Destroying Laural : The Rewritten Chapters & The Reimagined Plot.

Every summer and fall since I was a little kid, we valued our time camping together as a family, with our friends down by the lake, or out at the lease.

As soon as the jacks hit the ground and the campers were secure, we left the rest behind to be put up when we got back, because we didn't want to waste a second, every moment could be a memory.

From the lake or from the woods. Old treehouses our parents had crafted us long ago, or long tube rides on the lake that left us water logged and exhausted by dinnertime, the parents ready for corn hole or horse shoes as soon as we got back from our adventures, out on the lake, or down by the riverbed.

The nights with the Wall's, Stacey and Matt, her younger brother Jason and older brother Derek, their kids and Granny and Pawpaw.

It's the memories with them, the weeks with them, the summer's and autumn's with them, it was when life felt real. But the rest of the year, when we all went back to our homes, hours away from each other, it was like I was living a fake life.

Because where they weren't, I didn't want to be.