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
It’s all breathing. It’s all it ever was. She knows the art of it as much as I do, and I want to scream. I want to scream so bad. Tell her that I am the way I am because of her. That she did this to me. She’s the reason I am who I am.
No, Bear says. Or Otter. Or it, that damnable voice that never seems to leave… I don’t know anymore. You are the way you are in spite of her. She is the reason you are who you are, but not like you think. She left. We broke. But we found the ones to help piece us back together. We’re not the same shape. But we’re stronger because of it.
I want to believe. I do.
“Tyson,” she says, her voice flat. “What a surprise. Look at you, all grown up.”
“Izzie, go to your room,” I say quietly.
“But—” she starts.
“Please,” I say.
“No,” my mother says. “Izzie, you stay here. As a matter of fact, you come here. By me. Now.”
Izzie looks between us, conflicted. “Go,” I tell her quietly. However bad this is for me, I can leave. I can walk out the front door and never look back. Izzie can’t. At least not yet. I don’t want this to be bad for her after I’m gone. I should have thought about that before I came. As usual, I was only thinking about myself. But some part of me thinks my mother knows this, that part of me thinks she’s using Izzie as a buffer. A shield. “It’s okay.”
Izzie nods, her face tightening. As she walks away, she reaches out and touches my hand, our fingers grazing. I’m electrified and heartsore. As we touch, I feel the scrap of paper I’d given her. My number. The Green Monstrosity. Clutched in her hand.
Put it in your pocket, I think. Before she sees. Oh, Izzie. Hide it.
She doesn’t.
But Mom (Julie, I think. She’s not my mother—she’s only Julie, Julie, Julie) doesn’t see it, and as soon as Isabelle is within reach, she grabs her and pulls her close… but not at her side. Or behind her. She puts her in front of her, her arm around Izzie’s chest. Her daughter is now between us. She takes a final drag on the cigarette, then flicks it in the sink.
Things might have changed, Izzie had told me, but it’s nowhere near where it should be.
She’s never going to be what you need.
The kite! my mother had once said. Ty, look how high the kite is!
“I don’t have money,” Julie says. Her voice is still flat.
I laugh—I can’t help it. It comes out as harsh as I’ve ever heard it. It grates in my ears. “I don’t need money,” I say. “Especially from you. You think I came here for the twenty bucks you probably still keep in the flour tin in the back of the pantry?”