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
Recognition flickers across her face. “Old habits die hard.”
That much is obvious. “Anything left?” I ask.
“What?”
“The money you got for trying to break up my family.”
Careful, I warn myself. Careful.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.
“Okay, Julie.”
“What do you want, Kid?”
Kid. Kid. Kid.
I shrug, trying to keep my anger in check. “You know, I thought I knew. I really did.”
“But?”
“There’s nothing here.”
“Not for you,” she says.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why everything? Why did it happen the way it did?”
“Ask your brother.”
I see red. “I’m asking you.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I tell her. “Because it’s in my head and it won’t leave.”
“Then you’ll leave?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it’d be better,” she says. “For you. For Derrick.” I know this. I’ve heard this.
Leave, leave, leave.
But I don’t. “You thought it’d be better for you,” I say.
She nods. “That too.”
“Was it?”
Behind the façade, I see the first shimmer in her eyes. “For a time.”
“And after?”
“I thought about you both. A lot.”
Leave, leave, leave.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you think about?”
“If you were doing okay. If you grew up to be what I thought you’d grow up to be.”
“And what was that?”
She laughs wetly. “I don’t know. Doctor. Astronaut. Bug scientist. All those things you said you wanted to be.”
“He doesn’t like bugs,” Izzie says.
“He used to,” Julie says, and it’s the most surreal moment of my life. “He used to play with the little sand crabs on the beach for hours. He’d cry every time we had to leave.”
“Crabs aren’t bugs,” Izzie and I say at the same time. She smiles at me, but it fades too quickly.
Julie says nothing.
“I didn’t become any of those things,” I say. “Not yet.”
“Why?” I don’t know if there’s any real interest. It doesn’t matter.
“Because I thought I was broken. Lost and broken. For the longest time.”
“Are you?”
“Maybe I was. But not anymore. I think I’ve found my way back.”
“I know—” she starts but then stops. She turns her head and looks out the window. It’s a perfectly lovely day, not too hot. There’s a pretty tree outside the window, and the leaves dance in the wind. “I think I’ve been there.” And I think she’s still there. I don’t think she’s ever known anything else.
“You could have stayed,” I say sadly. Any anger I may have felt is gone now. I just feel pity. For her. For what could have been.
“I don’t think I could have,” she says, her voice cracking. “You don’t know what it was like.”
“I did. I do. I was there.”
She shakes her head. “Not that. You don’t know what it was like. In my head. There were times when I thought everything was closing in on me. When it was easier to just stay in bed instead of getting up. I stayed there, sometimes, for days.” She looks back at me, then averts her eyes. “It was just easier.”