But now here they were the next morning, and for some reason, Carmen was in the kitchen, angry. Judging by the way she was making noise, something had to have happened between her getting out of bed and now, when Shane was getting ready to be dropped off at WAX.

Fully dressed and ready to go, Shane entered the kitchen cautiously, noticing that though there were plenty of cookware out, nothing seemed to be prepared.

"Good morning babe. What’s going on?" Shane asked quietly. "Huh? Oh, hey. I didn’t hear you come in. I’m sorry, was I making too much noise?" she said.

"No, no, I was up not too long after you got out of bed." Shane responded, taking a seat at the dining table so as not to get in the way.

"Oh" was all the response Shane got. "D***, I was trying to make everything perfect for your first morning returning to work, and I go and ruin everything. I burned the toast, almost ruined the eggs, and forgot to put the coffee on. I screwed up" Carmen replied, clearly disheveled and feeling defeated.

"Hey" Shane had gotten up and stopped Carmen in her tracks from where she was trying to clean up the mess and start over with breakfast. "What’s really bothering you? You were fine last night" Shane comforted.

She placed her hands on the Latina’s hips to still her and force her to look her in the face. With her head bent down, Carmen’s bottom lip began to quiver.

"I tried calling my mom again this morning, figured she’d probably be the only one up. I even blocked my number so it wouldn’t show up on the caller id. She picked up and as soon as she heard my voice, she slammed the phone down in my face. When I called back, the number was busy, which means she probably took it off the hook." By now, Carmen was not trying to stop the flow of tears as she continued "I’ve tried so many times Shane to speak to her, to beg her to see me, and she just refuses to do it. When I heard her voice this morning, I realized how much I miss her. I don’t know how much more of this I can take."