The woods were discovered purely by coincidence.  It all began with the clubhouse: a small, rundown, one-roomed cabin tucked back into the land behind our neighbors’ house. My own little rag-tag group of underdogs and I discovered the clubhouse during a game of survival during a hot midsummer evening. It consisted of me, of course, and all of the kids in the house next door. There was Adam (the older brother), Jane and Sylvia (the twins), and Katie, the baby. It felt as if we had been bottled up in a coffee cup, sweltering hot and oh-so-steamy, but we soldiered on in our game. We were all laughing at Jane’s funny pink bandana when she stumbled backwards and hit her head lightly on a wooden slab. Adam and I helped her up, but soon realized it wasn't just a slab, it was a whole cabin! We had all gone in and marveled at the wood-and-ivy structure we had never seen before, and soon after, it became our official summer spot.

About a week after that day, one of the twins found a grassy path that led in the opposite direction of the clubhouse, and we had decided to explore. As I looked up to the trees towering above us like giants, I felt more at-home in my own neighborhood than I ever had before. The group followed me down the path, and we stopped at a small bridge. It was suspended above a stream of water that moved at the pace of a sloth, and we couldn't help but watch. Not far off in the distance was a tall wooden fortress that we later found to be a zipline jump-off point, and in the other direction were fields for miles.

I will never forget the smell of scorched popcorn from our first official camp-out, when Adam, Katie, and the twins’ cousin decided to put bagged popcorn kernels over fire. It marked the importance of our location as a resting point and safe haven for years to come, until the last of us would inevitably head off to college and other marvelous things, and the woods would be uninhabited once again. For a good couple of years after that day, we would go back to the woods every week, or more. There was always an issue that persisted with each of us: Adam and his father’s anger issues, Jane’s grades, Sylvia and her soccer team, and me and my sporadic bursts of sadness. And Katie, well, she was two years old, so she didn't have much to complain about.

It was a widely known fact that my neighbors owned more beer than water, and on one of our summer days, the neighbors began bringing beer bottles with them to our hangouts in the woods.  The drinking began with Adam, then went to Jane. Not Sylvia, though, because she had soccer to think about. I only started using their beer bottles when I knew I could get away with dumping the alcohol and replacing it with their sink water. It was a running trick that I loved, telling them I had to take a bathroom break and instead, heading inside to replace the muddy fluid. Even though I only drank water in their brown Budweiser bottles, there was always that small bit of metallic liquid left in the bottom that put a sour grimace on my face. The aftertaste was rancid and dry, and I never understood how Adam could stand it. I was never much of a drinker, but I supposed that some people would do anything for an escape.

It was rare for me to be alone in The Woods at the beginning, but as time went on, I found myself feeling drawn there more and more. Without the sounds of my neighbor’s voices, I could hear everything more clearly. The birds whistled and chirped like drunk men in a bar, and I could faintly hear the trickle of the stream in front of me. Sometimes I would hear footsteps behind me, or a high-pitched giggle from far away, but I knew it would never be my neighbors again. Because I was in high school now, my motivation-depleting sadness had become less of an issue. It isn't the case for the others, though. I still reach for my mud boots sometimes, touching the inner fabric lining for nostalgic comfort. I see Sylvia practicing ferociously in the backyard, crying and breaking down when she misses more than four goals in a row. I smell the burning paper from Jane’s yard as she tosses last year’s schoolwork into her fire pit. And sometimes, if I really try to listen out my window, I can hear the furious screams of Adam’s father. I always keep watching though, because Adam always runs out the front door and into the garage, pulls a beer or two out of the pack, and chugs them on his porch. All I do is watch, wondering what would’ve happened if I had tried to save him all those years ago. I would have given anything to hold any of their hands again, to feel the support of my old friends. But now, we are all ruined. In our own ways.