is making her feel nasty. Just as she gets settled into the seat with the seatbelt clicked. "I gotta go pee."

"Are you shitt'n me?" Owen's eyes narrow. He's headed for the interstate. No doubt about it, they are leaving the country this time. Hell or high water. She knows that look. Stacy sighs. She remembers when she thought he was so cool. The things he could do to cars with his bare hands in that tiny gray jumpsuit of his. He even got her granny's car running for a little while so Stace could get down to the Thrift store.

"Stop," she insists, as her gut can't take it no more. "I think I need to poop."

Owen cracks up as his lips curve on the ends. He just keeps going, and with every bump they hit Stacey knows it might be the end of someone's precious life. They pass exits for gas stations, hotels, motels, even a rest stop, but her Owen is determined.

"Some father, you'll be," Stacy snaps, giving him a go-to-hell look.

"You wouldn't leave me," Owen's lips barely move. "You know you wouldn't."

It troubles her. She can't recall the last time he called her BABE. She has to think on this for a good long while. She sighs. She guessed he called her Babe back at Walmart. But she's still in a pout.

"Snake, You pull over right now!" She's got a new pet name for her boy. No more Honey, Love. Just Snake. She demands as her long arms have already undone the seat belt and the beep irritates Owen.

She feels herself practically coming undone. And to think he was going to be her Mick Jagger, and she was so excited thinking she was having Mick Jagger's baby. "You know I'm much more Harry Styles than Mick Jagger," he'd said then when she accidentally confided this when they first found out about the baby, but of course, they had a spat about that too. "You're no Harry Styles!" she'd told him then. Of course, she couldn't get that AS IT WAS song out of her head. Even now.

Finally, he eases over to the shoulder of the highway. She cracks open the door and asks for the toilet paper. Owen starts to act like she has to get it herself from the back seat, but finally, he gives in, seeing she means business about number two.

She heads for the tall grass and her gazelle limbs squat like she might be a squaw from another time as the sun rises. Stacey squints hard, praying she won't have the baby here in the prickly grass that's jabbing her tender butt. It feels quite ridiculous, but she thinks of all those women who came before her. They had nothing either. Yet, she doesn't like baring herself to nature this way. Finally, she lets go of what's been boiling inside her to happen. A brilliant idea comes to her. They need jobs. They need to find jobs as soon as possible.

She sighs, oh how she loves Owen, but she's feeling hate. She doesn't want that to happen because he's all she has. Stacy nurses her bottom lip. She's never gone on the side of road to relieve herself. Yes, she guesses she had a sheltered life after all.