you can't take my heart from me

Character Name: Benjamin Jacob Myers | Goes by "Jake"

Character Age: 15

Character Suit and Rank: Hearts - Two

Short Physical Description: Teenager, unruly blond hair, blue-green eyes. Gawky and seems to be all legs and elbows, not quite six feet yet but due to good ol' Nordic and Welsh blood, he'll probably grow into it. Wears a small hearing aid over his right ear. Scars on his left arm thanks to a shattered humerus and ulna.

Character Personality: Jake is a very quiet boy, for a teenager. He's unobtrusive, tends to be a loner, but has an affinity with animals, particularly horses. Due to his traumatic early years, horses became the only palliative in his life and he quickly developed a rapport with even the most unsocialized equines. Also very people shy, Jake doesn't trust strangers very easily, particularly men, as his father was an abusive beat cop who drank quite heavily and was a heavy hand with his baton. Despite not being very outgoing or people oriented, Jake is, nevertheless, very sensitive towards others, and carries a lot of empathy for anyone or anything that's suffered along the same lines. He's very bright, articulate and intelligent, and seems to be a natural teacher, but prefers to remain in the background and keep a very low profile. Due to his handicap, he also understands sign language and is an accomplished lip reader.

Character History: Jake was born in Boston to an economy class family. His mother worked two jobs and his father was a policeman with a drinking problem. The oldest of three, Jake was usually the one his dad brought the baton down on, opting to take the beatings in effort to save his little sister and brother from the worst of their father's rage. He suffered in silence until a particularly violent altercation at just nine years old landed him in the hospital, comatose for nearly three weeks. As a result of this abuse, he lost hearing in his right ear and worked for months to regain the use of his left arm, which still remains scarred.

He and his siblings were separated in the child care legal system, Jake being placed in a foster home with five other boys, all of varying ages. Rather than subject himself to more abuse (purposeful or not), Jake began spending time at the equine boarding center down the road from his foster home. He spent more and more time there, and seemed to have an empathy with the animals that was uncanny. The barn manager began to notice this and offered Jake riding lessons in exchange for doing chores around the facility. A year later, Jake was competing in shows all over the city, and, despite his age, even garnering interest on the national level from professional trainers and equine specialists.

But despite Jake's growing dreams, his beloved stable suffered a crushing blow of bankruptcy and was forced to close. Jake was crushed. Unable to bear living so close to the shell of the place that had been his only true home, Jake abandoned his foster home, backpacking across the states, giving up his dreams of becoming a professional horseman in lieu of finding a place to once more fit in.