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
“But you’re a genius,” Paul says.
“Well, yeah.”
“Then why can’t you figure out a way to breathe? Seems to me the body does it on its own. You just have to trust it knows what to do. It’s not physical. It’s all in your head.”
“That’s the part I can’t get over.”
“Why not?”
“My brain is wired… differently.”
Paul laughs. “Not so differently that you can’t kick its ass. Look, I’m not talking about the power of positive thinking, and I’m not saying the cure for you is some kind of magical dick, because that won’t work. You need to fix yourself. It’s that easy. And if you’re as smart as everyone touts you to be, then it should be simple. You got to find what the blockage is, then blow it the fuck up.”
“It’s not that….” It’s not that easy? Since when? And why the fuck shouldn’t it be? “Holy sweat balls,” I say. I might be the smartest twenty-year-old full-blown ecoterrorist on the planet, but apparently I’m pretty goddamn slow on the uptake.
“Aha!” Paul says. “Now he gets it. Paul saves the day yet again.”
“I don’t think I get it,” Charlie says.
“I don’t either,” Paul admits. “But the twink does. You can see it in his eyes. Tyson, if I could tell you one thing—and remember, I’m fat, I blab too much, I think too hard, and I don’t know what I’m talking about half the time—it would be that no matter what, you thank your lucky stars every single goddamn day that you’re alive and that someone loves you as much as they do. I didn’t know that for the longest time.” He looks down at Vince, and the love that fills his eyes knocks the breath from my chest, but in a good way. “I may be a new convert, and it’s cheesy as all fucking hell, and I swear to God, if you tell anyone I said this, I’m going to bury you in the desert, but love conquers all. It’s cliché. It’s sappy. It sounds awful. But love fucking conquers all. And until you let it conquer you, you don’t know shit. Stop being a fucking dumbass and open your fucking eyes.”
“I’m so proud of you, boy,” Charlie says. “Who knew you had it in you?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Paul says, throwing his hands over his head. “Can we please stop being big soppy vaginas and go back to being snarky assholes?”
But I can’t answer him. Because Dom is all I see.
And he doesn’t look away.
SAGE THE Fourth:
Kori pulls me down to the floor right before the show comes on, telling me it’s imperative that I be in the front row to witness the glory that is Helena Handbasket. I find myself sandwiched between her and Dom. Vince stands on Dom’s other side. They seem to have hit it off, which makes me weirdly happy and not even remotely the least bit jealous at all. (The glances I try and sneak might suggest otherwise—apparently I’m not very subtle, because Kori is snickering at me and elbowing me in the side. Jerk.) It really doesn’t help that people are crowding in around us, and I’m practically plastered up against Dom, and every now and then, I feel his large hand at the base of my spine, just a touch, but the electricity that shoots through my skin is like I’ve been struck by lightning, and I don’t dare try and move toward it. Or away. I’m paradoxical. And a chickenshit.