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
“I know.”
“Your brother isn’t much of a reader, either.”
“I know.”
“You’re a strange one, Kid.”
“I know.”
She nodded, as if she’d expected that. “I’m going out tonight and won’t be back until late. Bear will need to take you to school in the morning so I don’t have to get up.”
I said nothing.
“I think there’s Pop-Tarts in the kitchen if you get hungry later. I’m going to go lay down.”
Please leave. I just want to read and dream that I can leave with Bear.
“Kid? You hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then answer me when I’m talking to you.”
“Sorry.”
She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out on the cracked wood of the doorway. She flicked the butt up and over the railing. She leaned over and ruffled my hair, and I smelled her, smoke and dying flowers. “Don’t look so mopey,” she said with a half smile. “It’s never as bad as you think it is.”
She left me alone and shut the door as I thought, No. It can get worse. Much worse.
I looked down at my Star Wars watch. Bear would be home in two hours and twenty-six minutes. He didn’t have to work tonight, so maybe we could go out and do something, just me and him. Then I’d ask him if I could go with him again. By then, I’d surely think of something. He was my brother, after all. He wouldn’t leave me here. He just wouldn’t.
Feeling better, I started reading again about Aslan and Narnia.
Only a short while later, I met her.
A car pulled into the cracked parking lot, one bigger than any car I’d ever seen before. It was loud and brown and exhaust spewed from the tailpipe. It parked in a space near the stairs and shuddered as it died.
The front door swung open, so loud it sounded as if it were breaking. I couldn’t see who got out of the vehicle since stairs blocked the way. The front door slammed shut and then the rear door opened.
I went back to my book. It was none of my business.
I’d only read another paragraph or so when I heard huffing on the stairs, and a voice said, “C’mon, old girl. You’re not that old yet. Get your ass up these stairs.”
And she did. I first saw her gray-white hair. Then her elderly face, scrunched up in concentration. A box in her arms. A large purse over her small shoulder. She reached the landing and teetered for a moment, and I was sure she was about to tumble head over heels down the stairs. I put the book down and rushed toward her. I took the box from her arms and almost dropped it myself. It was heavy. I was only five, after all. Just a little guy, really.
“Why, thank you, young man!” she said as if volume wasn’t a concern. “For a moment there, I was pretty sure I was about to follow my Joseph, God love him. Life is supposed to flash before your eyes, I’ve heard, but all I could think about was how the firefighters would have come out here to move my body and seen I was wearing the ugliest pair of underwear I own. Unbefitting a lady, they are. Can you just imagine the embarrassment that would have caused me?”