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
Dominic doesn’t make any move to let me out of the car. He just sits there and looks at the Green Monstrosity. It’s starting to get dark out. I wonder randomly what the beach hippies are doing right this second. Cornflower might be doing as he promised and giving Beach Vagrant a whole clan of hippie babies. I guess the world could always use more rock throwers.
“You said I belonged to you,” I say without thinking. My mouth tends to do that.
He sighs. “Things change.”
“Oh.”
Silence. Then, “You and Corey, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Seems like a nice guy.”
“The best.”
The briefest of hesitations. “You love him?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“But not like that.”
“Oh?”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
He’s lying, but I let it go. God knows I’ve done enough to him today.
He opens his door. Moves back. Opens mine. I think this might just be the very last time I see him, and I wonder if I’m going to allow it. I wonder if I’m going to let this be it. Everything we’ve had can’t just come down to this one last moment. Everything he’s done for me. Everything he’s meant to me. All it will take is me opening my mouth and saying I’m sorry and saying I was hurt because you chose someone other than me, and it would all be done. It would all be over. We could pick up the pieces and put them back together. They might not fit the way they used to, but we could mold them into new shapes, could make this about who we are now, and not who we used to be.
I get out of the back of the car. He doesn’t back away. I stand in front of him and my leg brushes his. I look up into his eyes, and I truly do believe that everything stops around us and this could be it. This could be the moment that people don’t expect, that people don’t see coming. He’s obviously waiting for something and brushes his hand against mine, the lightest of touches. He circles my wrists with his fingers, just like the cuffs did, except it’s a gentle touch. Soft. Sweet.
“Dom,” I say. “This… I’m—”
“Daddy!” a young voice says.
We both turn.
The door to the Green Monstrosity is open. Bear stands in the doorway, the house lit up behind him. I think I see Kori look out the window briefly from the top floor.
But it’s the little boy running toward us who captures my attention. The little boy with dark hair. The little boy whose eyes are wide, who has a small smile on his face. The little boy who is a spitting image of the man standing next to me.
Dominic goes to one knee and opens his arms. The boy crashes into him and babbles quietly, talking about a lion and a dog and Bear said this and Otter (pronounced “Ottah”) said that, and there was the sky and it rained and did Daddy see that? Didn’t Daddy see all of that? There’s a queer cadence to his voice, an almost flat and monotonous tone. For a moment, I think it might be because he’s deaf, but then Dominic says something back to him, and I can tell the boy hears him. He says it again. Daddy.