from "Kids Who Died in My High School This Year" by Elisabeth Cohen

From Conjunctions:36, Spring 2001, Dark Laughter (“featuring a portfolio of fiction that explores gothic comedy”):

“Promise you’ll use a condom,” my mother whispered in the darkness of her Toyota Camry, the lines of her face lit by the glow of the speed gauge and my boyfriend’s parents’ security lights.


“Ma, we don’t do that stuff,” I whined. She pressed a foil packet into my palm and a sheet of disgust flashed through my midsection.


“Don’t die wondering,” she whispered darkly, driving off, a stripe of red taillights across the back of her beige car.


Which was the same thing Forrest Watson told Jono Shoemaker, trying to convince him to huff Pine-Sol off the dashboard of his car. Jono was still high when he was run over in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven by an unidentified driver in a red Camaro.