Biography: Zachary Crane

ZACHARY CRANE

Zachary Howard Crane is the only child of George and Marcia Higgenbotham. Zach's parents went through a divorce when he was three, and his mother reverted to using her maiden name. Zach has never known his father, but his mother, a registered nurse at a local hospital, has done well by him as far as he is concerned.

As a child, Zach was a handful (to put it mildly), a pattern he retained for much of his youth. He was highly athletic (which made for easy babysitting) and found it impossible to sit still; his mother had him tested for ADHD, only to be told that he was simply an extremely energetic youth. On weekends he would come home with skinned knees and covered in mud; when he wasn't allowed outside, he would demolish the couch making a fort. He was not willfully disobedient by any means; he simply seemed to feel that there were far more interesting things to do than follow rules. By the time he was ten, his mother's hair was completely gray.

Once in junior high, with the children around him beginning to mature, Zach found himself in his element. He had long been a jokester, utilizing a zany sense of humor, physical comedy and a complete shamelessness to bring smiles to others' faces; but until now, these talents had had more effect on adults than his peers. Even better, there were sports teams in seventh grade; Zach joined both the baseball and the basketball team, but began to stick to the latter after an early growth spurt. He was outgoing, friendly and likeable; of all the people in Brandon's circle, Zach was the only one to have any real claim to high-school-style popularity. His charm extended to girls; he had his first sex at fifteen.

At Mount Hill High School he was even more popular than before, though only for a short time: in March of their freshman year, one of Zach's friends, Brandon Chambers, tried to kill himself. The event was highly publicized in an effort to up Brandon's popularity; in fact, the opposite happened. Zach and some of Brandon's other friends went to visit the boy in the hospital, where they found a fragile-looking kid basically swallowed by the giant bed, completely alone in the world—even his parents were nowhere to be seen. Zach realized at that moment that it was up to him: that Brandon needed friends, and that he (Zach) had better be that friend, because to do anything else would, essentially, be allowing Brandon Chambers to die.

Only one other of Brandon's friends, Sajel Malhotra, made the same decision, and the three grew extremely close over the course of the year. Shared loyalty to Brandon were a common ground between Sajel and Zach, as was their incessant sense of humor—Zach with off-the-wall irreverancies, Sajel with teasing and sarcasm. Eventually, the two became closer to each other than they were to Brandon. However, this never extended to romantic tension, even though Sajel had once entertained such feelings for Brandon; when questioned on it later (by Zach's then-fiancée), the two expressed surprise at the idea. After all, how could a brother and sister ever fall in love with each other?

Zach's new-found sense of responsibility and loyalty reduced his popularity yet another notch; not only had he somehow gotten himself associated with that weirdo Chambers guy, but he was refusing to separate! The loss of the public spotlight didn't bother Zach much, but it did have an unexpected effect on his sex life. Now, girls who might've once flirted with him would barely give him the time of day, and Zach found himself settling for girls who weren't as high on the hotness scale as he'd once had access to. If he was going to sleep around, he wanted the best, which he wasn't getting... And simultaneously, he was becoming slowly aware that varied and frantic coupling wasn't his style anymore. Watching Brandon and Meredith together only reinforced the lesson; the fact that Zach had (and still has) a bit of a thing for Meredith didn't hurt either. He was starting to realize that he wanted something more like Brandon had, permanent and meaningful—two things he was not likely to get from the in-crowd. Where, precisely, was he to find such a thing?

The answer was Christa Sternbacher, his Program Partner during his week going Naked In School. At first glance, the two could not have seemed more dissimilar: he a once-popular jock with a carefree attitude, she an Honor student, active in church, without any sexual experience whatsoever—a Nice Girl, in other words, the kind of girl Zach had never (even in his most outrageous or desperate fantasies) dreamed of pairing himself with. But Zach was smart enough to show her that there was more to him than the veneer of flippancy, and Christa was smart enough to be kind to him despite it. And, in the intervening years, they have learned to be humble enough to compromise on anything. While Zach and Christa are very compatible, they do not have nearly the level of sheer chemistry that Brandon and Meredith do, and must make up for it with a hard-nosed practicality and a willingness to let the other draw out new and more interesting parts of themselves. Zach and Christa earn their relationship, every day, with love and sheer determination.

Zach managed to steal some of the thunder at Brandon and Meredith's wedding by proposing to Christa the next morning. The two were married a year later, just after graduating college, with Meredith as the maid of honor and Sajel as Best Person (and wearing a tuxedo, at her own request). While the Chamberses moved to Mount Hill to take jobs and be near Meredith's family (and the easy babysitting they represented), the Cranes remained in the Shellview area, studying for their Master's degrees at Greenfield and keeping in touch with friends like Jon Stanford and Caitlyn Delaney.

Zach has found that Christa brings out the best in him, helping him to be more responsible and conscientious without losing his ability to laugh, kick back and relax. He has likewise helped Christa moderate her occasional bouts of overwork, teaching her to be happy in herself and not constantly chase the next new blush of accomplishment. Despite bumps and troubles in their own love lives, they have persevered together, and have begun to supplant Brandon and Meredith as the go-to couple for relationship advice. Both are open, cheerful people with a smile for everyone. They have higher sexual compatibilities than most, as Zach is possessed of such outrageous stamina that Christa rarely fails to climax before he does. (If anything, the opposite is sometimes true!) Christa has encouraging Zach's emerging Christianity, and the two are deeply involved in local ministry (especially music ministry) and hope to remain so for most of their lives. While babysitting Laurelyn was an abrupt awakening to the harsh realities of childbearing, the Cranes are preparing to have children of their own. Zachary Crane has found his self and his place, and looks forward to helping others do the same.

Zachary is based on a real person who, at the time of writing Arie & Brandon, I did not know very well; like Christa, his characterization has subsequently evolved. (Furthermore, he has actually influenced Christa's characterization a great deal: when trying to create a love interest for him, I rather naturally turned to the woman he was at-the-time dating and is now married to.)

• Zach. This is not quite right; he needs a much bigger smile (like Christa's).