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 stop only when I feel sand sneakers. The crash of the waves ahead. The call of the birds above. Somewhere a cell phone rings again and again, and I think it might be my own, but I can’t find it.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, there on our little beach. “I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t forget about you. Never. Not once. Not even for a minute.”
The smell of salt and grass. Wind blows through my hair. I wonder just how far her ashes have spread. She’s probably global by now. Just like she’d always wanted to be.
I sit down on the beach next to the little cross Anna made so long ago. Take off my shoes. Dig my toes into the sand.
The last time it’d been just me and her was the day Otter planned to propose to Bear. I remembered the poem we’d written together, him and me, telling him to not be scared, that even though it wasn’t technically legal, it was still better than eating a beagle.
Before her speech turned slurred and the side of her face drooped, before she collapsed to the floor, her head bouncing off the carpet with a noise I can still remember, before everything changed, she’d looked at me and said, “I have a feeling today is going to be the start of something wonderful for you and your brother, Ty. And you both deserve it so much. I don’t think I know two people who deserve it more.” She smiled sweetly at me. “Remember, okay? Remember that. You’ve been through the wringer, and times might get tough again, but everything good that happens to you is because you deserve it. You have your brother. And Otter. And Dominic. And Anna and Creed, and all the rest. That is what this whole thing is about. Family. That is all you need. It doesn’t matter where life takes you, as long as you remember them and this moment. That will make you who you are.”
I kissed the back of her hand. She laughed. It was the last time I heard that sound.
“I fucked up,” I tell her now. “I’ve gotten away from what I was supposed to be. And I don’t know if I know the way back. I’m lost, Mrs. P. I need help because I’m lost.”
“Nah,” someone says from behind me. “You’re just… off track, I think.”
Bear.
I don’t turn. “Dom called you?”
He sighs as he sits down in front of me. I look down when our knees bump together. “Yeah,” he says. “He was worried about you. I thought it was best for everybody if I came here instead him.”
“Oh.”
“Ty.”
“What?”
“You’re not lost. I would never let you get lost.”
“Feels like it. Like I’m… floating. Off course. I don’t know. You were right not to tell me, I think. About Dom. Apparently I don’t handle things very well.”