“They’re not humans—they’reteenagers.” My mother seethed. “They need to be managed.”
There was a heavy silence, and I could envision the impatient glare my mother was giving my father as she waited for him to respond.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve been too permissive with Cricket,” he said. “I don’t know. Nina always had such good judgment.”
There it was: Nina would never have gotten into this mess. There was no way for me to live up to the standard she had set, so I might as well fail spectacularly, and that’s exactly what I had done. I stood up and went to my room, having heard all I needed to hear.
To my face, my parents never suggested that I was to blame for Seth’s death. They called it bad luck—the combination of an unstable climate and teenage impulsivity.No one’s faultwas how they described it, but I had heard what they said behind closed doors about my recklessness, so I knew it was someone’s fault: mine. It had to be.
By spring, my parents had begun their divorce proceedings. I didn’t ask outright whether the accident had fueled their decision to separate; I didn’t have to. The timeline spoke for itself. My teenaged brain drew a straight line from one tragedy to the next—the end of Seth’s life and the end of their marriage, all within the span of four months.
It wasn’t a contentious divorce. My mother named the terms; my father accepted them. She would keep our apartment in the city; hewould move to Catwood Pond full time. There was no custody dispute. After all, I was only a minor for one more year, and my parents agreed that I would live with my mother for my final year of high school. The only person who put up a fight was me. Feeling alienated from my city friends (none of whom had known Seth or could comprehend the loss I had experienced), I lobbied hard for permission to spend my senior year in Locust with my father. My mother resisted the idea—the Locust school system was not up to her standards, and my grades had plummeted in the months since Seth’s accident. She wanted me to stay put, in the hope that I could salvage my transcript and get into a decent college next year. But I couldn’t imagine being apart from my father for a full school year, even though he assured me I could spend my vacations with him. I knew I would miss one of my parents either way, but I preferred to miss my mother and live with my father, rather than the other way around.
I kicked up such a fuss that they agreed to think about it. They could see I was spiraling. Whereas life had been sharp with possibility when I was in love with Seth, it now felt blurry and dull. In the late spring, I turned seventeen and finally passed my driver’s test, but neither of those events felt like reason for celebration. I counted down the days until I could escape the city for the summer, hoping that a change of scene would ease my distress. But when school ended and I returned to Catwood Pond, I felt just as adrift as I had in the city. The change of scene didn’t solve anything. The problem was within me.
At first, I avoided everyone, even Chloe. Whatever confidence I had wielded the summer before was fully eroded. My father seemed both saddened and relieved by the fact that I had no interest in staying out late, or going out at all. I didn’t have a job, and I spent my days sitting on the dock, dangling my feet in the water and letting the minnows peck at my chipped toenail polish. I took long swims—sometimes all the way across the pond, sometimes around its perimeter. There was something about being underwater that helped me disconnect from my pain. In the rhythm between breaths, I could almost convince myself I was in another universe altogether.
After two weeks of solitude, Chloe finally convinced me to cometo a small gathering at Sully’s dock. She said people had been asking where I was, that they wanted to see me, that no one would bring up the accident.
I showed up that evening in the dirty green sweatshirt I had been wearing nonstop. I figured the less effort I made, the less I would be noticed, but of course, everyone clocked my arrival, and to my surprise, they all seemed genuinely glad to see me. The only person who didn’t was Greg, and I knew his coldness was calculated.
On the surface, the night felt like any other night. People complained about their summer jobs, took selfies, and philosophized in the self-righteous way that only teenagers can.
“But don’t you think if capitalism were going to work, it would have worked by now?” suggested someone.
“Exactly. I don’t think we should engage with it,” said someone else. “There has to be a better way.”
“A hundred percent.”
It had been a long time since I had hung out with a group of peers, and I finally began to unwind. As the sun went down, our friends Becca and Ryan pulled up in their boat. When Ryan saw me, he broke into a wide smile. “Look what the cat dragged in! Where you been, Cricket?”
“She’s been hiding,” interjected Greg from his seat at the edge of the dock. He threw his empty beer bottle into the pond, then added: “Ever since she killed my cousin.”
A hush fell. All I could hear was the lapping water and the rush of blood in my ears.
“Come on, man,” someone said to Greg. “That’s not cool.”
“No one killed anyone,” said someone else.
“As good as,” insisted Greg, opening another beer from the case beside him. It seemed he was back to drinking unremarkable light beer—in increasing volume. “Seth would be here right now if it weren’t for Cricket and her drama.”
“Hey,” I heard someone else jump in to defend me, but by then, I was floating away on a current of rage and shame.
I barely know how I got home that night. Someone took me byboat; I don’t recall who it was. I don’t remember disembarking, or walking up to the house, or falling into bed.
What I do remember: the next morning, my father called me onto the porch. He said he and my mother had come to a decision, and I would need to finish out my senior year in the city.
“You don’t want me here?” I asked, feeling like the only thing I had left to hope for had been pulled out from under me.
My father began some kind of even-handed explanation, but I had ceased listening. It was all too much: my grief for Seth, my anger at Greg, my sadness about my parents’ divorce, and now what felt like a fresh rejection by my father. In that moment, something in me boiled over.
“I don’t want to go back to the city. I hate it there!” I screamed. I needed someone to blame. “But I hate it here even more.Youlet this happen!”
“Let what happen?” my father asked, clearly concerned.
“All of it! You’re a terrible parent,” I yelled, feeling the poison proliferate and wanting to do as much damage as possible. I thought of Greg’s accusation from the night before, and before I could stop myself, I redirected it at my father. “Seth would probably still be here if it weren’t for you. You should never have let me come here for New Year’s! Mom said I needed to stay in the city to study, and if you had listened to her, none of this would have happened!”
“Cricket…”
