MEET DENVER.
TW: mentions of injury, fire, drugs, overdose, death
Age: 30
Occupation: unemployed/former child star
Denver was born from a surprise one night entanglement between a director and a woman he met at the bar. Because of that, the two strangers eventually became close enough to at least co-parent decently for their son. It wasn’t the worst house growing up, a few arguments here and there about how Denver should be raised.
His mother, Julie, wanted her son to have a normal life and grow up with a decent job and decent friends. She tried her hardest to stay out of the spotlight and kept Denver mostly in those shadows of hers. His father, Brandon, on the other hand had different ideas the moment Denver started walking. He wanted his son in every commercial out there.
Denver growing up had a mixture of both lives their parents wanted with normal schooling throughout his education while he also did a few commercials and small parts in television shows and movies. It was nothing major until the roles after high school suddenly got more involved and more bigger than having a few lines.
He became the newest heartthrob in Hollywood.
Since then, it felt like a cake walk for Denver. He never really thought about college or anything past his time in acting because it felt like a forever job. It probably could’ve been a forever job if the accident didn’t happen. He was part of one of the more popular young adult television shows. The season finale was being filmed in a way no other show at the time had even thought of doing – thanks to their director. The house burning down was real and it nearly cost him and his co-star’s lives if he wasn’t there in time to move them both out of the area.
She was whisked away to the hospital while he had only minor injuries and could walk home. The show continued on without her and now with him in his own struggles beneath the happy face he held up at work. A new character was introduced and like before a new storyline of such a happy couple working together. Denver never really held any true feelings for his new co-host, he just blindly followed his agent. Why? Well, he had nothing else to do and nowhere to go.
As the months flew by, he fell more into his bad habits of drugs and alcohol. He claimed it was to help him sleep which was the truth, but it soon was feeling more out of control than just that. It gave him an escape from the horrors he still faced inside his head. Denver quickly found himself addicted to the feeling of being free and weightless. No longer tied down to his career or trauma, he continued his usage. He might’ve kept it up until he was shook back to his life when he was found nearly lifeless in the ditch. The thought of possibly dying in the wet and cold while he laid in the hospital bed, the kind stranger who found him in the chair next to the stretcher, had him wanting to vomit. Maybe no one saw how bad it was or maybe no one else cared to do something about it.
And so his next step was rehab. He wanted to get better by finally putting the past behind him and moving forward. It took a long six months until Denver felt as if he was back on the right track and could be out on his own. An old friend had mentioned the town Aurora Bay. A town where no one knew him would be just right up his alley.