Faint Traces

THE BACKSEAT GHOSTS

🕯️ FAINT TRACES

Episode 6: Backseat Ghosts

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I’ve stopped trusting silence.

It used to feel clean. Empty, even comforting.

Now it feels like someone else is in the room, choosing not to speak.

Like something is sitting behind me, breathing just out of rhythm.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but…

I don’t sit with my back to doors anymore.

And whenever I’m in the car, I check the rearview mirror twice.

It’s the backseat. Always the backseat.

Like she’s still there.

Like Meher never got out.

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There was a moment today—just a moment—where I thought I was going insane.

We were in school. Lunch break. I wasn’t talking to anyone, just listening.

Sia was telling someone about an old school accident. “You know that girl?” she said. “The one who died in ninth. Backseat crash. What was her name…”

And I swear my heart stopped before she even finished.

“Meher?” she said, with this absent tone, like it barely mattered.

I turned around so fast my vision blurred.

“You remember her?” I asked, voice cracking around the edges.

Sia looked at me, chewing her pen like she didn’t understand why I looked so… hopeful.

“Yeah… kind of. Didn’t you guys know each other? Weren’t you, like, cousins or something?”

Cousins.

It felt like someone had thrown her memory into a blender and handed me the pulp.

Every time someone remembers Meher, it’s different. A different story. A different version of her.

I’m the only one who remembers her as she was. At least, I think I am.

I didn’t ask more. I just walked out.

Because the longer this goes on, the more I realize...

I’m not chasing the truth.

I’m collecting lies.



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Later, I found the old farewell footage on my USB—the one where we all sent in clips before graduation.

I used to love that video.

There’s this part I remember so clearly: me, Meher, and Ansh sitting on the rooftop. Arms wrapped around each other. Laughing too loudly. Meher's head on Ansh's shoulder. The way he looked at her then—like he hadn’t yet learned how to be careful.

It’s gone now.

In the video, it's just me and Ansh.

Same rooftop.

Same laugh.

Same wind.

But the space between us is wider.

Like someone edited around a person who used to be there.

Not deleted.

Trimmed.

There’s a flicker in the frame—an awkward cut, too clean, too purposeful.

And Ansh’s shoulder? Still tilted like someone’s weight was there. Still smiling at someone who no longer exists.

I wanted to scream.

But instead I just… stared.

Because who would believe me?

The file properties say it was never changed.

The date, the size—everything's the same.

So either I’m wrong. Or someone really, really doesn’t want her to exist.

---

Ansh walked me home that day.

We haven’t done that in a while.

Not since we started unravelling her.

We didn’t talk much. Our steps fell in rhythm, but our silences didn’t.

When we reached the gate, I turned to him.

“She was there in that video,” I said quietly. “I remember her. I remember you holding her hand.”

He didn’t answer right away.

And then, in a voice lower than usual, he said:

“If she was real… why does it feel like I dreamed her?”



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That night, I couldn’t sleep.

So I dug out my old schoolbag. The one I hadn’t touched in years.

I don’t know what I was searching for. Maybe I just wanted to hold something that still remembered me.

And in the side pocket, half-zipped like someone meant for me to find it, I felt it—

A pendant.

Cold, silver, oval-shaped.

On the back: “M.S.”

Meher Sharma.

My fingers tightened around it, and for a second, it felt like I was holding proof.

Like maybe I wasn’t making her up.

Like maybe she had really been here.

But then… whose pocket had it been in?

Hers?

Mine?

I called Ansh. I didn’t even think about the time.

He picked up almost immediately.

“I found something,” I said. “I think it was hers.”

There was silence on the other end.

A heavy one. Like he was weighing what to say.

Then, softly:

“Don’t bring it to school.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he said, his voice barely holding itself together. “Some things aren’t meant to be found again.”

Then he hung up.



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I sat there in the dark for a long time.

Holding something I didn’t remember owning.

Staring at a name that still didn’t feel like it was just mine.

Wondering if the reason I remember her so vividly…

is because I’m the one who was meant to forget.

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🕯️ Author’s Note

Hey,

If you’ve made it this far, I need you to know something.

This story isn’t just about Meher.

It’s about all the people we’ve loved in quiet ways. All the ones who slipped away too softly for the world to notice.

It’s about grief that doesn’t come with funerals.

About people who disappear without explanation.

And about the haunting weight of being the only one who remembers them.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re carrying someone’s memory alone—

If everyone else moved on but you still look back—

then this chapter was written with your hands in mind.

Some ghosts don’t scream.

They just sit in the backseat.

Waiting for someone to remember them.

You did.

Thank you.

— N