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
“No matter how much I wanted it?”
He snorts. “Even if I didn’t have a decent sense of morality, I had a good sense of mortality. Bear and Otter would have killed me. But I did. And I still do. I knew then I’d never look at you the same. And that you had to get out while you still could.”
“I felt it longer,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “I can see that now.”
“That’s why it killed me when… when the mail came….”
“That wasn’t meant to happen,” he says quietly. “None of that. It spiraled out of control.”
“I know.” And I do. That doesn’t mean it still didn’t hurt like a bitch.
“I love her,” he says. “Stacey. And don’t make that face. I don’t mean like that. She’s part of my family, Ty, and she always will be. I love her because of the person she is and what she gave me.”
“Ben.”
“Ben,” he agrees. “And he’ll always come first. He has to. If I had to do it all over again to have him the way that I do, I would. I know that probably hurts to hear, but he’s kept me sane. And honest. Having kids tends to do that to you.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I ask him. “Your parents. Stacey. Ben. Why?”
He looks over at me. Takes my hand in his. Brings it up and brushes his lips against my palm. “Because,” he says, “if we’re going to have any future, you need to know everything, Ty. I’m not a catch. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Future?” I’m dazed by his words, and the inside of the car starts spinning.
“What do you think this is?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “These past few days have been… weird.”
He laughs. It’s a good sound. A rough sound. “Yeah.”
“Dom, I don’t know my future, much less anyone else’s.”
“No one does.”
“I know. But mine’s a bit more uncertain than others.”
“Why?”
“I’m lost,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “And I don’t know how to get back. Bear says I’m not and I want to believe him, but here I am, sitting in a car in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere going to see the one person who almost destroyed me with the one person who was able to put me back together, and I don’t know what to do. I’m lost, Dom. I’m so fucking lost and scared that I’m doing the wrong thing, that I won’t be who I’m supposed to be. That I’m not what Bear wants. Or Otter. Or you. That scares me most of all, that I can’t be who you want me to be, and I don’t understand this right now. I don’t. You touch me. You kiss me. You say things about pasts and futures, and they’re all I’ve ever wanted to hear from you, they’re all I’ve thought about for years, and even when we’ve been apart, even when I didn’t see you every day, I thought about you. Because it has always come back to you. Without you, I didn’t have a home. Without you, I was barely breathing. And I’m lost, Dom. I’m so fucking lost, and it’s so hard to breathe and—”