Just One of the Guys
Chapter Nine

Nash

I don't know what kinds of strings he was able to pull, but Agent Hernandez managed to make it from New Haven, Connecticut to Bryan, Texas in under four hours, meeting us at the police station. I went over everything that I was able to tell them so many times, that I could probably recite it in my sleep. I don't know what they were expecting, my story to change, maybe. But, I don't even really know anything.

Her disappearance could have absolutely nothing to do with her father, and that is the stance that I take while speaking with them, doing as Hernandez instructed and sticking to our backstory, telling them nothing of her past before she ended up at Endover, anything that had happened after her arrival at Endover, or her father.

But, on the other hand, her disappearance could have *everything* to do with her father. And, that fear is what is making me sick. I know that the FBI are looking into it, I have every bit of faith in Agent Hernandez and his team, but this is the woman that I love.

Averi.

Emerson.

She is my everything.

She is my world.

She is who I want to be my future wife.

She is who I want to be the mother of our future children.

She is everything that I want, period.

I try to not think about worst case scenarios as Hernandez talks with the officers who had been questioning Shelton and me.

I don't question the story that he tells them, waiting until I can get him alone, so that we can talk without being overheard.

Shelton is in another room, likely being questioned as well. I only know that Hernandez is here because he briefly stepped into the room that they've been holding me in before the officers left me to speak with him.

Sitting within the four walls of the white room with the mirrored window, I try to not let my thoughts get away from me. I try not to worry about what could have happened to her. I try not to think about what it means if her father did replace her.

I try.

I try.

I try.

And I fail.

I fail so goddamn hard.

"Let's go." Hernandez says, stepping into the room once more, giving me a subtle shake of his head to let me know that at the moment, we know nothing more.

"You good, man?" Shelton asks as he steps up next to me. I shake my head, not knowing how to even put into words to tell him because I am most definitely not good. "Look, I know it's hard-fuck, do I. But, you gotta let them do their thing. You're lucky that you got that Hernandez dude in your pocket to help you."

"He's not in my pocket." I snap, knowing that I'm taking my frustration out on him when I shouldn't be. He's been nothing but supportive and he's hardly even a friend, or he wasn't. Before tonight, he had only been just another teammate, but now, we share something that not many people would understand. "It's not, fuck-sorry, man." I tell him, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath to try to calm myself down.

"It's not like that, he's a friend of Em's-has been for a few years," I stop talking, realizing how odd that sounds, and pinch the bridge of my nose, as if in thought-fuck, there's no as if, what way do I swing this?

"Family friend," I blurt awkwardly, "She said that he was a family friend and she called him from my phone one day-about something or another, I don't even know. When she gave me my phone back, she told me that she saved his number in my phone as a *'just in case'*. Thank fuck for that, I guess-not that I ever could have imagined needing it and wish like hell that I didn't need it tonight."

As we walk out of the station with Hernandez on our heels, I close my eyes and take a deep breath once again, taking in the cool, crisp, nighttime air as I try to wrap my head around the fucking shitshow that is suddenly my life, once again— only this time, I don't have Emerson with me to be the silverlining to an otherwise fucked up life.

"Nash," Hernandez says, clamping his hand down on my shoulder and bringing me out of my thoughts, "we'll keep looking for her. We won't leave a single stone unturned, I swear to you. But, for the time being, you gotta keep living life as normal."

"Normal, what the-no, fuck no! Emerson is missing and you expect me to just, what? Go to class tomorrow, practice, play in the game on Saturday and just forget fuckall about her?" By the time I finish, I'm fuming and seeing red.

Shaking my head back and forth, I pace up and down the sidewalk just outside of the station, unable to even believe that he had the audacity to tell me to act like everything is a-o-fucking-kay and that it's just another fucking day. "How can you "

"You have to!" Shelton says, startling me that it's him that is the one jumping in and coming to Hernandez's defense instead of the man himself. "I know it fucking sucks, man-fuck do I know. But, you fucking have to!" "And how the hell would you fucking know? It's not like you-" I start, but he cuts me off.

"I know because I've been through it. I'm still fucking going through it!" He growls, his eyes full of barely restrained torment and now that I'm actually paying attention to him, his entire body is practically vibrating, as though he is on the verge of falling apart himself. "For the last month, I have had to wake up every single fucking day and act as if nothing has changed. Put on a fake ass fucking smile and pretend that my entire world wasn't ripped away from me, pretend that I don't have a fucking daughter who lost her mother! A daughter who doesn't ask every goddamn day where her mommy is, and what the fuck can I say to that? Huh?"

His voice begins to sound thick and his eyes turn red as they fill with tears as he fights to hold back the hurt and torment that he has been fighting with on a daily basis, a battle that I knew absolutely nothing about. *How did I not know that someone had been taken in my own neighborhood?* I can't help but wonder as I watch him reel his emotions back in.

"I know, Nash.” He says, his light gray eyes locked with my dark ones. "I know what you are going through better than probably anyone else in your life—including your detective friend here." He says, turning his attention to Hernandez momentarily, before turning his cool gaze back onto me once more. "It's hard as fuck, but you have to keep living. Imagine how you would feel if the roles were reversed." He suggests, and when looking at it with the roles reversed, the suggestion doesn't sound so absurd. I wouldn't want Emerson to stop living because I was no longer a part of her life. I would want to know that she could do it without me. I would want her to live.

"Okay. I'll do it. I'll keep living each day as if nothing has changed." I tell both of the men standing before me.

"But, I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it for her."