Biography: Brandon Chambers

Brandon Chambers

Brandon Percival Chambers, an only child, was born to Phyllis Rebecca and William Fitzsimmons Chambers, two upstanding citizens in the city of Skyton Heights. As a child, Brandon was rambunctious and outgoing, often playing outside with the neighborhood kids, and his parents were considered pillars of the community for their generosity of spirit and willingness to help others.

Though Brandon didn't know it, the trouble began to set in even during his childhood. Various problems had beset the neighborhood—mostly administrative goofs but occasionally something messier—and his parents found themselves increasingly called-upon to try and handle these problems. By the time he was eight, they were so deeply involved in the governmental process that they decided to quit their jobs and devote themselves to it full-time. By the time he was ten, they were becoming known on Capitol Hill.

The Chamberses were able to move into a grand new house in the suburb of Red Plains, some twenty minutes from Mount Hill, using inside connections to have the place built for far more cheaply than normal. The lot was several acres, and the house itself some 7,000 square feet. The ten-year-old Brandon was at first overjoyed... But shortly after the move, his parents announced that from now on they would be spending the bulk of the year in Washington D.C. They taught him some rudimentary cooking and housecleaning skills, hired a housekeeper, set up a practically-unlimited expense account, told him to be good, and left. For the next eight years, he would be lucky to see them two weeks a year.

The isolation aged Brandon, making him more mature and more independent. He was naturally resilient and tried to remain optimistic: he now had the run of a massive house, which ought to interest his friends, and could get the housekeeper Greta Shaw to drive him just about anywhere and buy him just about anything. To a ten-year-old, it was paradise. But even to a ten-year-old, there was a subconscious understanding that this was his parents' apology for being away for so long... And that, if he had to choose between his old house and his old family or this new one, he'd rather have the old one.

By the time he was fourteen, Brandon was a loner. He had few friends (partially due to protective parents, who felt that his parents' absence represented an unsupervised environment) and partially due to his sudden nervousness. He found it harder to approach people and befriend them, for fear that they too might decide to simply disappear one day. His parents had appointed family friends to support him, but they weren't a family to him; he didn't feel included in their camaraderie. Finally, in despair, Brandon attempted to take his own life.

The resulting scandal approached almost a media circus. Red Plains, being a high-class community, rarely saw anything as twisted as one of its teenagers trying to off themselves. The administration at Mount Hill High made a solemn announcement to its studentry, hoping that Brandon would be welcomed with open arms when he returned to school. Friends of the family wondered how they hadn't seen it, and vowed to be more attentive. Brandon felt nothing. Half of his friends had abandoned him in the aftermath, and the few brave enough to remain loyal to him were now being ostracized. He felt stupid: he couldn't live properly, and now he couldn't even die properly. How lame was that? Throughout the entire affair, there was no word from his parents; perhaps the messages were lost in the shuffle. Whatever the case, they didn't learn about it for another two years.

As time went on, Brandon's life began to pick up; he would later see those years as the worst of his life. In the end, only two friends really remained loyal to him, Zachary Crane and Sajel Malhotra, but a few others befriended him out of the chaos: Kelsey Waters and Tim Kwan. He met a girl, Jane Myers, and (even better!) successfully asked her out. She wasn't as into him as he might have liked, but beggars can't be choosers; and besides, it was better than nothing. He had begun to think that his crush on Anna Dazols in fifth grade was going to be the extent of his love life!

Then the craziest thing in the world happened. In later years Brandon would know it for the best thing to ever happen to him as well, but at the time it was downright crazy.

Mount Hill High School had been making plans to implement the Naked In School program since his sophomore year. Brandon had no opinions on it one way or the other; he wasn't going to sign up for it, that was for sure! He'd had enough of people staring at him. So it was with some horror that he found himself called into the principal's office on the first day of The Program and asked to participate.

While Brandon would ordinarily have said No straight off the bat, the circumstances were unusual. His Program Partner for the week was to be Arie Chang, a junior with clinical depression and a tendency to self-harm. The principal, Dr. Zelvetti, wanted Brandon involved because of his experience with both topics. Brandon, feeling blackmailed, agreed.

The rest, of course, is history. Brandon flourished that week, having found the self-confidence to withstand the glare of public scrutiny. He encouraged Arie to make changes in her life, to fight the prison she felt her parents had built around her. And, while he lost his relationship with Jane, he gained a new one in the person of Meredith Levine, whom he would marry just under four years later.

Since then, Brandon has had his share of rocky moments. A series of misunderstandings almost caused him to break up with Meredith. He had to withstand his parents' scorn when they walked in on the two of them during one of their unexpected visits. When he was a junior in college, he and his wife accidentally conceived a daughter, Laurelyn, and he was forced to abort his studies to support them (as well as marry Meredith on the sly, though they had been living together for years). Shortly after the wedding, he received news that his parents had been killed in a private plane crash. And there has always been the stress inherent of being the center of such a chaotic group of friends: Arie with her self-injurious tendencies, Jane's hostility towards sexual topics, the constant bickering between Zach and Sajel. But he feels equal to the task now, having been forged and tempered in far hotter fires. In his wife and daughter, in his loyal friends, Brandon has everything he needs to make for himself the life and family he has always wanted.

Brandon, in personality, draws strongly from my own personality. Physically, he looks nothing like me. Even worse, he's a guy, making it difficult to find photographs of him that would not involve 1) ridiculous musculature or 2) ridiculous gayness. For the nonce, accept this with a grain of salt:

• Brandon (hair's too light, but that's his smile)