You don’t even mean to.
It just slips out.
A thought you’d normally say out loud—
a bad driver in front of you,
a memory triggered by a song,
something funny that happened that day.

“You’d hate this traffic.”
“Remember this road?”
“God, you’d be roasting me right now.”

And for a second, it feels normal.
Like they’re still riding shotgun,
legs up on the dash,
smirking at your music choices,
pointing out dogs on the sidewalk
like it’s still your little ritual.

But the silence that follows is different now.
It’s not a pause.
It’s an absence.

You wait for the joke.
The sigh.
The teasing jab.

But nothing answers.
Just the hum of the engine.
The wind against the windows.
And the ache that slides into the seat they left behind.

You still glance over sometimes.
Still catch yourself reaching for a hand that isn’t there.
Still drive like someone’s watching.
Like someone’s laughing beside you.
Like someone still exists in the rearview.

But grief is a cruel kind of passenger.
It doesn’t speak.
It doesn’t point out turns.
It just sits with you.
Quiet.
Heavy.
And constant.

You talk anyway.
Because silence without words is too final.
Because if you stop speaking,
you’re scared they’ll really disappear.
Not just from the seat—
but from the route.
From the map of your life.

So you talk.
You drive.
You ache.

And you carry them forward,
mile by mile,
into a future they were supposed to be part of.