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
“It is pretty cool,” Corey agrees quietly.
“It’s strange. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t there. It’s all jumbled in my head. You know me, Corey. You probably know me better than almost anyone. But I don’t think you understand how my thoughts go. How they work. There’s a million of them. All at once. There are times I can barely focus on any one, much less all of them. It hurts sometimes. My head. Sometimes I get headaches. Sometimes there are earthquakes and I can’t breathe. It’s like my brain shuts down and my lungs collapse and my throat constricts, and even though I want to breathe, even though I want that more than anything in the world, I can’t. I can’t focus. I can’t focus on the one thing that I know will work. The one thing I know will take it all away. If I could just breathe, then all the rest would be fine.”
He tightens his hand in mine to let me know he hears me.
So touching, it mocks. So sweet and touching and blah, blah, blah. The reason you can’t breathe is because you’re broken, Kid. You’re broken and you won’t ever be fixed.
It’s probably right, that voice.
“I know he wasn’t there. All the time. Before. But I sometimes pretend he was because it makes things easier. It makes the hard things go away. Dominic was there and I knew how to breathe. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But he kept most of the earthquakes away. He kept most of the bad thoughts away. That little voice that tells me I’m not good enough. That I’m too smart for my own good, and that I will never be healed. I will never be rid of this.”
I look down at our joined hands. “I didn’t just love him,” I say. “I think part of me needed him. For a while. And I hate that, now. I resent that now, I think. I don’t want to need anyone. I want to be able to stand on my own two feet without feeling the ground shaking underneath me, without having to worry if today is going to be the day another panic attack hits. I’m not right. Up here.” I tap the side of my head. “I don’t know if I ever will be. Not completely. I just want to be okay. I just want to one day be okay.”
“And it’ll happen,” Corey says, squeezing my hand. “And even if it doesn’t, I promise I’ll be there right by your side, and we can be fucking crazy and stupid together. If you forget how to breathe, I’ll help remind you.”
“This is getting really saccharine,” I mutter.
“Ah, there’s the Tyson I know and love,” he says with a laugh. “Opens up just a little bit and then takes a giant step back.”
“Can’t have it being too easy.”
“No. Can’t have that.”
“I want to leave,” I tell him.