You never had a name, but you held pieces of my life like a time capsule strapped in with a faulty seatbelt.

You smelled like gas station slushies and the kind of freedom that only exists when you’re seventeen and think the world is stretching itself out just for you. Your black fabric interior was grayed with time, sticky with coffee spills and summer sweat of too many people crammed into a space meant for one. The same people who ripped you at the seams, the tearing of your undersides unheard through their mirthful laughter.

You groaned under the weight of my best friend, legs curled up as she ranted about boys who didn’t deserve her and dreams that felt just out of reach. You carried the ghosts of our giggles and screams, our half-sung lyrics shouted over static-filled speakers, our whispered confessions at 2 AM when the roads were empty and the only light came from flickering neon signs.

You were there the first time I drove without checking Google Maps, trusting muscle memory to take me where I needed to go. You watched me fumble for the right words when I sat in the driver’s seat next to him, my first almost-love, my first heartbreak before the heartbreak even happened. You were the only witness to the way I gripped the wheel too tight when he left, my knuckles white as if I could steer myself away from missing him.

You soaked in the silences, too. The nights I didn’t pick up the phone, the times I sat in the Macy’s parking lot alone, staring at the fog on the windshield like it held answers. The long drives to nowhere just to feel like I was moving, just to let the air rush in through the open windows and carry away whatever was pressing against my ribs.

And then, one day, I left you behind.

You stayed in a driveway that wasn’t mine anymore, watching someone else take the wheel, someone who didn’t know that your glove compartment held a crumpled movie ticket from the night I first realized I was happy, or that there was a tiny scar in the upholstery from where my friend stabbed a pen into the seat during an overdramatic retelling of a story. They wouldn’t know that I once sat in that seat, staring at my hands, trying to decide whether to take a leap or stay safe.

I wonder if you miss me. If you carry echoes of my youth in your worn-down cushions, if traces of my old dollar store perfume still linger in your faded fabric, if my laughter is still tucked into your seams. I wonder if you ever feel empty without us.

Because some days, when I pass a car that looks a little too much like you, I feel empty, too.