Contents ( 42)
- The Art of Breathing
- Part One: How We Became Who We Are
- Prologue: Or, Where the Kid Hears the Word of the Day
- 1. Where Tyson Learns to Breathe
- 2. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
- 3. Where Tyson Graduates and Bear Freaks Out
- 4. Where Tyson Says Good-Bye
- 5. Where Tyson Gets the Mail
- Part Two: Coming Home
- 6. Where Tyson Comes Home
- 7. Where Tyson Gives a History Lesson
- 8. Where Tyson Attends the Most Awkward Party Ever
- 9. Where Tyson Plans Attends a Protest
- 10. Where Tyson Gets Arrested
- 11. Where Tyson Gets His Ass Handed to Him
- 12. Where Tyson Writes Bad Poetry and Gawks at Frat Boys
- 13. Where Tyson Decides to Man the Fuck Up
- 14. Where Tyson Asks Some Questions
- 15. Where Tyson Remembers Theresa Jean Paquinn
- 16. Where Tyson Learns the Benefit of Therapy
- 17. Where Tyson Meets the Man Who Becomes Helena Handbasket
- 18. Where Tyson Gets Screwed at His Own Birthday Party (And Not in a Good Way)
- Part Three: Just Breathe
- 19. Where Tyson Goes to Helena Handbasket’s Sex Dungeon
- 20. Where Tyson Beholds the Awesome Wonder That Is Paul Auster
- 21. Where Tyson Receives Advice from the Six Sages
- 22. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
- 23. Where Tyson Hears the Inevitable
- 24. Where Tyson Meets His Match
- 25. Where Tyson Says Hello, Where Tyson Says Good-bye
- 26. Where Tyson Touches upon the Inevitable
- 27. Where Tyson Faces the Music
- 28. Where Tyson Breathes
- 29. Tyson And Dominic
- 30. The Art Of Breathing
- Epilogue: Or, Bear’s Perspective, As It Were (Yeah, He’s Gonna Freak)
- Author’s Note
- Excerpt
- Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
- More from TJ Klune
- Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
- By TJ Klune
He pulls back and our gazes lock. He’s no more than a foot away. He’s impossibly big. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. It can’t. It won’t.
He stands and shuts the door. I rub my wrists. They’re a bit sore.
Kori watches me through the window, a worried look on her face. I give her a smile that is supposed to be reassuring. It feels like a lie.
Dominic gets into the front seat of the cruiser. He glances at me in the rearview mirror, but doesn’t speak. He starts the car and we leave everyone behind.
11. Where Tyson Gets His Ass Handed to Him
ONCE, WHEN I was eleven, I sat on the bed in my room in the Green Monstrosity, watching my friend Dom as he tried on his graduation gown for the first time. It was a little small on him and stretched tightly across his shoulders, the gown coming up almost to his knees.
“You look ridiculous,” I finally said as he looked at himself in the mirror.
“It’s not the best fit,” he rumbled at me. “And it’s probably too late to get a new one.”
I snorted. “Uh, yeah. You’re graduating tomorrow. I told you to try it on before now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll only be wearing it for a little while.”
“Are Patty and Bert going to be there?” I asked, hoping some miracle had occurred and his foster parents had decided to prove they were actually human.
“Don’t think so,” he said. He lifted the gown over his head, and there was a flicker of skin across his stomach as his shirt pulled up that I resolutely ignored. It was not something I cared to see, because this was Dom. This was my friend, but the skin was tan and looked muscled and I—
“It’s fine,” I said. “We’ll all be there.”
He looked at me with caution in his eyes. “Really?” he asked. I could hear him trying to keep the hope from his voice, but not succeeding in the slightest.
“Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t we?”
He shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know. I knew you’d go, but I didn’t know about everyone else.”
I laughed. “You’re family. Of course everyone’s going.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He smiled that half smile. “Cool.”
I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know why you couldn’t have flunked this year like I told you to. That way when I start high school next year, we’d have been going to the same school.” What I didn’t say was that I was terrified of him starting college in the fall, even if he was only going to be at Seafare Community College. I was sure he’d start there and make new friends and realize how weird it was to hang out with the Kid, who was only a kid. I knew I’d see less and less of him, until one day he wouldn’t show and I’d be left all by myself. I tried to tell myself it wouldn’t be so bad, because things were getting better and better every day, and maybe one day I wouldn’t have to go see Eddie anymore (even if part of the adoption process involved mandatory therapy), and I could be normal. I could be like everyone else, and these weird thoughts, these dark thoughts that crossed my mind every now and then that whispered things like they always leave and one day even Bear will leave you too would stop crossing my mind.