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
Dom is still Dom, and I think he always will be. He’s still quiet; his voice is still a rumble, broken from all those years ago when his father murdered his mother in front of him. He told me that story when I was thirteen, after I shouted at him for almost an hour straight because of his decision to join the Seafare Police Department. I couldn’t handle the idea that he could get hurt, that he’d be put in harm’s way every day and I’d have to wonder and worry until he called me to put me at ease. But when he finally told me the one thing he’d kept from me? What he’d done to try and save his mother? I couldn’t be angry anymore. I just couldn’t, especially when he said that he just wanted to protect others so the same thing wouldn’t happen to other kids like him. I crawled into his lap and wept against his shoulder. I wept for him, yes, and to show him I understood, but more for the pain he came from. Only Dom could take something so horrific and turn it into a positive. I remember him wiping away the tears before cupping my face and saying, “So you understand? You see why I need to do this?”
I nodded, even though I wished he wouldn’t need it at all.
“I won’t do it, Tyson. Not if I don’t have your blessing.”
And I realized he meant it, and it made me sick to my stomach that I had such power over him, that he was willing to alter the course of his whole future just because I was scared. I couldn’t do that to him. I wouldn’t. So even though my heart hurt with it, I told him of course I would support him. Of course I understood. It was one of the few times I ever lied to him.
But he’s good at his job, and it looks good on him. Dom continued to grow. And grow. And grow. Now, at twenty-two, he has a few inches on Otter, both in height and width. He’s a giant and can be intimidating as all hell, both on and off the job, though that intimidation never works on me. It’s not as if it’s a façade, it’s just that I can see the Dominic I know through all that steel and grit. I told him once he can be a hardass all he wants, just as long as he’s not like that with me, because I’ll make fun of him repeatedly to his face. He growled at me that he’d arrested people for less. I reminded him that, by that point, he’d only been a cop for, like, six hours and he needed to get off his high horse because I still wasn’t buying it. Then he told me that when I got my license, he was going to pull me over every chance he got, just because he could. Of course, at that point we didn’t know that I probably wouldn’t be around him when I was able to drive.