On what was supposed to be one of the happiest moments of my life I was what you would call the “most miserable person on the face of the earth.” And actually I was the most miserable person on the face of this earth... my sister called me that. She had a reason, I was miserable. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. Most everyone else was happy, especially for my brother. When he had announced his news to us it proved to me that all I had known was over. He assured me that nothing was going to change, but it was. I could just tell it was all changing.
        It had been changing for awhile, my life as I knew it was over the day that my oldest brother moved out.
        Isaac was 19 when we finished recording our album, I was 14, Taylor was 16. We spent the months of January and February promoting our new album. In March, (Taylor was 17 then) we set out on a worldwide tour, hitting Tulsa to Australia to Asia to Europe to South America and then ending up in NY. The tour ended around September, a month before my fifteenth birthday and Ike’s twentieth. We went home for that month. That was the worst mistake of our lives.

        “Zac! It’s almost time!”
        I whirled around and came face to face with my eldest brother. I put my hand to my chest and looked back at the mirror, fixing my tie. “You scared me,” I told him.
        He placed his hand on my shoulder. “Nervous?” He asked. He reached over and fixed my tie. I put my hands back on it but he pushed me away. “Don’t touch that.”
        I faced him again. “There are butterflies in my stomach,” I confessed.
        My oldest brother laughed. “You are going to do fine.”
        I shrugged. “Let’s hope so. I hate reading in public. I always mess up.” My brother laughed.
        “Hey you,” a female’s voice said from the doorway. She walked in and threaded her hands over my brother’s shoulders. “Am I welcome here.”
        “Of course, honey,” Ike said. He kissed her mouth. I looked away in disgust. Not disgust towards them, but towards myself. I hadn’t had a date yet and that sort of depressed me. When I saw Ike kissing her it proved to me that he had moved on and I hadn’t. I was still a child.
        When I looked back at them they had switched spots, now Ike was standing behind her, his hands on her stomach. “Andy, you looked beautiful,” I told her.
        Andy smiled at me. “You look handsome, kiddo,” she replied. “A little wrinkled though.” She brushed my shoulders. I slouched over but she made me stand up straight. She continued to fix my suit. “That’s better.” She put one hand to her back. “Do you know how long it took your sisters and me to find a dress that would cover this stomach of mine?” Ike and I laughed. “And it’s all his fault too,” she blamed my brother.
        “Hah hah,” Ike said sarcastically. He rolled his eyes and touched her stomach again. “And when this kid is born you are going to be blaming me again.”
        “You better believe it Hanson,” she joked. She glanced at her watch. “I better go check on Clare and the rest of the girls. I’ll see you two at show time.” She left my brother and I alone in the dressing room.

        The month that we got home from touring, Ike moved out. One day he announced that he and his friend found an apartment in downtown Tulsa and before anyone could say anything he was gone. It wasn’t as though he just upped and left, he gave us a fair warning. He was turning twenty a few months after and he needed his space. Taylor, me, and the rest of the kids were still in school and Ike didn’t go to college on account of the band. He drove over and practiced every day but I didn’t see him that much. Taylor had his driver’s license so he went to Ike’s apartment a lot and the two of them hung out. Tay seldomly offered to take me. I could tell that they had a close relationship. To tell you the truth it didn’t bother me that much. I had a bunch of friends and we hung out a lot. No girlfriends though.
        When my fifteenth birthday rolled around, Ike brought Andy to our house for the first time. He introduced her as his girlfriend of “two months.” Two months! Can you imagine that!?! He didn’t tell us for TWO MONTHS! Andy lived in his building and they had met through a mutual friend. On Christmas they announced they were getting married.
        Married at the age of twenty.
        They lived together in downtown Tulsa and she accompanied us around the world when we went promoting again.
        January of 2001 we went to NY. Everyone knew that Ike was married but our fans stood by us. Everything was different but in a way everything was the same. There were still fans at the hotel and at our shows, throwing themselves at me. That was the way that things stayed the same. I looked for a girl to ask out but I didn’t find one.
        Taylor did.
        Her name was Clare. She had been a fan for five years and she was his age. They hung out all the time. Taylor and Ike got closer and whenever they weren’t with their wife/girlfriend they were with each other, completely ignoring me. That was the way it was different. I was part of the band but only when we were on stage.
        Sure I was still their brother. Sure they still beat up on me whenever they could. Whenever they weren’t with the girls that is. But I wasn’t a friend.
        Taylor would come back to the hotel at all hours of the night when we were in NY but he was seventeen turning eighteen, and most of all he was responsible.
        When we went back to Tulsa, it was hard on Taylor. He had to leave Clare behind. I figured that was the end of them. They couldn’t handle a long distance relationship...

        “Zachary!” My mother rushed over to me and hugged me tightly.
        “Hey, Mommy,” I said. There were tears rushing down her cheeks. I held her at arms length. “Mom it hasn’t even started yet! Don’t cry!”
        “I can’t help it baby,” she gushed. “This is one of the best days of my life. I’m so happy!” She brushed the wrinkles out of my suit just as Andy had done moments before. “I came in here to tell you I love you! And you have five minutes to get out there and do your thing.”

        When Isaac announced that Andy was pregnant I couldn’t believe my ears. We just got back to Tulsa, they hadn’t even had time to have done anything yet. Mom and Dad got out the best champagne, for everyone except Andy that is, and had a toast. That night I snuck out with my friends and got drunk, the first time in my life, First in a long line of hangovers after partying too hard on too many nights.
        Andy’s miscarriage threw us all off track, Ike wouldn’t practice for a week he was so upset. Mom and Andy’s mother spent days taking her around to get her mind off the lost child. She hadn’t even been a month pregnant at the time of the miscarriage.
        When Taylor turned eighteen, the first thing he did was fly to NY. Alone. When he came back he brought Clare along with him. She was seventeen turning eighteen in August and decided to leave NY and move to Tulsa to go to college. She was enrolled and everything. Though I think her real reason was to be with Taylor.
        My brothers and I recorded a new album that year and started again on a worldwide tour, Andy coming along the whole time as well as the whole Hanson family. I was only turning sixteen and I needed a guardian. Ike and Tay didn’t want to have to be responsible for me. Clare had to stay in Tulsa to go to school. That relationship wouldn’t last! How could it last! We were in Asia and she was in Tulsa! That was too much of a distance between continents, it was over I just knew it had to be over.

        “Zac.”
        I looked up at my baby sister. “Hey Zoë. What’s on your mind, kid?”
        “Why are you sad?” She asked me. She strolled over towards me and stood in front.
        I shrugged and shook my head. “Zo, do you remember what life used to be like?”
        “What?” She looked confused. She was too young to really understand. “
        Zoë, when you were born your brothers and me were already on the road, we were all ready famous... do you ever feel as though you missed out on something?”
        She made a face. “No, do you?”
        I sighed. “I used to.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Now I just wish it was the way it used to be.”
        “Everything will be OK,” Zoë said, gesturing to me to lean down. I bent down and she hugged my neck, kissing my cheek gently. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

        Clare and Taylor were always together throughout 2002. She came with us to NY during winter vacation to visit her family. My brothers and I were on television shows to promote the new holiday album we recorded after the last tour. The questions were almost always directed towards Isaac:
        Ike, tell me, how do you manage being a husband and a teen idol?
        Isaac, any plans for children?
        That one kind of threw him off. He didn’t want to upset Andy by telling everyone about the miscarriage from the previous year and it was still a sore topic within the family.
        “We’re trying.” Was always the response.
        That was the year I started smoking.

        I leaned my aching head on the cool wall. “Zachary.”
        Another voice to add to my headache.
        “Hey Dad.”
        “You feeling OK?” He looked concerned.
        I nodded, looking down at his feet. “I’m just a little nervous that’s all.” When I looked back up my dad was filming me with the video camera that we always joked was permanently attached to his hand. “Please!” I begged. “Get that out of my face.”
        “Zac, come on! This is a great day and we need it all on tape.”
        “You say that about every performance! Every event! Every... everything!” I took a deep breath.
        “Zac, please? For the future generations of the Hanson children and grandchildren?” Dad begged.
        I gave in and looked up at the camera lens. “Hey everyone watching, it’s me... well duh. Anyway, today is going to be great and I wish you the best of luck for the rest of your lives.”

        In March 2003 after getting back to Tulsa I had a car, a license, and the news that Andy was once again pregnant. This time she made it past the first month and everything was going well. I was seventeen, almost done with being a junior in high school, and Taylor was now twenty, but not in college. Ike was twenty-two and the soon to be father of twins. TWINS! Jeeze! Talk about trying!

        “Ready kid?” This time it was Taylor. His blonde hair cut just over the top of his ears, his face pale with fear.
        I looked down at the floor and then up at him. He walked forward and looked at himself in the mirror behind my head. “Scared?”
        Taylor nodded, then shook his head. “Petrified.” I had to smile at that. He smiled back at me and then his smile faded. “Nothing’s going to change you know.”
        I looked up into his bright blue eyes and saw the truth behind them. “It already has.”

        June of 2003 it was announced.
        It was now August.

        On what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life, I was the “most miserable person on the face of the earth.” Why did it have to be that way? This was a happy day. Maybe they were right. Maybe things wouldn’t have to change.

        I took my place beside my brothers in front of the front row.
        “Welcome Zac,” Ike said. “We were waiting for you.”
        I nodded. “Let’s do this.”
        My littlest sister Zoë came down first, dressed in a beautiful lavender dress. Macky came after. Next was Jessica with our cousin Wade, then Avery and Wade’s little brother Josh. Next was Mom and Dad, Clare’s mother and Ike’s best friend Ken. Taylor’s friends came down with Clare’s friends on their arms. I glanced at Ike’s wife sitting in the front row next to my mother, father, and sisters, she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.
        I looked at Isaac. He swallowed hard and smiled over at me. I smiled back. I was starting to feel the excitement, I was starting to feel better about everything.
        That’s when I heard the organ start the familiar tune. The tune that I had heard two years ago standing next to Isaac in front of the whole congregation of family and friends. The tune that meant a new life was starting.
        Clare looked beautiful. The crown on her head glittered like diamonds. My mother was crying at her seat. Taylor kicked my foot and nodded at me. He still looked pale but now he was bursting with excitment.
        Clare was almost close to us.
        “Its just sixty minutes,” I whispered to Taylor. A smile formed on his mouth as he watched his girlfriend walk up to us slowly.
        Clare’s father lifted the vale and placed his hand on my second oldest brother’s hand. He kissed his daughter’s forehead and touched Taylor and Clare’s hands together.
        An hour later, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor Hanson climbed into the waiting limo to drive off to the wedding reception in downtown Tulsa. We made it and I didn’t even mess up once in the reading. Maybe if things were changing it was for the better after all.