Awwwwwkward...

When I was in high school, I went to a district-wide writing workshop and got driven home by Kelly and her mom.

I was fidgeting in the back of their little grey car. Kelly, always annoyingly chatty, was blabbering to her Mom. I stopped staring out the window long enough to zone back in.

"-- Firefly for Maggie?" Kelly said.

"Oh! I forgot." Her mom said. She squinted her eyes at me in the mirror, "Our friend loves Firefly, the TV show, and she's dying--"

--to see it, I thought. I laughed.

Two seconds later I realized, oh shit, she didn't finish the sentence. 'She's dying.' Period. End of sentence. Maggie's heading to the grave and I'd laughed.

I gaped. What could I do? I couldn't take it back--apologizing would be useless--and ohmigod I'm an awful, awful person!

The seconds stretched by; neither Kelly nor her Mom spoke.

It was a long twenty minute ride.