“SON OF A bitch!”

My curse is drowned out by the sound of a very large, very expensive vase crashing to the floor, bits and pieces of red porcelain scattering across the hardwood.

Tipping my head back, I shout towards the ceiling. “Motherfucking piece of shit crutches!”

The door to the house opens without the courtesy of a knock and my mother tsks me. “Cole, language, dear.”

Turning my back on her, I hobble over to the couch, using one of my crutches to shove the coffee table out of my way. I flop down on the cushions, throwing both of the offending pieces of metal across the room, not caring what they hit when they land.

“I’ll have Martha come over and clean up this mess as soon as she’s finished making lunch,” mother tells me as she gingerly steps over the broken vase on the toes of her high heels.

“It’s not Martha’s job to clean up after me. I don’t need a fucking housekeeper.”

I know I shouldn’t be taking my frustrations out of my mother, but I can’t help it. I’ve been back in the states for three months and, aside from the trips between here and the hospital, I haven’t been outside of this house. I’m climbing the walls from boredom, and my frustration at not being able to walk without the aid of crutches and being unable to do the simplest of tasks on my own has turned me into the crankiest of assholes. I also hate that I’m a grown ass man and I’ve been reduced to living in the guesthouse behind my parents’ home until I can maneuver on my own.

“I’ll have Martha bring over one of the Persian rugs from your father’s study later this afternoon,” mother tells me, ignoring my outburst as she glances around the room. “I didn’t have time to get a decorator in here before you came home.”

Bringing both of my hands up, I rub my palms over my face, the stubble on my cheeks making a scratching noise, reminding me that I haven’t shaved since God knows when.

“I don’t need a rug, I don’t need any more vases and I don’t need a decorator. I’m not staying here, Mother, you know that. As soon as I finish with my physical therapy and I can walk on my own, I’m going home.”

My voice waivers when I say the word home. Even though these grounds and the connecting house is where I grew up, it’s not where I belong. The seventy-five hundred square foot monstrosity my parents own is filled with marble and expensive artwork, things I was never allowed to touch and rooms I was never allowed to enter. My childhood home always felt like more of a museum than a place where people live, love and make memories. Even the guesthouse, though smaller and less ostentatious, still reflects my mother’s expensive taste and makes me feel like a bull in a china shop. Every time I turn a corner, I’m bumping into some overpriced piece of shit masquerading as art.

There is only one place that will ever be home to me, a place full of bright colors, warmth and almost two years of the best memories of my life. I wanted nothing more than to go straight to the house we shared as soon as I woke up in the hospital after my last surgery. I wanted to walk through the front door she insisted on painting yellow because it made her happy when she came home, I wanted to smell the vanilla scented candles she had lit in every single room and I wanted to stare at the photographs of the two of us she’d hung on every available inch of wall space.

The minute I swung my legs over the edge of the hospital bed and looked down at my bandaged knee, I’d realized I wouldn’t be walking anywhere on my own anytime soon, especially through our front door. I needed to be one hundred percent better when I went home to the woman I love. Given the fact that she’d changed her number, something I’d discovered when my call to her cell phone the day I woke up stateside went to someone else, the odds of her accepting my sudden reappearance in her life weren’t looking so hot. Between the anesthesia-induced disorientation and the pain of back-to-back knee surgeries, I’ll admit I didn’t react very well when I heard another man answer what I thought was her phone. After the poor guy who had the unfortunate luck of getting her old number became the recipient of my jealous rage, I quickly realized I needed to get my fucking head on straight before I tried to talk her.

“Cole, you’ve been gone for almost a year. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m sure she’s moved on by now. I think it’s best if you just concentrate on your therapy and, when you’re ready, your father and I will help you find a new place to live. In the meantime, though, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d like.”

My mother’s breezy tone as she talks about the love of my life “moving on” makes my palms sweat and my heart threaten to burst out of my chest. How many times in the last year did I have those very same thoughts while I lay awake at night in the middle of some Dominican rain forest? A hundred? A thousand? Every fucking night after the sun went down and the frustration of desperately searching for Fernandez faded into the quiet solitude of darkness, I wondered if someone else was holding her in his arms at that exact moment. I knew she deserved a man who wouldn’t leave her high and dry with a half-assed explanation as to why he had to go, but that didn’t make it any easier to imagine someone else kissing the soft skin behind her neck or running his hands up the inside of her bare thighs.

“Did you even try to keep in touch with her, like I asked?” I question my mother softly, pushing away the mental image of someone else’s hands on my girl.

It was no secret that my mother never liked Olivia. The one meal we’d shared with my parents in the restaurant of the upscale country club where they’re members was the most strained, awkward experience of my life. While Olivia tried everything to make my mother like her, my mother did everything to prove to Olivia that she wasn’t good enough for me. When she asked Olivia if her dating me had anything to do with the inheritance that sat untouched in my bank account since I turned eighteen, I grabbed Olivia’s hand, pulled her up from the table and told my mother to fuck off. We didn’t speak again until I went to her the day I left for the Dominican, begging her to look out for Olivia and make sure she was okay.