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
Two: Of course I want you to come. That way we can be by each other’s side as much as possible because I highly doubt once this summer’s over that I’ll ever come back here. I really think Seafare and I might be done. So let’s go do this one last thing before I figure out how to put my life back together and get myself back on track. One last thing so that I can look back years from now and not feel completely guilty about how I decided to run away yet again.
Three: Sure, Dom! That’d be swell. We’ll have a blast! I really appreciate you taking the time out of what I’m sure is a busy schedule to come and babysit Corey and me. Maybe that’ll give us more time to reconnect and see what’s what. Maybe you can drive part of the way too? That’d be awesome.
Three choices. Three different reactions.
Which one do I pick?
Surprise! The fourth one.
“What about Ben?” I ask stupidly while it laughs hysterically inside my head, calling me an asshole.
“That’ll be his week with his mother,” Dominic says softly. “They’re taking him to Disneyland with a group of other autistic kids. Supposed to be a big to-do.”
“And you weren’t going to go?”
He shakes his head. His face is still blank, like any decision I make wouldn’t matter in the slightest to him.
You’re projecting, it says, sounding amused. Jesus, you’re supposed to be this fucking genius, and here you are, wondering yet again why a boy doesn’t like you like you like him. How positively dismal has your life become that this is what you are now? You’ve been to hell and back and this is what you’ve made of it? This is what you’re going to allow yourself to be? Such promise, they’ll say someday. He had such promise and he let it all be squandered away. I hope I’m still around to tell you I told you so when that happens.
I mimic Dominic as much as possible. I shrug. “Doesn’t matter to me one way or another. I don’t think we need a babysitter. But it would be all right to have company on the trip back home.” I think about each and every single word as it comes out of my mouth to make sure there could be no hidden meaning gleaned from any of them. I’m not being paranoid. Just careful. (And paranoid.)
He shrugs too. “That works.”
What is that supposed to mean, you son of a bitch? I almost scream at him, but I stop myself even as I feel it start to well up in my throat.
Corey claps his hands together. “Wonderful!” he exclaims much too brightly. “Then it’s settled. Dominic will accompany us to Tucson, and we shall see what we see!”
Everyone starts talking at once.
THE PARTY is winding down and people are saying their good-byes. I’m in the backyard, and Jerry and Alice Thompson hug me tightly and tell me how happy they are I’m home again and that they’d better see me before I leave for Tucson. I smile at them as they leave me with a wave. Good people, them. The best.