

Still, I stayed


Halewood was the kind of California neighborhood you saw in magazines—wide, sunlit streets lined with palm trees, bougainvillea spilling over white picket fences, neighbors smiling too brightly over trimmed hedges. Daniel and Noah grew up across the street from one another, two houses that, to everyone else, looked like mirror images of perfection. At first, it was simple. Easy, even. Bike rides to