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 brings his big hand up and curls it around the back of my neck. He pulls me forward. Our foreheads touch and all I can see is him. All I see is Dom, and it’s like I’m nine years old again and there’s a big kid watching me and all I want is for him to be my friend so I can finally say I have a friend all my own, who belongs to just me and no one else. He breathes out and somehow, I’m able to breathe him in. My lungs expand and there’s only him. Just how it’s always been.
“You’re not lost,” he says. “Not anymore. I’ve found you now, Ty. I’ve got you and I will never let you get lost again.”
“You promise?” I cry at him. “Ah God, you promise?”
“I promise,” Dom says. “I promise.”
And, somehow, I believe him.
We sit there, his hand around my neck, me clutching his arms, and just breathing. In the dark. In the middle of the night. In the middle of nowhere. On our way to see the one person who almost destroyed me.
But I’m with the one person who was able to put me back together, the one person who, for a time, belonged just to me. It may not be that way anymore, because there are others now who depend on him. Others who need him as much as I once did.
And I don’t know what the future holds beyond this moment. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Or the day after. I don’t know what my mom will say. What Bear and Otter will say. What I’m going to do with my life. What I’m going to do to make things right. I just don’t know.
But for now, none of that matters. For now, I’m again with my best friend in all the world, and he holds me as if I’m something precious. As if I’m something fragile. And if nothing else goes right, if all the world crumbles around me in an earthquake I can no longer stop, I’ll look back and say at least I had this moment. This moment when it’s just Dom and me and everything is finally out in the open and laid bare for all to see.
Well, almost everything.
Unable to stop myself (of course), I ask, “So, you’ve got to be at least bi, right?”
All Dom does to reply is laugh.
I’M DRIVING. The sun is rising. We’ve just crossed into Montana. We’ll hook around and into Idaho and eventually into Coeur D’Alene. Kori texted me at some point with her address. Seems it wasn’t hard to find, but then nothing can stay lost for very long these days, especially on the Internet. Maybe I’ll stop. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just keep driving until the car runs out of gas. And maybe then I’ll just walk until I can’t walk anymore. I don’t know. It’s one day at a time for me now. That’s all I can do, but I think it’s for the best. One day at a time.