We’d stopped walking and Oren was crying really hard now, his hands, even the one in the cast, covering his eyes. I felt tears on my own cheeks too.

I grabbed the sleeve of his T-shirt and tugged on it. “You didn’t make the accident happen, Oren,” I said. “You didn’t! We all say things we don’t really mean. Trust me, I know.”

His eyes were squeezed shut as he wiped his tears away. He hiccupped and tried to take a breath, hiccupped again, inhaled and then spoke. “But that was the last thing I said to them! The accident happened right after that!”

I felt him start to tug away from my grasp. I held on harder. I couldn’t let him run away. “No,” I said sternly. I yanked his shirt until he opened his eyes and looked at me. “It. Was. An. Accident.”

I thought about my mom and how good she was with grieving people. When I’d asked her how she did it, she said to just be calm. Listen. Figure out what the person needs from you. Whatever it might be.

Right now Oren needed more than anything to understand that he wasn’t responsible for his parents’ deaths. “I get that you feel guilty,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “And I know how it can seem like it must be something you did. That you made it happen.”

“But I did. I told them—”

I held up my hand. “You didn’t mean it. You didn’t really want them dead, did you?”

“Of course not!” He seemed shocked at the question.

“Were they good parents?”

“The best!” he squeaked out. “I just didn’t understand why they didn’t want me to go to wilderness camp. I was so angry.”

“Okay, so here’s a question,” I said. “Don’t you think that the best parents would know you didn’t really mean stuff you blurted out when you were mad? My parents always do.”

I’d had more than my share of blurty temper tantrums. But Mom and Dad would just roll their eyes and send me to my room until I calmed down.

“I really didn’t mean it,” Oren said, his bottom lip twitching.

“I know,” I said, looking into his eyes so it was clear I really meant it. “And they did too. They knew that. They knew you loved them more than anything!”

He stared at me, the tears pouring out of him, his chest rising and falling as he breathed hard.

“They knew,” I said again. “I’m 1,000 percent sure of it.”

As he looked at me, something in his eyes changed.

He tugged his shirt away from my fingers, but this time it was so he could wipe his eyes with his sleeve. As I did the same thing, I realized something.

“That’s why you stopped talking, isn’t it?” I asked. “Because of what you thought your words made happen.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“I completely understand,” I said, channeling my mom again. I took a deep breath while I put together what I wanted to say in my head. This was not a time for rambling. “But Oren, words can be good too. Like every time your parents told you they loved you. Or that they were proud of you. Or when they told you stories that made you laugh. Or when you made them laugh. Right?”