Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(24)

At age nine, he was diagnosed with a condition called intermittent explosive disorder, a condition in which a child or a young adolescent is unable to resist angry impulses, resulting in explosions of rage that are disproportionate to the situation, leading to the possibility of dangerous or destructive behavior.

When his mother shared this diagnosis with Colt’s father and asked for his permission to pursue treatment, she was backhanded across the face for consulting a “quack” and Colt was told to “get himself under f*cking control,” or his father would take “treatment” into his own hands.

In the end, his mother took things into her own hands, sending Colt from their home in Seattle to live with her sister, Jane, in Atlanta the summer after his tenth birthday. Though his mother’s plan was to have him stay for the summer, hoping the distance between father and son would cool them both down, Colt’s parents were killed in a car accident a month later, and he ended up remaining at Aunt Jane’s indefinitely.

And while his aunt had tried to get him to open up about his feelings for several weeks following the accident, Colt simply hadn’t felt very much—or, more accurately, hadn’t wanted to feel very much. It was all too overwhelming. He’d barely gotten his head around the fact that his mother had chosen to send him away and stay behind with his father. How did he feel? He felt like ignoring their deaths, and despite Aunt Jane’s pleas, he refused to go to the funeral with her, opting instead to stay in Atlanta with his uncle and cousin that weekend. He felt like pretending that they were alive, still living their f*cked-up, corrosive, codependent lives together in Seattle.

Finally Aunt Jane gave up on talking to him about them, just as she’d given up on trying to get him to attend the funeral. She told him that when he was ready to talk about his parents, she’d be ready too. That day never came, however, because Colt chose not to think about them, and living with Aunt Jane, Uncle Herman, and Melody made it easy for Colt to move on.

Unlike his father, Uncle Herman didn’t believe in hitting back, and unlike his mother, Aunt Jane didn’t believe in psychiatry, she believed in action. She believed that the key to controlling Colt’s impulses was inner strength and natural supplements, so under her supervision, he practiced yoga twice a week, took Saint-John’s-wort daily, and drank two cups of chamomile and lavender tea before school every day and before bed every night.

With Aunt Jane’s gentleness nurturing him, Colt worked hard to get some measure of control over his outbursts. There were still fights at school from time to time, and freak-outs over homework assignments, but Aunt Jane and Uncle Herman’s home was so warm and loving, Colt was able to develop coping techniques when he felt the rage building—physical exertion helped, and acting in plays, where he could give his fury free rein playing a villain or warrior.

Plus, he learned to conceal his outbursts, letting his anger build until he was in a “safe” place to explode—the woods half a mile from his house, in his car at the deserted quarry, or in the basement of his aunt’s house, where he had a much-abused punching bag hanging from the ceiling. All were safe places to let his anger burst forth uninhibited.

But even when restrained, Colt’s anger was still his constant companion—simmering inside like a kettle on an always-warm stove. By following his Aunt Jane’s recipe, he was mostly able to control himself, but there were still situations that felt beyond his control, and when someone he cared about was threatened, he lost control almost completely.

The fights he had in high school (including one in which he broke a fellow student’s jaw and another’s arm) were almost all in connection to his cousin, Melody. He would never forget the day his Aunt Jane sat down with him at the kitchen table, two cups of chamomile-lavender tea before them, after they’d returned from the courthouse.

“You were acquitted,” she said, toeing off her Sunday shoes under the table, “because the jury was persuaded to believe you were acting by proxy in self-defense of Mel. She couldn’t defend herself, so you did the job for her.”

“They had her hair,” muttered Colt, staring at the table. “They had her by the f*cking hair.”

While Aunt Jane generally reprimanded him for coarse language, she’d let it slide that time.

“And those strands of red hair caught between Bobby Callahan’s fingers are what saved you from prison.”

Colt nodded, remembering how it felt to go looking for Mel after school that day, only to find her on her knees behind the cafeteria by the Dumpster, one boy about to zip down his pants while the other held her ponytail in his fist so she couldn’t escape. Colt could barely remember what happened next. When his brain cleared, Mel was begging him to stop, her sobs breaking through the haze of his fury, while Bobby Callahan and Steven Riley lay in bloody heaps on the asphalt.

“You love her,” said Aunt Jane with soft, heartbreaking simplicity, and Colt nodded, reaching up to swipe away the tears that gathered at the corners of his eyes. “It means the world to me that you love her so much, Colton, but you cannot take on the whole world for her sake.”

But I will, he thought. I will take on the whole f*cking world for Mel if that’s what it takes to keep her safe.

“If you do, you’ll end up in jail. And if you’re in jail, you’ll be no use to her,” said Aunt Jane, reaching for his hand. “You understand me, Colton? You hear me?”