The old house been abandoned at the top of Creek Hill for as long as the town below it could remember. Alone it sat with its rickety shutters and creeky gate that would swing open only in the wind. It's haunted, the townspeople would whisper, nobody lives there except for ghosts. Which was true until it wasn't. The young boy and girl appeared suddenly. One day the old house was empty and the next day when the gate opened with its usual wail it was at the hands of children. Only when the children moved in, the ghosts didn't move out.

Or that's how Brenner's mom wrote it anyway. The reality was much different. The house was not old but new and the only horrors the two encountered were created through words as they were tucked into bed at night. Growing up as the children of two writers, Brenner and Ione were never in a short supply of stories and Emmeline James, the author of children's horror novellas, loved to keep her children wondering what lurked under their beds at night. But while Emmeline used her imagination to create worlds for children to explore and her husband, James, used his to make words fall into poetry, Brenner used his imagination to lie.

It started out as an innocent habit when Brenner was a child for lying was something he viewed as a challenge. To get others to believe something that wasn't the truth was fascinating to him and the difference between that and his mother's stories was a line that he saw as very blurred. If the lie wasn't hurting anyone then wasn't it just another form of entertainment? No amount of scoldings he received nor lectures from his teachers could deter him from believing that as fact. Yet the truth remained that Brenner began to realize that though he didn't think lying was wrong, everybody else did, and with the desire to continue doing it, he decided to become a lawyer.

Alright, so that wasn't the only reason that Brenner landed on this career choice in high school and, okay, he knew that the whole job of a lawyer wasn't to lie but still he couldn't help but feel that the profession was made for him. Joining the debate team only proved this fact further and with a new outlet in which to argue and channel his uncontrollable desire to tell stories, Brenner flourished. He graduated from high school with top marks in 2007 and left his family in Denver as he began his higher education at Boston College. With his parents' blood running through his veins (and the knowledge from quite a few articles found on google that it was a great choice for pre-law), Brenner majored in Enlgish. It was a major that suited him and more importantly, if you asked Brenner at the time, it was a major that brought him to his future wife, Freya.

The two met in their first week of college at a freshman event and Brenner immediately fell for her. Freya's falling was a lot more gradual. It took an entire semester of arguing in class over Beowulf and Hemingway for her to agree to go out with him but once the two were together it became a rare event when they were apart. Their relationship became one of their very defining characteristics and for someone that had valued his identity and self-importance for a long time, it was odd how well Brenner slipped into being a pair. They were needy, dependent, bordered on being obsessive, and, if you asked them, very, very in love. It was the summer before senior year when Brenner proposed and the August after their graduation from B.C. in 2010 that two were married.

Following their honeymoon, the couple moved to Michigan to begin their life as newlyweds. Though the location wasn't Freya's dream, she faithfully followed her husband when Brenner began law school at the University of Michigan and began a graduate program in creative writing herself. Where previously school had been merely an extension of their togetherness, in Michigan school became a division. While Brenner was at a loss to define who he was without her, the separation allowed Freya to remember just how great independence could be. For three years they struggled in Ann Arbor to balance their relationship with their workload but there was never a doubt, for Brenner at least but a combination of confidence and ignorance led him to having no reason to believe otherwise, that they would alway remain together. After their graduations in 2010, it was time for Freya to choose where they would be making home next and it was with an excitement that the two embarked for New York.

With high marks and a confident determination, Brenn was hired at his firm in the city long before the two moved in but Freya found much less success. With his salary high enough to cover their rent and a rejection pile deterring her spirits, Freya's motivation to become employed deteriorated and it wasn't long before she settled into the role of housewife. Not that she did much housework, mind you, but despite the countless essays she had written on feminist pieces of literature Freya discovered that she was not entirely against the idea of being a trophy wife. It wasn't the trophy part that was wrong, she discovered, but rather the wife bit. As a first year employee, Brenn began to practically live at his firm and, much beyond his knowledge, Freya did too. It was after the firm's holiday party that her affair with one of the firm's partners began and it was at the following holiday party that Brenn walked in on them in the partner's office. Much to the surprise of everyone, Brenn had left in silence and spent the weekend after stewing in a similar silence. But it was uncharacteristic of him to not take action and on that Monday he quit the firm in a barrage of swears and his last final moments as a hot shot New York lawyer were spent carefully peeing out the words 'I quit' on the hood of his boss' car.

Needless to say, Brenner did not receive glowing reccommendations from the first step of his career life and which was fine as when he moved back home he realized he had left his motivation back in New York with exactly one half of his belongings. He used what he had saved from his paychecks to rent a small apartment in Denver and began a life of absolute leisure. He did nothing, he felt nothing, and he spent a hell of a lot of time lying about something. While ambition had always been one of his more prominent traits the road that it had led him down had left the whole idea of it sour in his mouth. Instead, he dropped the challenge of success and took up a new one--how to survive on your own without earning any money.

Without Freya and without a goal, Brenner had no choice but to redefine himself. And much to the chagrin of all that knew him, he regressed. While before he had always prided himself on living a life of structure and order, Brenner found relief in spontaneity. If there were no plans, then nothing go awry. This mindset was quickly adapted to everything. If you didn't have hopes, they couldn't be crushed. If you didn't try, then you couldn't faily. And if you didn't talk to anybody, they couldn't disappoint you.

Unfortunately as impressive of a mindset as that might be, it too eventually failed. On May 9th, 2013 both of Brenner's parents were struck in a collision with a truck. The accident was fatal and suddenly Brenner was not only down the one support system he felt had been infinite in his life but given the responsibility of raising another human being. Clementine was the late in life present to his parents (which is just the polite way of saying accident, a fact that Brenner had no problems joking with Clem about) and Brenner and Ione were left with the task of raising her. Brenner was hardly at the top of any list of prime dad candidates and pseudo fatherhood is something that he still struggles with today. Though it is Ione who is Clementine's primary caregiver, Brenn pitches in when he can though the results are sometimes (mostly) disastrous.