▻ Handsome by anyone's standard. If self-awareness could be a crime, please, Errol like would have had that charged against him, among other things. Those days have long since passed, thank the lord. Now, Errol doesn't feel the need to bring any unwanted attention to his attractiveness. Mostly, it's that nagging feeling that he's likely being judged for even looking remotely similar to the senator's kid arrested for possession and reckless driving and assaulting a cop. And then even more so when they find out, 'Oh, that is him. Wow, what a loser.'

Thus, Errol often tones it down when it comes to his clothing. His attire is never too flashy, never consists of bright colors, nothing to accentuate his features or highlight his face. Most of his closet consists of suits for anything formal his mother undoubtedly invites him too, along with rows and rows of khaki pants and button up shirts for his day job. Out in public, it's usually a regular tee-shirt, a pair of sunglasses, and a cap. Occasionally, he'll layer on a beard when he's feeling particularly anxious.

Of course, Errol doesn't exactly demand attention when he walks into a room - name and renown aren't exactly an issue where he lives. Sure, he's certainly attractive and can dial that up should the need arise, but Errol doesn't exactly want that. Even then, he doesn't need to do much to get people to look the other way, as his features often come off as brooding and closed off - body cues and a resting bitch face help tremendously. The stature, the baggy close to hide his lean muscle, and the relatively average 5'9" height keep him where he wants to be, generally out of everyone's business.

▻ Errol's always favored himself a quiet kid, up until a certain point in his life. That's never changed. Errol doesn't particularly enjoy the scrutiny his family faces, particularly anyone but his own mother. Most of what he's done has been localized, mainly staying within the beautiful Californian state. Unfortunately, the state itself is a hotbed for publicity and his mother takes great advantage of it. Errol, however, never really fit into the public eye. It's always been that way. Anxiety hits Errol harder than most and he's succumbed to the woes of depression plenty in his teenage life.

It never got awful, though. It never escalated beyond that, until he hit his stride in his college years. From eighteen onward (about his twenty-second) Errol took an entire one-eighty. Influenced by a number of friends and by what he considered a lover - a much older one - Errol let himself decline. His demeanor turned from reserved and quiet, to sharp and brutish. He cared little for anyone but himself during his time, and his next fix. Parties had never been an issue during high school, yet his mother couldn't stop hearing about them. Reports and reports filing in just as she began her term as a congresswoman. Errol turned into something he has a very hard time looking back to.

Now, he's met with support from the few family members that bothered to remember his name - namely his mother and sister. Errol shies away from a lot of the public, preferring to keep to his home and to himself. Mostly to keep everything he's done to himself, or as much as he can. It's been years, but it's still easy to remember, still fresh in people's minds. And that runs most of Errol's anxiety and dictates how he interacts with people. Most of his conversations remain brusque, polite, and to the point. It's influenced a lot of how he speaks and his distance from other people tend to mark him as rather snobbish. It's not like Errol minds, much, as it's better than what they could say about him. Still, even those little opinions sway Errol into making decisions based on that thought process alone. His mother thinks he needs to see a shrink, but he insists he's quite fine.

At least he's gone back to what he used to be. At least he can look himself in the mirror and be moderately happy about who he sees. Even if that individual can sometimes come off as an asshat. Some people lack the thick skin to keep up with his harsh sarcasm and Errol doesn't deny that he's snippy, if a little bit caustic. He's not a misanthrope, per se, but he wouldn't mind if people buggered off.

▻ There's a saying that his mother, Diane Howe, repeats on a near daily basis: "Promises are bullshit. As a politician, it's bullshit that works." They live mostly with that in mind, or at least that's how Diane runs her campaigns. Her children and her home? They mostly live in a layer of 'American Dream Family,' and just work from there. The public absolutely eats it up. Errol had to live through a minimal amount as a young child, though his sister came in at a rather inopportune time. In fact, a lot of shit hit the fan in the middle of the road.

Still, Errol's life was never anything to complain about. His mother doted on him, even her words had more bite to them than necessary. She was blunt and the people around her loved it. Honest? Maybe - when it mattered. Acting transparent and being transparent were two entirely different things, however. Diane played to that to an alarming degree, yet she tread carefully enough that her tactics never really backfired. Some slip ups, certainly, a few mishaps, but no one's perfect. She never expected much of the same from her family - she played politics like a game and if she could keep her children from becoming pawns, then all the better.

Thus, Errol mainly staid out of the spot light. He attended a private school with private tutors during the summer and excelled in mainly the sciences. At an early age, he took up the piano, crooned songs when his mother had enough time to sit with him and idly sip at her wine while she watched her son play. They had an odd relationship, to the say the least. Most of her words seemed entirely cold, nearly abusive and discouraging; Errol bit back with the same acid used against him. To this day, it honed most of his wit and ability to think on his feet. She never meant it, though, unless he actually did something stupid - and he did plenty. While Diane never came off as affectionate or tactile, she showed her love all the same.

Work escalated when Errol graduated and with Errol off to Stanford for most of his studies and his mother campaigning for a spot in Congress, it left a lot of room for Errol to live life alone. Alone, in the sense that he had no parental supervision. That had been the absolute worse choice he made. He hadn't realize just how much he relied on his mother's blunt pressure bearing down on him to keep him from doing the stupidest things he could thing of. And Errol never really partied, never really ached for that spotlight, especially not concerning negative press. Harming his mother's reputation was the last thing on his mind.

That wasn't exactly how things worked out. Most of Errol's friends recognized him for what he was, included him in a group of mingling old and new money kids - people with billions in inheritance and not a care for anything but the money and fame. The lifestyle they lived wasn't exactly one that Errol fancied. Yet, an older man convinced him otherwise.

One of his professors, a coach for the rowing team in Stanford, took a great liking to Errol and once the semester passed, he pursued him with a great fervor. Their relationship had been Errol's first in everything and an enlightening discovery of his own sexuality. It proceeded harmlessly, quite nicely in fact. He doted on Errol, gave him absolutely everything, and showed him quite a bit more than Errol had expected from a first time boyfriend. Unfortunately, that made him all the easier to manipulate and eventually Errol fell into a crowd of people he desperately wanted approval from. Would do anything to get. It appalls him now how much their opinions truly mattered then and how much it drove him to do things he absolutely hated.

The first time it happened had been at his first party. They treated it as a hazing, of sorts, lined up a good dose of coke for someone's first time and convinced him to snort it fully. The next few hours had been the best high he'd felt in years. The drug sizzled in his veins and propelled him forward, made him more confident, more like everyone around him, and more susceptible to following their lead. The next subsequent times required higher doses and the fall drove him to a terrible, itchy neediness. The first time he'd experienced the after effects of the drug, Errol suffered a terrible insomnia that allowed him to sleep in unsatisfying, thirty minute bursts. The next few times, he made sure were within a reasonable time zone.

Before Errol could truly stop and look around, months had passed, his relationships strained and his world focused mainly on the drug and what it could do for him. Those few moments high, he accomplished a grand amount of things he probably couldn't. The friends he'd made only further encouraged it, brought him in and used him to their hearts' content. He grew aggressive, edgy, and ultimately something that Errol knew he wasn't and shouldn't have been in a million years. Regular frat boy comes to mind.

Another year passed and he'd dove even further, eventually pushing all kinds of relationships to the wayside. His relationship with his professor grew strained and when it became apparent that the man had made a mistake in introducing someone like Errol - who'd had a hidden, addictive mentality - to something as dangerous as cocaine, he bailed. Errol hadn't noticed, still fixated on where he could get his next fix. Eventually, he started consuming other drugs, mostly party oriented drugs that he could get on a night without a coke high to fixate on. It drove him into the ground, splattered his name on papers and magazines as his mother grew in her own renown.

It didn't stop until everything Errol did, all the terrible mistakes he made in just a night, gained enough infamy that his mother's own job had been at risk. She'd found him that summer in his dilapidated apartment, the summer funds she'd given him already run dry. Diane nearly broke down. She couldn't think of anything to say, so she yelled at him. Profanities. Anything. She just needed something to say to keep from truly breaking apart in front of her kid.

After a few behind the scenes action from his mother and her team, Errol found himself in rehab, somewhere out of the public eye. The withdrawal hit him hard for how much he'd been using over the year. They hadn't actually been too certain if he'd suffer long term, more permanent damage, especially to his brain, but they were certain he at least had the sense not to accidentally OD. Not yet, that is. It took a few months before Errol found his feet again another few months until he could attend school again.

He quickly gained a decent position at a government research firm (after a lot of heavy lifting from his mother and numerous drug tests), worked his way up, and found himself a founder in a private researching division working on pharmaceutical drugs - funny how they'd trust him with more drugs. It all eventually worked out, and it became rather easy to save up his own money. Another few years later and he found himself in Lakewood Summit looking at a 6 million dollar home - his mother didn't see the appeal, but wouldn't deny her son anything. Obviously, he needed just a tad bit of help from his mother, but he eventually came to own a nice, European-style home just a walk away from Sparkling Springs.

Not a few years into his residence, did he hear urgent word from his own mother. She'd sent his sister to live with him for an indefinite amount of time. Not two months later did she divorce from her husband of eighteen years. Bewildered at the turn of events, Errol didn't question his mother's decision, but it did pique his curiosity. Unfortunately, he hadn't seen his sister in years and her timid, almost frightful nature never really rang as odd to him. Of course, being sixteen, she was more than expected to attend classes at Lakewood Academy and he had to begrudge the inevitable PTA meetings that came with.

▻ Congresswoman's son, works for a private, pharmaceutical research company of which he founded after discovering a new type of medication with a friend and coworker of his - it provides him with most of his money. He doesn't like the stress of owning the company, so he takes a small pay cut to simply work for them as a co-founder. Obviously there's also a trust fund for him and his sister.

[Co-founder of a now large and booming pharmaceutical research company]

▻ Formerly cocaine and/or molly. - this is something, in particular, that he refuses to talk about. People likely know, but no one's bothered to say anything. His mother did a lot of work keeping things from the public, but sometimes one can't help a leak or two. Fortunately, either no one knows, no one cares to acknowledge it over their own problems (cause it's technically old news), or they all talk about it behind his back. He just hopes to god it's not the latter. It's probably the latter.

▻ Formerly partying hard. - just another thing he refuses to acknowledge, though this specifically has been leaked a lot more than the drugs part. He supposes people assume drugs were involved, even if his mother bribed the publishes to drop those parts and stick with the alcohol and the partying.

▻ Begrudgingly attends PTA meetings - his sister being only sixteen and only a sophomore, she needs someone to involve themselves in her scholastic career. Without either of his parents currently in the picture, that someone has to be him. He hates it, but it puts a shy smile on Cara's face, so he can't complain - it also allows him a better standing with her.

▻ Plays Piano and Sings - ever since he was old enough to learn, Errol's been pushed into lesson after lesson until finally something stuck. When his mother gets the chance, she likes to sit down and listen to him croon out old love songs. Either that or some god awful reprise of a terrible pop song because he knows how much it irritates her - but she won't say anything because that'd be rude. Like she has an issue with being rude.

▻ Yoga - they offered free classes (or kind of free? they paid for the entire stay, so...) at his rehabilitation center and he leaped at the opportunity. It was either this or something more dull and less entertaining than watching a bunch of entirely unflexible individuals try stupid poses. Unfortunately, it's worked wonders to curb his anxiety, depression, and stress and works well with the medication he's been taking (and is monitored on). He's waiting for some asshole to laugh at him.

▻ Meditation - along with yoga, his instructor at rehab encouraged meditation and for those that wished to stay after, allowed a few lessons intermixed with the poses and stretches. This one's less embarrassing and one he's more inclined to use more often.

▻ Anonymous Counseling - this one he takes far, far away from Lakewood just out of fear of judgement. It's a number of meetings across the week, his happened to land on a friday morning. It takes him an hour to get there, the session lasts two hours, and an hour to get back so he's usually home by the time Cara is. Errol tells absolutely no one of these.

▻ Smoking - a bad habit, but not one that people tend to condemn. It's more like publicly frown upon and Errol's more than okay with that. It gives him something to do with his hands.

▻ Keeping up Appearance - after the whole fiasco with drugs, Errol's been very mindful of what he does and how it gets around. He nearly tanked his mother's career and he's sure if he did something insanely dumb, again, she'd have his hide.

▻ Cara Howe – Half-Sister – Slightly estranged relationship, they are unfortunately ten years apart and once Cara hit eight, her brother had already left home. Errol doesn't know much about his sister, though he wants to, especially concerning her odd situation.