I'm going to add onto this real quick to also address the argument that Andrew was more "mentally mature" than the average 17-year-old boy because of his trauma from childhood sexual assault & from being incarcerated as a child. The original question & response I gave was about physically appearing older. This is going to be about how a traumatized teenager is in fact, still a teenager, and hasn't been Enlightened from all his trauma to having the mental maturity of an adult man with decades of therapy & is in fact at higher risk of experiencing harm - such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
And listen, y'all know I love Nicky but I've said it before: Nicky was not so-much a parent to the twins as he was a Cool Older Brother - which makes sense considering Nicky's age & his own childhood trauma - but a lack of actual parental figures does put children & teenagers at higher risk of experiencing harm. Andrew (and Aaron) were working at a night club at 17 where they had consistent access to alcohol & dust (a fictional drug) while Aaron was recovering from a severe drug addiction to the point that Andrew intervened by locking him in a washroom for a DIY rehab - and again, this should already indicate that Andrew's maturity level is that of a teenager and that Nicky's authority over the twins was minimal because somehow DIY rehab sounded like a good idea to everyone involved.
Moreover, this is an Andrew who… what six months ago? placed himself in a car crash that killed another person - and no matter how much you plan, if you're staging a car crash deadly enough to kill someone and you are also in the car, you're risking killing yourself as well - this is Andrew's mental state. A passively suicidal teenager who was canonically tired of being alive & currently in the process of developing several addictions: cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs, as many traumatized teenagers are prone to doing.
Roland, a 23-year-old bartender who we can assume was relatively sober, had frequent & private access to Andrew at 17 when he was drunk & high. Andrew had no parents, no friends, a complicated relationship with Aaron who he was fighting with, a complicated relationship with Nicky who Andrew was refusing to bond with & who didn't understand Andrew - so basically no support system. He had no one to talk to about his CSA, his sexuality and being gay, or his relationship with Roland.
He also had misdiagnosed mental health & improper medication that made him constantly manic and unable to concentrate, and had literally just rejoined society a year ago after being incarcerated for three years from the ages of 13-16, which is not only a horrifically long sentence for a child, but also impedes a child's social and mental development because instead of being a son, a brother, a student, a friend, you are literally a prisoner. You have been imprisoned by the state - you share a cell with other children, you wear a prison uniform, you are observed by guards who are allowed to subdue you with force such as batons or pepper-spray at their discretion, you may be placed in solitary confinement which means total isolation, you may be strip-searched, you may be hand-cuffed.
Obviously, we have no textual evidence of Andrew's experience in juvie other than contradictory claims that he was released early for good behavior & narrowly avoided additional sentencing, however, juvie is objectively considered to be a dehumanizing experience that results in more trauma for children who are already usually traumatized.
Childhood trauma - especially the multiple instances of rape that Andrew experienced at four different foster homes & childhood incarceration, does not actually result in a child "growing up quicker" but can actually lead to stunted maturity. A traumatized, unwell 17-year-old who has experienced multiple instances of punitive such as being literally incarcerated for his earliest teenage years, and then had one year of trying to rejoin society (in which he then literally murdered his birth mother) and then was placed on medication that made it impossible for him to function normally is not in fact a… Sexy Teenage Seducer who is "reclaiming his power" especially considering that the secrecy of Andrew/Roland b/c what Roland is doing is definitely illegal for several reasons quite literally mimics the secrecy of Andrew's childhood CSA. He is a fumbling adolescent who had a violent introduction to sex via rape at the age of seven and is perhaps trying to search for bodily autonomy after having it denied to him for… years.
However, the fact of the matter is that Roland either pursuing or accepting the sexual advances of an intoxicated 17-year-old, then being unable to follow Andrew's boundaries and needing to be hand-cuffed, reaffirms Andrew's beliefs that sex is dangerous & cannot be mutually satisfying. There is a reason that Andrew's relationship with Roland never develops despite them hooking up for two years versus the few months he was with Neil & their relationship developed in leaps and bounds.
Andrew's choice is the choice of a traumatized teenager on incorrect medication who is struggling to rejoin society & has literally no one to confide in or properly talk to. I think it makes sense for Andrew’s character but I think we as readers don’t need to pretend that this was the Best or Healthiest choice for Andrew or that Roland is meant to be a good man, when I don’t think that is what we are meant to read into Andrew/Roland.
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