Name: Jake Tillman
Age: 18 (DOB: 1-19-1991) Note: The series opens in April 2009.
Height: 5'5
Weight: 325 lbs

Jake is the first born of four children in an upper middle class family, and the oldest (by 71 seconds) of fraternal twins. His father is a local stockbroker and deacon in his church. His mother stayed at home to raise the family. He knew that he was gay at fourteen, but tried to hide and repress at, often finding himself at odds with his religious upbringing. At fifteen, he learned about the local GLBT center, but was too shy to go in at first, spending several weeks after school just watching from a neighboring parking lot. Having seen Jake loitering routinely, Tom approached him and eventually coaxed him into attending the youth support group. Later that year, a peer named Frank Hawkins rescued him from a bully, and the two became close friends. One afternoon, his father caught Jake and Frank in bed after school. Furious, he threw his son out. Knowing of nowhere else to go, Jake called the GLBT center, and Tom intervened, taking him in. Meanwhile, Frank's family moved him out of the state. Jake graduated high school in June 2008. His family didn't attend the ceremony (in spite of multiple attempts to reach out to them), but his housemates were there to support him. At the start of the series, he's been living in the house about two and a half years. He's finishing his first semester at the community college.

Jake has tried to turn the pain and trauma of being ostracized from his family into a catalyst for growth. He volunteers at the GLBT center as a coordinator in the youth support group, and spends time with the GLBT group on his campus--trying to busy himself with things to avoid the emotional fallout of his family separation. His twin sister recently made contact from college via a social network, and has been keeping him abreast of family news--in particular the fact that his mother nearly divorced his father over throwing Jake out and their marriage has become severely stressed in the two years since.

Jake is a typical eighteen year old geek. He hides (for various reasons) in gaming, comics, popular culture, technology, and indie music. He pines for a romantic relationship, but is convinced that he'll never find love because he still considers himself broken from the trust issues he's harboring after his father threw him out and the shame he's since come to associate with sex in the aftermath of it. He can occasionally be emotional and dramatic, easily overwhelmed. But in spite of everything, he's a gentle and giving person--even to the point where he'd forgive his father in a moment. He's taken the fundamental core of his religious training with him, even if he's stopped believing in the deity and myth itself.