Colton's nerve damage

Colton’s nerve damage is a lasting physical consequence of the abuse he endured at Father Benson’s conversion camp, where his parents sent him after learning he was gay. The injuries affect sensation in different parts of his body, and their scars connect an ongoing bodily reality to a history he had once struggled to disclose. When he eventually tells Marcel what happened, he does so without accepting the camp’s framing of his sexuality as something to be cured.

Cause and Physical Effects

The cause of Colton’s nerve damage is the electrical treatment used at the camp in an attempt to change his sexual orientation. While preparing to leave work, he is reminded of the abuse and avoids looking at the scars on his arms and thighs. He describes those marks as thin lines and notes that the damaged skin on his genitals healed unevenly. The injuries have left some areas numb and others oversensitive; he also recognizes that the possibility of sexual sensation does not erase the harm, even when he has privately treated it as a small victory.

The damage is not presented as a uniform loss of feeling. Colton’s account emphasizes that different areas of his body respond differently, and this variation shapes how he experiences touch. Later, when Marcel’s hand reaches the scars on Colton’s thighs, Colton flinches. Marcel immediately draws back and asks whether he has hurt him, making Colton’s response an occasion for a question rather than an assumption about what his body can tolerate.

Disclosure and Witnessing

Colton first begins describing the events that led to his injuries in a conversation with Amit, a therapist he meets before his transfer. He explains that he had been raised Mormon, had tried to hide that he was different, and believes his family would no longer want him after what happened. The pauses and uncertainty in his account give way to a decision to continue: when Amit asks if he wants to talk about it, Colton says that he does. At this stage, the physical damage is part of a larger story he is only beginning to tell.

Much later, Marcel asks why Colton was denied financial aid. Colton explains that his parents sent him to a conversion camp run by Father Benson, where adults tried to make him not gay. He ran away because the treatment kept hurting and he feared the priest would kill him. After living on the streets, he was arrested for vagrancy and sent to Ted House. When Marcel asks what happened to the camp, Colton says he does not know whether police pursued the matter and explains that his therapist and Sage did not want him involved. He wants to move on, not take on another task while already overwhelmed by the financial-aid problem.

Marcel responds by staying near Colton and asking what he can do, rather than demanding further details. Colton says he has to wait and manage the situation himself. His account makes clear that disclosure does not mean he is ready to pursue every consequence of the abuse: being heard and being pressed into further action are different things.

Touch, Trust, and Agency

During a later intimate moment, Colton again explains the injury, this time while Marcel’s hand is near the scars. After Colton flinches, Marcel asks whether he has hurt him and withdraws. Colton then takes Marcel’s wrist and guides his hand back to the scars, explaining that he has nerve damage, with some areas especially sensitive and others numb. He connects the damage directly to the camp and its use of electricity to try to cure what its authorities called his affliction.

Colton’s choice to guide Marcel’s hand is significant because it lets him set the terms of this moment of contact. The scene does not present intimacy as proof that the injury has disappeared; rather, it shows Marcel checking Colton’s response and Colton deciding what he is willing to share and permit. Their exchange makes room for both the physical reality of the scars and Colton’s authority over how they are approached.

Meaning and Ongoing Consequences

Colton does not describe the camp’s treatment as successful or his sexuality as something requiring correction. When he clarifies that the supposed affliction was being gay, he adds that the attempt did not work. His dry humor about still being gay counters the camp’s claim to have the power to define or alter him, without making the nerve damage itself seem trivial.

His relationship to the scars has also changed. Earlier, he avoided looking at them and remembered them as one more reason he had felt like a freak. In conversation with Marcel, he says that he no longer minds them as he once did. That shift does not undo the damage or make the past harmless; it shows a difference between carrying the consequences of abuse and accepting the abusers’ judgment of his identity. The story treats nerve damage as both a concrete sensory condition and a continuing reminder of violence, while allowing Colton—not the camp—to give meaning to his body and its scars.