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
He did. Though what was inevitable he pushed away because it wasn’t something someone his age should be thinking about someone else so very young.
Then there was a party. To say good-bye. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life. Every part of him wanted to scream, Stay, please stay, don’t ever leave me, but that wasn’t fair. That wasn’t who he was. But he thought it.
He thought it with his whole heart.
I LOOK away and out the window into the dark as he clears his throat and sighs. “I remember it,” I tell him. “The party.” The smile he gave her. That pretty little laugh of hers. His hand in her hair. I know it’s not the same, but it’s all jumbled in my head. I can’t think straight.
“That’s when I knew for sure.”
“Knew what?”
“This. You and me. That’s when I knew you were more than my brother.”
“How?” I ask weakly.
“The look you gave me,” he says quietly. He sounds so sad. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone look at me like that before. That anger. That betrayal. You were fifteen years old and so impossibly young, but the look you gave me was the same look you got when you talked about your mother. The look someone your age should never have. Of seeing something that so completely breaks your heart that you don’t know if you can ever put it back together again. Or if it’s even possible. You looked at me that way, and I understood so much more than I’d ever thought.”
“I couldn’t breathe,” I tell him quietly. “I thought I was breaking.”
“I know,” he says.
“It wasn’t fair.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It wasn’t fair that I did that to you. I was just some kid—hell, the Kid—nursing a crush. I was hurt and this stupid thing wouldn’t let me breathe. This stupid thing in my head, and then the earthquake hit, and I couldn’t breathe and I had to run. I didn’t know it then, not completely, but I had to run. I wanted you to ask me to stay, and what happened convinced me to go.”
The rest stop is ahead. He signals and pulls in. Semitrucks, dark and hulking, line the parking spots. He parks away from them all and turns off the car. The only other sound I hear is the thunderous beat of my heart.
“I never wanted you to leave,” he rumbles at me. “I wanted for you to stay so bad.”
“But you knew I had to go.”
He nods. “There would have been nothing for you here.”
“Except for you. I would have stayed for you.”
He looks pained. “That wasn’t a good enough reason. You deserved more. You still do.”
“You knew then?”
He nods. “For sure. When you were in the bathtub. I knew I had to be strong for you. To do the right thing. Nothing could have happened then, anyway. You were too young. I never would have done that to you.”