The Faithful Couple

Neil Collins was twenty-three at the time. For the two years since he had graduated, he had worked as a salesman, saving up for a summer in California; the trip was meant to change his life. It did. It was where, in a beachside hostel, he met Adam Tayler. They drank beer together, sang karaoke, swam in the Pacific. From the very start it was a partnership; they were soul mates, best friends. Then they met a father and his teenage daughter, Rose. They could and should have seen how young the girl was but they choose not to, and instead they competed for her attention. Neil won. He took Rose to his tent, with Adam barely metres away in his own tent, awake, listening. Rose was only fourteen. A lifetime later, Neil and Adam are still friends. They have wives, ex-wives, children, careers. But what each has carried with him, in the pit of his stomach like a glowing hot coal, is that single moment in a tent back in California, a moment which over the years has fused them together, burned, blistered and scarred.