For five years, I’d thought of New York as home, tried to push the tropical island of Palmira and my family's little beige ranch house into the past. I embraced the city life. I walked fast, talked fast, took the subway. Raved about tall buildings and gray skies.

Now that I'm back and smelling the night jasmine, hearing the waves of the Gulf of Mexico, I feel both nostalgic and trapped. All of the people I’ve talked to tonight run through my mind. They all seem happy. They appear happy, at least. Diego, Scott, Amber. Sawyer, Liam. Jessica. They all have their shit together.

I’m the only unemployed loser who wants to escape from an island paradise. But I have nowhere to go.

“Hey.” I walk into the kitchen and immediately pour myself a glass of sweet tea. I gulp it down.

My mom grunts from the living room. She doesn’t seem to sleep at night anymore, not since Dad died. And while she hadn’t exactly been stress-free when he was alive, now she’s turned into another person. A ball of nerves and anxiety, all because of stupid money.

I’m not even sure my dad’s life insurance policy even put a dent in my parents’ debt. I haven’t dared ask because I haven’t gotten over the fact that part of the reason why they were in so much debt was because they paid for my college. In cash, straight from their retirement savings. And, as I found out, they’d taken out a second mortgage on the house.

They’d paid for my school out of pocket. Had to, because the big scholarship from the town tourism council, the one I won my senior year that would have covered two years of tuition, was revoked.

All because of my naked selfies.

Not the image we want to project for the island, Ms. Richardson. We wish you well in your schooling, the terse letter said.

I feel the guilt every time I look at my mom. Now that Dad’s gone, she usually hunkers in her bed during the day when she’s not helping my brother at the restaurant. Stays up half the night playing poker on her iPad in the semi-darkness. The TV is always on, with the sound down. Usually, she watches shows about hoarders.

It's depressing as hell.

When I got laid off from the website, it seemed to make sense to return to Palmira. I’d live rent-free and thought coming home to live for a while would help Mom. I don’t think it has. And every night, I see her slumped in the recliner, swiping and pressing on the screen, I get more upset and feel like fleeing.

“I feel gross. I’m exhausted. Headed to bed.” I plant a kiss on her forehead, and she looks up and closes the iPad cover. I think about telling her that I saw Diego, but I’m not sure how she’ll react. Since it’s the first time she’s ripped herself away from her screen for a few days, I don’t say a word.

“Love you, baby,” she whispers. “You have mascara on your cheeks.”

“I know. Love you too, mom.”

“Wait. Catalina?”

I turn. “Yeah, mom?”

She sighs and looks straight at me. “I’m thinking about going to visit my sister for a while. An extended stay in Maine. It might be good for me. There are too many ghosts here in Florida.”

I nod slowly. It would be good for her. But that would mean I’d be alone in the house with the ghosts. Scott lives with Amber now in an apartment on the beach, and if my mom leaves, I’d be the only one left here.

“I think that’s an awesome idea, mom. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

I can handle living alone here, though. I could get used to living with ghosts of the past. At least until I find another job.

As I walk upstairs, it occurs to me that crying is so common in this house that she doesn’t even ask why mascara is staining my face. It’s apparently a given that it would.

I lather up in the shower and sniffle, then scrub my face with my hands under the water. When did life become so fucking complicated? Was it when Dad died during his usual, six-mile morning run by the waterfront? Or earlier, when everything happened between Diego and me? Life had been so good in high school, until the photos. Or was it when I was laid off and forced to come back to this humid hell?

While blow-drying my hair, my mind is on Diego, and I wonder how he heard the news about my dad. Who told him? How did he react? Had he read an article about my dad online, or did someone e-mail him while he was staying at a hotel in Hong Kong?

Did he cry when he found out?

He loved my family, and they loved him. He’d been my age and in my grade, but was first a friend of my brother’s, who was two years older than me and Diego. And because Diego had been practically a feral child growing up – never knew his father well and his mother was an off-again, on-again pill addict – he’d spent tons of time at our house when we were kids. He was like a brother to me, until he wasn’t.

It was like a switch flicked on when we realized our attraction to each other. We were both eighteen, the summer after graduation. No one, from my brother to our friends to my parents, was all that surprised. Scott was more like my parents: outgoing, extroverted, bubbly. I was darker and nerdier. So was Diego.

You two are meant for each other, Jessica would say.

And our relationship was something my parents even encouraged. When we first started dating, I told them. They were so accepting of us that they had planned to bring Diego with us on vacation.

That all changed after the photos. Everyone seemed disappointed in both of us. Rightfully so, I guess.

I flick off the light and slip under the covers. This is the bed where we slept together that one time my parents went out of town that summer. It’s a full-size mattress, not big, not small. Had been enough for the two of us back then.

While in New York, the memory of him, of us, had faded. Replaced by parties and drinks and promises from guys that initially seemed almost as kind as Diego. But never were.

And yet, what had happened between us constantly steered my life, buffeted my entire being into gale-force winds. I’ve never been able to forgive or forget.

Now that I’ve seen Diego in the flesh, now that I am lying exactly where he used to kiss me for hours, I can practically smell his spicy citrus scent on my sheets and my skin. My body’s desire for him is white-hot. Scalding. My need for him churns up feelings of shame, though.

I think about texting my brother to ask for Diego’s number and glance at my phone on the nightstand. Where’s my control? My pride?

My palms brush my nipples over my tank top. They pebble and harden as I think about Diego’s muscular body and the way the corners of his mouth turned up when he smiled at me.

It’s soothing to let my mind wander, to fantasize about sex. Better than thinking about the present hell of my life. I caress my bare stomach under my top, then lightly pinch my nipple. I shiver, thinking about Diego’s tongue in the same place.

Back when we were together, Diego was eighteen and horny as hell. We’d play with each other for hours, either at his house or mine, wherever was free from adults. My parents knew, of course. But they tried to preserve a veneer of appropriateness, hence a no-sleeping-in-the-same-bed rule. They didn’t mind if we held hands at dinner, or if we stole kisses during movie night.

They were the cool parents. Helpful. Involved. My dad was a hippie-turned mortgage broker, and he tried to hang on to his counterculture roots. He took Diego out for coffee and talked to him about how to treat a woman with respect.

I don’t know why your dad always talks to me about that. I respect you more than anyone on the planet, Cata, Diego would say.

My mom went with me to the clinic to get birth control.

I’d rather have you be safe and explore your sexuality with Diego than in a car somewhere with some random boy, my mom had said. Don’t tell your father. He’ll be uncomfortable.

Maybe because we were geeks, or because we were afraid of the intensity between us, we waited to have sex. We told ourselves we were being responsible and safe by waiting for me to be on the pill for a full month. Oh, we tried to be so adult about it. And we did everything but. Sex was on our minds all the time and we teased each other. Like I said, horny teenagers.

One afternoon, while he was at work, he texted me.

I want you so bad. Can you send me a photo?

I responded with the naked pictures, thinking I was so grown up and edgy. I finally had a boyfriend, I thought. Why not show him something hot? Didn’t all the girls in school send naked photos to guys? Jessica and I had been the nerdy prudes in high school. We’d never do anything like that.

My hand skims my stomach and slips beneath the waistband of my underwear. I’m wet and creamy between my legs. Had been since I had heard Diego’s voice. I fantasize about him lying in bed, me on top, riding him. Putting my thumb to his lips and watching his exquisite mouth open and his eyes flutter shut. The tangle of his tongue, the sensation of his chest underneath my hand, the way his eyes would flutter shut as he grew more turned on.

Tossing my hair while he cups my breasts with enough force that I whimper.

“Catalina,” he’d gasp, his Spanish accent more pronounced with every stroke. Back when we were teens, we’d kiss for hours, and he’d whisper my full name and some dirty Spanish words in rapid-fire syllables into my ear, and it made me melt.

Te quiero, he’d said, over and over.

In Spanish, that means both I want you and I love you. I guess I never knew which one he meant. I was too young and stupid to ask, too caught up in my own version of love. I shove aside thoughts of shame and think about his lips, his fingers, his teeth on my neck.

But here’s the thing: even though I’d been crazy for him, and crazy-wet every time I was with him, even though he made me feel all melty and turned on, I never had an orgasm with him. Not when he touched me and not when he licked me. Maybe I’d been too young. Too inexperienced. Too nervous. I’d never even really masturbated at that point in my life, and when I was with Diego, I was focused on his pleasure and his orgasms.

You okay with this? he’d ask, worried, as he’d stroke between my legs with those thick fingers of his.

Yes. And I’m sorry I haven’t come, I’d say, not really knowing why I was apologizing. Part of me felt bad about not giving it up to Diego, even though he never demanded it, not like I’d heard of other guys and girls around school.

I need more time with you. To get used to this. Us. Sex. It’s all new, and I’m scared.

Don’t apologize, Cata. Just relax. You feel so good. Perfect. We have all the time in the world together. We don’t need to rush anything, he’d whisper in my ear.

But we didn’t have all the time in the world, because of my stupid photos. We'd been waiting for the right moment to do it, but that moment never came. And I ended up losing my virginity to some guy at college I didn’t even like all that much.

So now that I’m older and wiser and have learned a few things about sex, I want a do-over with Diego. I want to show him that I can handle myself, and him. And us. Together.

I shut my eyes and make myself come.