Self-reliance and accepting support

Self-reliance and accepting support is a central tension in the lives of Colton Davidson and Marcel: both want authority over their own choices, but neither becomes independent simply by refusing help. The novel tests what assistance means when it comes from people who respect boundaries, against the histories of exclusion and unequal expectation that make accepting it complicated. Colton’s insistence on solving problems alone is real, but it is not the only measure of his agency; the relationships he gradually trusts are part of how he can move forward.

Independence Under Constraint

Colton’s wish to manage on his own grows out of circumstances in which others have already made consequential decisions for him. After his parents discover he is gay, they send him to Father Benson’s conversion camp. Colton later tells Marcel that he ran away because the camp was hurting him and he feared he would die; after living on the streets, he was taken into Ted House. Earlier, when asked about the camp, he panics and says he does not want to return. Officer Kimball assures him he will not have to go back and prepares him to speak with a child-protection agent. Colton’s request to be called by his first name, rather than the name and title associated with his father, marks a small but immediate claim to himself amid a crisis shaped by adult authority.

His financial-aid denial gives that history a material consequence. Although Colton has spent the last year in foster care, he is not considered independent for aid purposes because his parents have not legally lost custody; the school therefore counts their income. The decision threatens his plan to attend veterinary school, and the apartment flood that follows leaves him with only a few rescued belongings and one set of dry clothes he had kept for emergencies. At the resort, he feels conspicuous as a formerly homeless young man who does not belong. Rather than turn at once to friends who might pay tuition or enlist help, he tries to find a solution himself. He does not want to fall into the comfort of other people’s arms and wait for a crisis to pass; he wants to discover what he can do without being carried through it.

Friendship, Not Pity

That desire becomes explicit when Marcel asks why Colton has been denied aid. Colton explains the conversion camp and his route from running away to the streets and then Ted House. He has not yet called the school to clarify the decision, but believes his parents’ retained custody is the reason. When Marcel asks what he can do, Colton says that he must wait until he is old enough to qualify independently. He also names the help already sustaining him: Sage and Will connected him with work, Soren provided his apartment, and others help him get to and from work. Even his present stay with Marcel seems, to Colton, to depend on the chain of relationships that brought them together.

Marcel rejects the idea that Colton is staying with him out of charity. He connects their situations through a specific exchange of care: after finding that Brad had been unfaithful, Marcel had nowhere to go, and Colton offered him safety and welcome. Marcel tells Colton that he is offering the same kind of friendship now. The comparison does not erase the difference between their circumstances; it gives their support a reciprocal history rather than casting Colton as a passive recipient. For Marcel, accepting help from Colton was meaningful because it came from a friend, and he insists that Colton deserves to understand his own place in their friendship on the same terms.

Unequal Demands of Self-Reliance

Marcel’s conflict with Antoine reveals that independence can mean refusing an unfair standard, not proving oneself by enduring more than others. Antoine urges Marcel to return home after Brad’s infidelity. Marcel answers that he has a life in Fairfield beyond Brad and that living with Antoine had made it harder to pursue the things he wanted. He recalls wanting to study butterflies and work in a laboratory, but rejects being reduced to the blind man celebrated for overcoming the odds to achieve a supposedly modest life.

Their argument turns on what it means to have fought hard enough. Antoine says Marcel gave up after receiving rejection letters instead of seeking their father’s help. Marcel counters that they had the same education and upbringing, and that Antoine’s SAT scores were two points lower, yet Antoine did not have to work ten times harder to persuade a university that he deserved admission. Marcel refuses to accept the idea that his life is simply his own fault because he did not overcome barriers at a disproportionate cost. His account of employment makes those barriers concrete: businesses rejected him despite his qualifications because they did not know how to accommodate him, while a studio reduced his teaching hours until he had only one class a week because students were uncomfortable with his blindness. His decision to remain in Fairfield is therefore not a retreat from self-determination. He names what he has found there—a home, acceptance, work he loves, and friends who let him be himself—and tells Antoine that his happiness does not require his brother’s approval.

Support Without Taking Control

The novel also presents support as compatible with a person’s right to set the pace. When Colton tells Marcel he is not ready for everything, Marcel accepts the limit and asks him to say what he needs. Later, Marcel makes their intimacy explicitly conditional on either person being able to stop without consequence, and tells Colton to take the lead that night. Their exchange gives a close relational example of a larger distinction in the novel: help and trust do not require surrendering control over one’s choices.

Colton tries to apply that distinction with Derek when he has a problem he does not want to discuss yet. He acknowledges that asking for help is not shameful, but says he needs time to work things out himself. Derek does not dismiss that wish. He describes having once been on his own without knowing where his next meal would come from, and says that proving he could stand on his own feet mattered to him after he left the hospital and came to Fairfield with Sage. He also makes clear that independence need not mean facing every setback alone: if Colton falls, people are there to catch him. Colton’s panic has faded to a slight tremble by then. He takes comfort in recognizing that he will not necessarily be alone even if his relationship with Marcel does not last, and that reaching a more secure future may take longer than he hoped.

Chosen Help and a Wider Future

Elliot’s offer gives Colton’s efforts a practical route forward without disguising the arrangement as pure benevolence. Elliot explains that the clinic offers tuition reimbursement and scholarships; one technician has been admitted to Columbia and is leaving in three weeks. If Colton is serious about becoming a veterinarian, Elliot says he will pay the full tuition in return for Colton working for him. He acknowledges that he feels sorry for what Colton endured, but says pity alone would not lead him to risk his money or practice. His offer rests on Colton’s dedication and on his belief that Colton genuinely wants the profession, despite their earlier poor relationship and Colton’s two-year absence from the clinic.

This arrangement complicates, rather than cancels, Colton’s wish to be self-reliant. He can accept material support while bringing commitment and work of his own; assistance becomes a means of pursuing a chosen goal, not a substitute for agency. The same tension appears when Colton worries that Marcel might be embarrassed to acknowledge him, describing himself as nervous, much younger, and working in a café. Marcel answers by affirming him as he is, including his fondness for stray dogs and habit of folding his socks. Across these exchanges, the novel does not present independence as freedom from all reliance. It presents a harder balance: recognizing structural obstacles and personal limits, asking for or accepting help without being reduced to them, and retaining the right to decide what kind of life that help will make possible.