Collin Adiel

Cole, 2023 (age 18)

## Early Life

Collin Adiel (born Nicole Adiel) was born to his parents Henry and Renee on November 2nd, 2006. Growing up, they were very loving, but very strict when it came to safety, and very unconventional in nature. He was not allowed to play with friends or leave the house without his parents thoroughly vetting the friend's parents and location. He was not allowed to go anywhere except for friend's houses and the gas station across the street without supervision until he was 14. His parents were both very anti-technology, so he grew up with no computer or TV in the house, and was refused a phone when he asked for it in 6th grade. Both of his parents could be described as "hippies", which helped when it came to his coming-out as trans at the age of 10, but not when he was hungry and all they had was carrots and lima beans.

He started hormone blockers at age 11.

Collin was a very outgoing kid. In elementary school he made friends with whoever was open to listen to his rambling about the most recent book he read and could tolerate his lack of general pop culture knowledge. He enjoyed playing outside with the neighborhood kids, reading, writing, singing, and building small contraptions out of cardboard. His parents always expected that he would be a famous creative one day. While they were, as stated, incredibly loving, they had a very rocky relationship with Collin. He loved them just as much, but as he grew up he began trying to sneak out just to play video games with his friends, and frequently clashed with him about what was worthy of getting upset over.

## High School

Collin started high school at Skyview Prep at the age of 14. He got through middle school pretty easy, but when he had to leave for a new school he was separated from all of his established friends. Making friends without a tv or phone was much harder, and the kids were much more bigoted. He started to get very persistently nervous after about a week, when his classmates widely decided to call him Nicky. He made a few friends by the end of the first semester, but he was always a little cautious unless they were alone. His closest was Jazmin, who also had no technology at home. He was able to convince his parents to let him take the bus to her house one Saturday before the end of winter break, but only after they'd called Jazmin's parents.

While he was waiting for the bus, he looked up from his book when he noticed a shout from inside of the gas station on the other side of the road. He chose to ignore it and turn on his iPod shuffle (a gift from Jazmin, who had one for herself and paid a senior to upload music onto them). After a few minutes, he heard gunshots. He knew that he should have run, but he was frozen. When he looked up, he was met with a group of kids running out of the store, one of which was looking right at him, and one holding a gun, pointing it into the door. Out of nowhere, he blinked and a bullet hit his shoulder. The kids ran. The gas station employee ran after them. He couldn't call 911, couldn't move except for to try to slow the bleeding, and was on a long stretch of empty road. It was ten minutes before he passed out, and half an hour before someone drove by and called an ambulance. He was nearly dead and spent a week in the hospital being monitored.

The experience changed him significantly. He was no longer interested in making friends, and subsequently lost interest in trying to get access to technology. His parents bought him a flip phone because they felt responsible for him being left for so long, but he didn't use it to communicate with anyone but them. He decided that he wanted to leave, as soon as possible.

At the age of 16 he started testosterone and graduated high school.

## College

Collin's sole goal was to get out of his school and his house and he wanted everything about his surroundings to change. He graduated with all of his credits at the end of sophomore year, thanks to getting a few high school credits in 8th grade just to see if he could then going to his local community college after school to start taking extra dual credit courses immediately following the shooting. They were surprisingly accommodating to his lack of resources and even gifted him a laptop, which he only had interest in using for school and other research.

After graduating, he decided that he wanted to move to the city to go to state college. HIs parents weren't happy about this for multiple reasons. Mostly they were concerned for their son, who was only 16, traumatized, and trying to go away without a plan, but they also expected to get to have him at home for another 2 years and weren't ready to have him out of the house. They gave him an ultimatum: stay and be supported, or go and be financially cut off. They thought he would understand it for the care that it was, but he got pissed and immediately started packing. He had $2,000 in a savings account that his grandparents deposited into every year, $10,000 dollars in scholarships, his current belongings and two suitcases, a couple doses of testosterone and a college admission letter when he left that august. He took busses despite his constant paranoia, and after the 4 hour trip he made it the the city. That was where his plan ended.

He arrived at noon on August 20th and decided to try to find a motel to stay in, but quickly realized that he had no phone or map to look up locations and couldn't book a place under 18, so he asked around for directions to a local shelter despite his throat trying to close in on him. By 10 at night he had found a LGBT youth shelter by foot. For a moment he thought he might believe in God. They took him in for the night despite the short notice, and the next morning he went for new student orientation and talked to the office about campus jobs. He was hired to grade papers by the next week. He was still staying in the shelter when he met Allie, an 18 year old freshman who grew up on the campus. She lived with her dad in the campus's oldest building, and the day their classes started she told him that Collin was 16 and living in a shelter and begged to let him live in their empty bedroom. It took a month of negotiation with the school president but he was eventually added to the preservation plan and moved into their guest room.