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Back The Art of Breathing Save as PDF
Contents ( 42)
  1. The Art of Breathing
  2. Part One: How We Became Who We Are
  3. Prologue: Or, Where the Kid Hears the Word of the Day
  4. 1. Where Tyson Learns to Breathe
  5. 2. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
  6. 3. Where Tyson Graduates and Bear Freaks Out
  7. 4. Where Tyson Says Good-Bye
  8. 5. Where Tyson Gets the Mail
  9. Part Two: Coming Home
  10. 6. Where Tyson Comes Home
  11. 7. Where Tyson Gives a History Lesson
  12. 8. Where Tyson Attends the Most Awkward Party Ever
  13. 9. Where Tyson Plans Attends a Protest
  14. 10. Where Tyson Gets Arrested
  15. 11. Where Tyson Gets His Ass Handed to Him
  16. 12. Where Tyson Writes Bad Poetry and Gawks at Frat Boys
  17. 13. Where Tyson Decides to Man the Fuck Up
  18. 14. Where Tyson Asks Some Questions
  19. 15. Where Tyson Remembers Theresa Jean Paquinn
  20. 16. Where Tyson Learns the Benefit of Therapy
  21. 17. Where Tyson Meets the Man Who Becomes Helena Handbasket
  22. 18. Where Tyson Gets Screwed at His Own Birthday Party (And Not in a Good Way)
  23. Part Three: Just Breathe
  24. 19. Where Tyson Goes to Helena Handbasket’s Sex Dungeon
  25. 20. Where Tyson Beholds the Awesome Wonder That Is Paul Auster
  26. 21. Where Tyson Receives Advice from the Six Sages
  27. 22. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
  28. 23. Where Tyson Hears the Inevitable
  29. 24. Where Tyson Meets His Match
  30. 25. Where Tyson Says Hello, Where Tyson Says Good-bye
  31. 26. Where Tyson Touches upon the Inevitable
  32. 27. Where Tyson Faces the Music
  33. 28. Where Tyson Breathes
  34. 29. Tyson And Dominic
  35. 30. The Art Of Breathing
  36. Epilogue: Or, Bear’s Perspective, As It Were (Yeah, He’s Gonna Freak)
  37. Author’s Note
  38. Excerpt
  39. Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
  40. More from TJ Klune
  41. Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
  42. By TJ Klune

I save three of them for last.

Otter. I miss you already. It’s too quiet here. Call me when you can.

Bear. I miss you already. Call me every day. Maybe two or three times a day.

And the last. Dom. Four words, and I read them over and over again. A few minutes later, I save the message and head east.

I MAKE it farther on the second day. Grand Island, Nebraska. It’s pretty. And flat.

I sit in a diner near the hotel. It’s late. I’m the only one in here. Apparently the fry cook knows how to make vegan waffles. His name is Abraham. Told me to call him Abe. He’s funny.

I sit in a booth. The menu has pictures of the food on it. Reminds me of the place where Bear used to work a long time ago.

I try to resist, but even I know it’s useless. I take out my phone and bring up the text from Dom, even though I know what it says. I touch those four words. Just once.

What’re you looking at? the waitress asks. Her name is Estelle (Call me Este) and she’s the only one working aside from Abe. It looks like it hurts you. She frowns in concern.

I shrug and put the phone away. Just a text.

She hands me a glass of juice. It’s tart. Things that hurt you shouldn’t be kept around, she says.

It’s okay, I tell her. It hurts in a good way.

She nods like she knows what I mean, and I catch her glancing back at Abe in the kitchen. She smiles ruefully. Then that’s okay, Este says. Waffles coming up. They’re pretty good. Surprisingly.

The waffles turn out to be very good indeed.

I DON’T know what happens on the third day. One minute I’m fine, better than I’ve been the previous two days. The next minute, I see something or hear something (I don’t know, I don’t know), and all of a sudden, I am flooded by Dominic. I can hear him, taste him, smell him. He laughs in that broken voice. He moans my name. He asks me why I’m following the ants, and then he says good-bye. I see the look on his face, the lines around his eyes. The feel of his hair under my fingers. The way sunlight through the window plays across his face as he sleeps next to me. It’s all him, him, him, and his voice overlaps in my head, and everything he’s ever said to me starts ringing in my ears, and I think I’ll explode. I think I’ll explode from the force of it all.

And through it all come the four words again, and on the side of a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere, I hold onto them as tightly as I can.

ON THE fourth day, I am in Girard, Pennsylvania, when I call him.

I get his voice mail, as I knew I would. He’s at work.