Rosana’s empty house, and all the ways we filled it

There was no adult supervision, no schedule, no pressure. And somehow, those nights became the safest part of my week.

Rosana and I met on the first day of fifth grade.
I don’t remember how we started talking. Only that once we did, we never really stopped. Back then, I was in the thick of my New Kids on the Block obsession, already scribbling English lyrics into my notebooks. She didn’t get that part, but the rest, she really did.

The years between fifth and eighth grade blurred together in the way childhood friendships do: sleepovers and school projects, shared secrets and inside jokes that built the foundation for what came later.

By the time we were seventeen, our friendship had its own flow. That year, I was taking evening classes, and after school, we’d head straight to the house her family kept in town: a simple white place, quiet and minimalist, just a few streets from mine.

Her parents lived out on their farm, but the townhouse gave the kids a place to stay during the week. Very often, Rosana would be the only one who stayed. There was no TV or distractions, just enough to keep things comfortable: heavy blankets, fresh fruit and vegetables her dad would drop off from the farm.

We’d walk home together from school, sometimes sprinting if the cold had set in, trying to spend as little time as possible outside. Winter in Lagoa Dourada could be sneaky like that. The moment we stepped inside, it felt like the whole world slowed down.

We'd warm up some food—maybe a boiled potato or something already on the stove. We’d put our bags down, kick off our shoes, and drop into a rhythm that felt both familiar and weightless.

We helped each other with homework (my math, her English) and then we’d just talk. For hours.

There were no siblings to compete with. No noise. No floating moods to decode or tiptoe around.

In my house, there were five of us. Always someone talking, interrupting, needing something, or navigating around my dad’s short temper. I was used to being on alert.

But in Rosana’s house, it was just the two of us.
And in that space, I could let go of everything I carried during the day.

We’d jump into the same queen-size bed, pull the heavy blankets up to our chins, and talk until we fell asleep mid-sentence—some unfinished thought about a crush or a test or something someone had said in the hallway.

We didn’t need much. That house gave us the basics, and we filled it with the rest.

There’s something about teenage friendship that’s hard to explain later.
It wasn’t pretentious, it was so honest. Calm. Exactly what I needed, even if I didn’t have the language for it yet.

Rosana’s house was almost empty.
But it never once felt that way.

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✶ This essay is part of From the Beginning, a personal series built from my diaries—one memory at a time. You’re reading 1998. Each piece revisits the girl I was, the world I came from, and the details I didn’t know I was already saving.

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