What's in a Name?

Desirae Gillespie

Desirae Gillespie- African American (mother); Irish American (father); The younger sister of Isaiah Gillespie and twin sister of Denise, Desirae is currently in the eighth grade and attends the middle school. Whereas her twin sister is more of a girly girl and embraces her femininity, with a love for fashion and the performing arts, she is considered more of a tomboy. She has a notable talent for running, being a formidable athlete who currently participates on the eighth-grade cross country team. Generally sensible, conscientious, and smart, she is humble and tends to be sweet, nice, and thoughtful, often trying to be accepting and inclusive of everyone she encounters. Desirae can have difficulty providing constructive criticism, as she doesn't want her words to hurt or negatively affect those around her. Overachieving and bright, she is generally very kind, mature, well-mannered, and polite, which can cause many adults to dote on her for her calm and collected demeanor. She is often regarded as the more book smart of the twins, causing people to have higher expectations of her and periodically leading her to have a more competitive streak academically. She is somewhat popular among her peers, but tends to be more naïve and less socially aware than her twin, as her desire to trust people too readily has put her in compromising situations. Desirae tends to be kindhearted to a fault as well and is easily influenced by other people's opinions, which can be more susceptible to manipulation. This includes her suggestive encounter with a potential sexual predator, the eighth-grade substitute English teacher and middle school journalism instructor Mr. Brewster, while participating in the school's yearbook staff. She is still very close to her sister and musical older brother Isaiah, as they complement one another's personalities in several ways. 

Her home life is generally very calm, relaxed, and sunny as well, as she was born into a loving family who provided her with a warm upbringing in Huntington, Long Island before the family's move to Valley Stream once she and Denise turned 8. Desirae learned from a young age that family was of utmost importance and that love can come in different shapes and forms, after being exposed to her parent's example through their interracial marriage. The move happened once her mother, an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist of African American descent, was promoted to a job offering in the city and decided to relocate her family to the outskirts of New York in search of prosperity. She is close friends with Olivia Garcia-Colon, who participates in the cross-country team with her, and good friends with Wendy Nowak, often sitting with and eating lunch with them along with some of the other members of their friend group. She has strong aspirations of attending college one day in order to become an occupational therapist for young children. Desirae also has a love for dressage and enjoys reading horse stories in her spare time, among her favorites being A Morgan for Melinda. Her favorite drink is chocolate milk, and she is also fond of shrimp scampi, pasta salad and hot pockets, although she has no knowledge about black-and-white TVs, encyclopedias or polka. She has yet to try pizza with any kind of poultry on it but came up with a dance called the "Poop Dance" to entertain her baby cousin on the toilet. Although her classmate Millie Tipton expressed an attraction to her in the past, she politely rejected her advances after admitting that she was straight and attracted to the opposite sex, leading the two to remain on amicable, cordial terms as friends. Desirae also admits to having a fondness for "sensitive guys", as demonstrated in her eventual interest in her white classmate Cooper MacDermott. 

He is an impish blonde with cornflower blue eyes and a tan complexion who is the lackey to the local middle school bully Eddy Beadles, after he showed her his softer side. She often shows her more talkative, outgoing side when around the boys she likes, during which she can have a broad sense of humor and shows a more playful demeanor. Despite their sharing a romance for an unspecified period, she and Sean decide to be friends instead after trying to make a long distance relationship work. Desirae winds up pursuing a steady relationship with Reggie Cox throughout her high school years, with whom she plans out a double wedding with Denise and Damien Frasier, her respective groom. She and Isaiah have more than one trophy, as she has two according to Desirae and gets the third after earning a participation trophy. She needs good grades in order to stay on her sports teams, so Wendy often tutors her in pre-calculus to give her good grades. She often plays laser tag but hates farms, and she is shown to have decent woodworking skills and likes to wear cherry chapstick. Desirae sometimes eats four lunches and enjoys the scent of lilac spice, meanwhile her favorite musicians are Charlie Puth and Sia. She has a strikingly similar, if not identical, appearance to her twin with bright green eyes, light brown skin with golden, yellowish undertones, and an energetic, full-lipped smile. She also has tightly curled strawberry blonde hair that reaches her mid back and is often worn loose or in a side braid. She states that Reggie had aspirations of majoring in computer science in college and possibly working for a government agency. Desirae later gives birth to a daughter that they name Kai and matures into a cheerful and level-headed young adult who is known for her calm and kind nature. 

She tends to spread kindness, joy and laughter to her young patients as they raise their family in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts but separates from Reggie for a time before they reconcile and try to fix their marriage. She was given two vases as wedding gifts, one from her aunt and one from an unidentified person, and while she is caring, she isn't afraid to punish her children if they go too far. An example of this is when she is concerned about her son Lincoln playing video games too much and tells him to do some exercise outside. Desirae has a credit card and is considered to be the most small-breasted of the girls during the summer before 9th grade year. She later shows her humanitarian side as well once she opens up a child rehabilitation clinic within the hospital she works at to offer guidance to young people going through trauma in their lives. She would eat ham shakes in which she puts various food groups in a blender and drinks the mix, in addition to knowing the words to Happy Birthday in French. She isn't allergic to peanuts, although her parents are concerned that she will develop a peanut allergy in the future, and she is also allergic to coniferous tree sap. Desirae had freckles when she was younger and has many identical tank tops that she uses, and she never turns down a triple-dog-dare. She knows how to fly a plane, because her uncle told her stories of when he was in the navy and got the necessary knowledge on how flying a plane works. Her mother purchased an inflatable bounce castle on clearance as a tradition when it was a Gillespie sibling's birthday, which was originally used on the twins' sixth birthday. She herself believes that she and her relatives from her side of the family were all born in Suffolk County, which is located in Long Island. ISFJ 2w3