Colton Davidson
TemptationColton Davidson’s life is shaped by a repeated contest between other people’s definitions of him and his hard-won effort to decide what his life can mean. Rejected for being gay, harmed in a conversion camp, and pushed toward independence by foster care’s age limit, he carries both the effects of abandonment and a fierce wish to become someone who can offer care in return. His story makes belonging less a matter of blood or institutional promises than of chosen support, practical opportunity, and the right to define himself.
Identity and Background
Colton grows up in a household that can look respectable from the outside while feeling frightening from within. On Saturday nights, as his mother’s temper and his father’s frustration escalate into shouting, he wedges himself between his nightstand and closet door, knees drawn to his chest. His brothers whisper that the conflict is his fault for failing to take out the trash, and he eventually cries himself to sleep. Sunday waffles and church do not repair the harm: breakfast is meant to keep him quiet through the service, and his parents’ public smiles and show of reverence give way to more shouting over the dirty dishes afterward.
His family’s religious image intensifies the distance between appearances and safety. At church his parents hold hands, smile at neighbors, and behave as though their home is orderly and respectful. Colton, meanwhile, has learned to expect the next outburst. The contrast helps explain why he initially minimizes what happened at home: he has absorbed a narrow idea of abuse that recognizes only visible bodily injury, even though fear and blame have already shaped his childhood.
When Colton speaks with Amit, he describes himself as Mormon by background but unsure whether his family would still want him. He knows he is different, says he tried to hide it, and recalls that things became ugly after he was found out. His uncertainty is not simply about a label; it reflects the loss of the religious and familial belonging he once assumed would be his. Amit’s willingness to offer a safe space gives Colton room to say what he has been holding back, and he chooses to tell his story rather than retreat from it.
Abuse, Escape, and Foster Care
After his parents discover that he is gay, Colton is sent to Father Benson’s conversion camp. The separation begins with a stark scene: he is left in a room after the electricity is cut and everything is removed except a mattress and a Bible, then put in a van. For three days he receives bland food and water, is allowed three bathroom breaks, and is kept in silence without knowing what will happen next. The camp calls itself a place for people like him and frames his sexuality as sin and a threat to his soul. Father Benson is Catholic, while Colton and the other children share the fear produced by families that have taught them to dread Outer Darkness.
Colton eventually runs away because the camp is hurting him more and more and he fears Father Benson may kill him. He does not describe escape as a triumphant break from danger: after staying on the streets, he is arrested for vagrancy and sent to Ted House. When Kimball tells him that his parents said he ran away from summer camp, Colton points out that it is October. The mismatch between the supposed summer outing and his condition prompts Kimball to question the account; Colton is exhausted and hungry, and the scars he tries to hide include injuries that are not all visible on his skin. The open door and Kimball’s decision to sit with him begin a different kind of encounter, one in which the adult does not simply accept his parents’ version.
Ted House offers care, but its support exists alongside a firm deadline. James explains that Colton’s caseworker must see enough progress from Sage and Silas to believe he will be all right on his own when he leaves. He has only a few months before turning eighteen, with graduation providing a brief extension; turning eighteen means leaving, whether or not he feels ready. Colton struggles with focus, distractibility, hyperactivity, irritability, and confusion, and medication helps only partially. Silas argues for another chance, while Sage considers him an asset to the house. Colton contributes by babysitting, walking Apollo when Wyatt needs help, trying jobs, and developing skills in Will’s kitchen at Masala.
The deadline remains frightening even inside a supportive home. As his birthday approaches, Colton imagines it as a ticking time bomb with no wire to cut and no last-minute rescue. He has spent less time in foster care and group homes than many other children, and has not been moved from family to family, but that relative stability does not make him feel secure in his place. Ted House can promise affection and help; it cannot make his stay permanent. He fears being put out with a backpack, and the knowledge that his home is temporary makes even the language of family difficult to trust.
Work, Purpose, and Material Barriers
After turning eighteen and graduating, Colton is set up in a small apartment and keeps his café job. For a year, however, his routine barely changes: he works, has few prospects, and cannot see a future beyond kneading bread dough at three in the morning. He is too shy to date, and people in town know where he came from. The resulting loneliness turns fatigue into anger, which surfaces in small confrontations with his boss, customers, and debt collectors calling his phone.
Even amid that frustration, care for animals gives his days a direction. On one difficult shift, he arrives late after finding two starving stray dogs in an alley and using the time to make them a bed in the storage closet. Will discovers them almost immediately, and the day deteriorates, but Colton’s choice reveals what he wants his work and life to be about: not merely getting through each shift, but noticing vulnerable creatures and helping them. He tells Sage that he wants to become the person doing the rescuing rather than the person who is always rescued. Sage answers that his own money comes from his work and that his father’s blood money has gone toward helping the young people who come through the house. For Colton, that exchange gives the wish for independence a concrete model without pretending that support is unnecessary.
His plans to pursue veterinary education meet an administrative and financial barrier rather than a lack of desire. When the university’s veterinary school financial-aid letter arrives, Colton learns he has been denied aid because, despite having spent the last year in foster care, his parents have never legally lost custody. The aid system therefore counts their income. The decision treats legal status as more decisive than Colton’s actual separation from his family or his limited earnings; the amount considered is substantial, and the school is out of state. Before he can work out whether there is an appeal or alternative, his apartment is flooded when water seeps from the ceiling and then bursts through the walls. He saves his laptop, phone, file folder, and backpack, but little else, and sets out in the dry clothes he keeps for emergencies—a street habit he has not been able to shake.
A community-college payment plan offers a less expensive route, but the figures still place the option beyond easy reach. Full-time tuition costs $3,200, with a $250 deposit and payments of just under $1,000 for each of the next three months. The plan is cheaper than university and could let him take his first two years of classes; strong results might make him eligible for grants and scholarships that do not consider his parents’ income. Yet the installments presume access to money Colton has never had available after bills. His hesitation reflects the difference between an option existing on paper and being able to afford it in practice.
Relationships and Mutual Recognition
Marcel becomes a person to whom Colton can disclose what happened without being forced to recount every detail. When Marcel asks why financial aid has been denied, Colton explains that his parents did not lose custody through child-protection services; instead, they sent him to a conversion camp after learning he was gay. He identifies Father Benson as the priest who ran it, says the camp tried to make him not gay, and describes running away because he was afraid he would die. Marcel knows the broad reality of such camps and tells Colton he understands, so Colton does not have to supply a fuller account to make his experience credible. Marcel’s hand rests on the comforter a few inches away, offering presence without taking control of the disclosure.
Their relationship also brings Colton’s insecurity about age, temperament, work, and class into the open. When he worries that Marcel may not want others to know about them, Colton describes himself as hyper and nervous, about twelve years younger, and a café worker he considers a loser. Marcel takes his hands and answers those concerns by affirming the very qualities Colton fears make him undesirable: his nervous energy, youth, café job, affection for stray dogs, and habit of folding his socks. The moment does not erase their differences; it shows Colton being recognized as a whole person rather than reduced to the hardship or uncertainty attached to him.
Colton’s relationships at Ted House also complicate the belief that he must become self-sufficient by refusing help. James urges him to pray if prayer helps, while rejecting the idea that God would turn away a child for being born as he is. Sage and Silas advocate for him and make practical opportunities possible; Colton, in turn, cares for children, helps with a dog, and works in the café kitchen. Mutual support here is neither a replacement for independence nor evidence of failure. It is the structure that allows Colton to develop capacities he can carry beyond the house.
Change and Narrative Significance
Colton’s development is not a simple passage from victimhood to complete security. He loses his faith and family, and says that in their place he has found himself, but the consequences of abuse and instability persist: he doubts that he belongs, fears the end of foster support, keeps emergency clothes, and faces educational costs that formal eligibility rules cannot solve. The story repeatedly places his personal effort beside systems that narrow his choices, from the camp’s attempt to change his sexuality to the custody-based aid decision that counts his parents’ income despite his foster-care history.
Against those pressures, Colton’s wish to rescue rather than merely be rescued marks a change in how he imagines his future. It is not a claim that he no longer needs others. His work with animals, his contributions at Ted House, and his willingness to tell Marcel what happened all show forms of agency that emerge through connection as well as individual resolve. The novel’s significance lies in holding those facts together: Colton is not defined by the people and institutions that rejected him, but neither is recovery presented as something he can accomplish through determination alone.
His love for Marcel meets another vulnerable point: Colton sees the age gap and his own nervousness and low-paid work as reasons Marcel might not choose him. Marcel’s reassurance—that he wants Colton exactly as he is—answers that fear with recognition rather than a promise that their differences do not exist. Colton’s story thus turns on a distinction between being accepted despite an allegedly disqualifying past and being wanted as the person he is now. The possibility of a future, in education, care for animals, and love, begins when he can imagine that his history need not be the only thing other people see.
