The house is not on my regular route, but whenever I feel particularly nostalgic, I drive past it on my way home.

Since Eva moved away and the house gained new owners, it looks different. Sure, the circular window still floats under the peak of the roof, and the bushes in front of the porch railing look untouched. But somehow, the wash of the house looks grayer. The boots on the mat beside the front door belong to someone I’ve never met or laughed with or spent hours making stupid videos with. The house looks foreign. Impersonal.

Oh, but it was vivid and gorgeous back then. I’m not sure why, but I remember Eva’s house almost as well as I remember our friendship.

She never called me her best friend, but I loved her and each memory we made under that roof and on its lawn so dearly.

Her house always felt like some manifestation of home to me, even on our first playdate at age seven. I was always excited when I got to go to her house instead of hosting our playdate at my house, which of course, in comparison, was boring to me. Entering their foyer, the stairs tumbled upward to the bedrooms and bathroom, and the rugs curved around to the living room framed by the large front window and curtains. The house always smelled…warm. It had a general, faint essence of oatmeal and patchouli and dried flowers and ginger tea.

We loved to play fairies, and one of my favorite memories of that happened on her small, elevated back porch, under the window that looked into their yellow kitchen. We pretended I was a homeless orphan and that she was a big sisterly fairy that took me into her charming home. After she situated me on their wicker bench, she bounded inside and made me tea and brought out a little plate of fairy-like enchanted trinkets and a metal food tray painted with gold flowers. I found myself thankful for the blankets on the bench and “fell asleep” with a smile as I heard her neighbor’s wind chimes flow in and out along the breeze.

About a year ago, I bought an oriental food tray that looks like something out of her kitchen—I plan to use it in my own home someday. Every time I hear windchimes, it takes me back to that place.

Something I always found remarkable was the way the sun seemed to catch in the rooms of that house, like the reflective glow on an old-fashioned translucent lamp. Their family photos seemed like something out of a movie—they had an artistic air to them. Her mother looked like some sort of angel or a burgeoning young movie star from the 90’s in her parents’ black-and-white wedding pictures. Her father wore dark glasses and drank his coffee out of an elaborate beer stein from one of their trips to Germany, and one night around dinnertime, he was blasting Duran Duran in their living room (I had never heard their music before, but it seemed so cool to me). Pausing whatever game we were playing, Eva and I ran down the stairs and danced on the carpet in our socks as the smell of food drifted in from their kitchen. When I inherited my brother’s dinged-up iPod, I added “Change the Skyline” to my first playlist, and I still remember the words.

We were sisters, in a way—we argued like it, too. We always had so much fun together, no matter what we were doing. She was special that way.

But strangely, each visit with her somehow felt fleeting, like I was a one-time guest in her home and in her life.

For some reason I can’t place, I distinctly remember one morning of a sleepover at her house when I crept downstairs and roamed around for no apparent reason. Everyone was asleep and the morning sun was seeping through the windows and into the gentle quiet murmur of the sleep-swollen house. The dining room was warm and languid, each gentle breeze fluttering the surfaces of the window screens as the birds twittered faintly. That morning f loated in and out like a dream, like a cool whisper of something lovely and strange before consciousness fully descends and the sun pours in at full brightness.

Despite all the wonderful times we had, there were some not-so-wonderful aspects of our friendship.

Her Best Friend Bella lived in Tennessee and they had known each other since diapers. From the time we were seven to the time we were twelve (the length of our friendship), Eva mentioned Bella often and always remembered to include her title before her name.

I wasn’t angry at Eva for having a longtime best friend. What hurt me was the fact that she was my best friend and I wasn’t hers and she habitually reminded me of that fact, under a veil of childlike honesty.

I hardly remember when she moved away. All I remember of our goodbye was the hot tears that fell down my cheeks as I choked out “I’m gonna miss you,” and the way she hugged me and told me we could still visit. I visited her once when we were fourteen, and now the contact I have with her has been reduced to seeing her Instagram posts.

I will remember the lovely fragment of childhood I shared with her forever, I think. Even though it died a whisper, its memory will always stick with me. Every time I play “Heart and Soul” on the piano, I’ll imagine twelve-year-old Eva sitting beside me pounding out the chords just a little too aggressively. Every time I see a rope swing, I’ll be transported to her backyard. And perhaps my childhood self will always be roaming in the early golden light and cool breeze of her house, in that morning when time stood still and I drank up the silence and revelled in the sweet breeze of late May.