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
I breathe in. Salt and ocean.
The ground does not move.
The sea does not threaten me.
I breathe out.
It’s a start.
“Thank you,” I tell her. “For being my mom. I don’t know if I ever said that to you. Thank you.”
A breeze ruffles my hair. I close my eyes and lean into it. In my head, I hear bits of a bad poem from long ago. She would have said family is all a person needs, and it doesn’t matter if they’re near or far. All that matters is the lesson we must heed; to know that this is us, this is who we are.
Then it’s gone.
I smile and wait for just a moment longer. It doesn’t come back.
That’s okay. It was enough. I know she heard.
It’s time to go home.
I turn and head back up the hill toward the inevitable.
IT STARTS in the car.
Just a touch. He takes my hand. Caresses the palm. Scrapes the flesh with his nails.
He brings my hand up to his lips. His stubble is rough against my skin.
I’m shaking because it’s him and because I never thought we’d be.
I’m shaking because I’m scared.
I’m shaking because I can’t think straight. It’s all stars.
But I can breathe. Somehow, I can breathe.
It takes days, weeks, months, years to reach his house, even though it’s only a few miles away. He never once lets me go. He has to feel the way my skin vibrates. He has to hear my teeth chattering. He has to know I’m a mess. He has to know I probably always will be. He has to know there will come a day when my breath will stop in my chest and the earth will move beneath my feet again and I’ll panic. He has to know.
Still. He doesn’t let me go. It’s his promise without needing words.
The world goes by, the colors bright. I’m hyperaware of them all.
Eventually, finally, he pulls into the driveway. He turns off the SUV, and we’re surrounded by quiet. The engine ticks.
This is too much, it says. Too much. Not ready.
No, I think back. No.
“Ty?” Dom asks.
“Yeah?”
“We… don’t have to do this.” He sounds hesitant. Unsure. “I can take you home. You probably want to see Bear. And Otter. I know you need them.”
I turn my head, and he has a look of such earnestness on his face that it makes my chest hitch. It also causes my heart to race, and a strange, feral thing begins buzzing in my toes, working its way up, and I think Now, now, now.
“I don’t want to go home,” I tell him.
“We don’t have—”
“Dom?”
“Yeah?”
“This is real? You want me?”
His pupils dilate. “Always,” he says hoarsely.
I’m in his lap then, launching myself over the console before I even know I’m moving. My mouth is on his, and it’s wet and warm. He puts his arms around me, his hands on either side of my head, and pulls me closer. There are tongues and teeth and our noses bump awkwardly, and I think of all the time lost, of the past four years, but then he grinds up against me the moment I press down and all rational thought is gone. This isn’t about the past. It’s not even about the future. It’s about the now.