Instagram // Zach Herron

Chapter 22

^^Emily's families house back home^^

**Emily's Pov**

Today I dropped a cover of 'Dancing On My Own' and I dropped new merch today that has already been sold out which is freaking crazy. Today can't get any better.

Zach texted that him and the guys were planning on coming over at around 5:30pm and right now it's noon. I sat on my couch editing another video that I have to post later when there were three knocks on my door. Weird.

I got up and went and opened the door to see two police officers standing in front of me looking very official.

"Are you Emily Smith?" The guy on the right said.

"Yes sir I am, is everything alright?" I asked fearing the worse.

"Would it be alright if we came in we have to talk about something?" The guy on the left said.

"Uhm, yeah, sure, uhm come right in we can have a seat in the kitchen." I said shaking and leading the way.

We sat down and the officers introduced themselves as Officer Mike and Officer Steven. I got us three glasses of water and sat down.

"So Miss. Emily we're afraid we have some bad news." Officer Mike said. I looked at him with fear in my eyes.

"Your mother and her troop were sent into a highly explosive zone and sadly one of the bombs went off. None of the bodies have been identified yet. But, no one from her troop has been reported to be seen." When Officer Steven said that, tears started streaming down my face.

"We are very sorry, but we don't know for sure what has happened to your mother. If any news happens we will inform you and your family." Officer Mike said.

They both hugged me and said that they needed to be on their way and when that door closed, it felt like my world just ended. My mom and I weren't super close, but she was always there for me, supporting me, loving me, even when she wanted to kill me from my stupid hormones.

My poor siblings and father who have probably heard the news right now are probably breaking down too.

I got up off of the ground and booked a ticket back home to Miami to see them. They can't be alone right now. Yet, neither can I. I quickly put together my bag that had a weeks worth of clothes and packed my laptop, camera, chargers, and my phone and walked out the door and waited for my Uber to the airport.

I texted the guys saying that they couldn't come over since something came up. I couldn't tell anyone yet. My Uber driver kept asking me if I was okay and I had to keep lying when I was hurting deep down.

When I arrived at the airport, I didn't have to check any bags and went through security and then went off to my gate. When I got there, my flight was about to board so I sat for a little bit.

After about 10 minutes my flight was called and I got up and boarded the plane to my seat. I had the entire row to myself which is perfect for my thoughts and I. The flight attendants started talking about the safety measure things, which I didn't listen to and soon we were soaring in the air.

Throughout the flight I decided to try and sleep since today has been rough and all of my crying made me very tired. Towards the end of my flight I decided to edit my videos since I don't know when I'll be posting next.

When I landed I turned my phone off of airplane mode and scheduled my Uber.

32 missed calls

61 text messages

Most were from Zach and the rest from the other boys. I decided to text Jonah back since he's my best friend out of all of them and told him that I'm okay. I didn't want to text anyone else since they would start asking questions.

I got to my Uber and we were off to my old house, my family knew I was coming back home, and my sister said that we all needed her asap. When we got to my house I thanked my driver and walked up to the front door which was unlocked and walked right in.

The first thing I saw was my father in the kitchen with bloodshot eyes getting a glass of water. I walked over to him and gave him a hug, he started to cry a bit and was saying how nice it is to have me back.

Next I went to my little brother's room where he was building another Lego set.

"Hey bub," I said and he looked at me shocked and ran up to me and engulfed me in a hug which I returned squeezing him and holding onto him very tight.

"Emmy, you're back," Jordan said with his cute voice that I've missed so much.

"I'm back, how are you?" I asked seeing a few dried up tears.

"I'm okay, dad's not doing so well and neither is Max." He said, Max and my mom were very close and she helped max with a lot especially since Max wants to be a solider.

I hugged Max tighter and told him that I would be right back and went into my sisters room to see her stuffing her face in her pillow since she was crying.

"Surprise!" I said jumping on her bed.

She jumped up and hugged me crying into my shirt a little, but I didn't mind. We sat there for a couple of minutes before she pulled away and fell onto her bed, going to sleep.

I got up and went to my brothers room. I tried to open the door which is locked so I grabbed the key to his room from my old room and opened the door to see objects scattered about and him laying on his bed sleeping.

I walked over to his bed and started poking him like I used to do when he needed to get up.

"Go away," he mumbled trying to swat me away.

"Well that's not very nice," I said.

He immediately flipped around, looked at me, and then pulled me in for a hug. My family loves hugs. We sat there hugging and I was rubbing circles on his back. When we pulled away we sat there talking and I was asking him about football since he's really good at it. We kept talking til I went back downstairs to make dinner only to see my dad starting it, but looking like he was about to break any second.