Page 10 of Fame & Chaos

I truly believe she always had.

The problem was she loved Colt too, and somewhere in the middle of all that confusion, she hurt everyone involved.

From what Mum eventually explained to me, Colt had finally confessed he loved her not long after she’d slept with Hux during a rough patch in their relationship. Mum panicked. She felt guilty, overwhelmed, and terrified of destroying the band while Colt’s career was exploding worldwide. So instead of telling the truth, she ran, and then she found out she was pregnant with me.

Because she’d only been with Hux once, she convinced herself I had to be Colt’s son.

And that one mistake changed all of our lives forever.

If she’d checked properly from the beginning, none of the devastation with Dee and Colt would’ve happened.

Thankfully, they eventually found their way back to each other after the truth came out.

And I can’t imagine them apart.

The way Colt looks at Dee even now after all these years… it’s like nobody else exists when she’s around.

That kind of love is rare.

Messy.

Painful.

But rare.

And somewhere deep down, I think I’ve spent my whole life hoping one day I’ll find something that feels like that too.

After the transplant, things slowly started getting better.

Not immediately.

Recovery was brutal, and for a while everyone hovered over me like I might break if I moved too quickly, but eventually I got stronger. Strong enough to run without collapsing halfway down the street. Strong enough to kick a football around with Dad. Strong enough to stay awake for hours playing guitar without feeling like my body was shutting down on me.

For the first time in my life, I felt normal.

And I’ll never stop being grateful to Nanny for that.

She gave me a future when she didn’t have to.

I know Dad struggled with not being able to donate because of his old drug use. Even years later, I could still see the guilt sitting inside him whenever the transplant came up in conversation. But if he could have given me that kidney himself, he would have done it without hesitation.

That’s the thing about Hux.

For all his rough edges, he loves hard.

As I got older, our relationship changed too. By the time I hit my teens, we were less father and son and more like mates who happened to live in the same house. He taught me how to play guitar properly, introduced me to old music, and spent hours jamming with me late at night when Mum had already gone to bed.

Those nights became some of my favorite memories.

Eventually, Colt came back around, too.

It took a long time before he could really look at me again, but he did eventually try, and I respected the hell out of him for that. He was more guarded after everything happened, nowhere near as openly affectionate as before, but underneath it all, I still knew he cared about me deeply.

The bond we’d formed in that short period of time never fully disappeared.

And now that I’m older, I’m glad things happened the way they did.

If I really had been Colt’s son, I don’t think he and Dee would have found their way back to each other, and if that hadn’t happened, Annie and Ella would never have been adopted. And despite how much those girls can annoy the absolute shit out of me sometimes, I can’t imagine my life without them.