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
“Tyson,” he breathes. My name on his lips is like a revelation, and I want to break. I want to shatter. I want to tell him things I can’t even admit to myself.
“What?” I croak.
“You know I love you, right?” His gaze searches mine.
“Yeah.” Because I do. I’ve known since the beginning. It’s inevitable—our word of the day, the word of our friendship.
“And you’d tell me if something was wrong?”
“I don’t….” I shake my head. “We’re best friends, right?”
“Right.” No hesitation. No looking away. “Like brothers.”
I ignore that part. “And you trust me?”
“Always.”
“Then I need you to trust me now,” I say, trapping him, even though I don’t want to.
He knows. His eyes narrow. “That’s not how this works.”
I nod, though it costs me. My hands start to shake. “I’m fine. Hey, let me go get ready so we can go out for dinner, birthday boy. We don’t want to waste you turning into an old man by sitting in your car all night.” Though that sounds good to me. Every bit. Every part.
He doesn’t stop me as I open the car door this time. I take a deep breath, the salt in the air thicker than normal. I hear the cry of seagulls, the normal sounds of traffic on the street. Somewhere, someone laughs. It’s normal. It’s the same.
I don’t stop him when he puts his arm around my shoulders as we walk up the steps. I don’t stop him when he holds me close. I put one foot in front of the other and ignore how he smells. His grip on my shoulder tells me we’re not done talking. Maybe it can wait. Maybe it can wait forever. Maybe we can just turn around. Maybe we can just get back into the car and drive away and go somewhere else where I can be an almost sixteen-year-old kid with no expectations weighing on me, and he can be whoever he wants to be, and it will just be me and him. It’ll be the two of us against the world, and we’ll tear it apart and carve out our own place. Things are starting to disintegrate within me, and I need him to know the choice I’ve been given. I need him to make up my mind for me.
I need him to tell me to stay. To never leave his side.
I look up at him and he looks down at me, and for the first time in all the years I’ve known him, that weird twinge in my heart becomes something more, something so much more that it roars in my ears. It hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest, and only one real thought comes to mind as I realize that I’m in love with my best friend: Bear’s going to shit himself silly when he finds out about this. It’s impossible. It can’t be like this. It’s not supposed to be like this.