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
And so I did. I stepped out of the shadows of myself. Has it been perfect? Of course not. Seeing those you love on a monitor rather than in person sucks. I’d turn to tell Bear something and he wasn’t there. Just empty air, and by the time I did talk to him, days later and pixelated, I was just so relieved to see him that any other thoughts I had would be forgotten.
Bear, I know this is going to be hard for you. It’s going to be hard on me. Out of everyone, it’s been you who has been there for me. Every day. The good ones and the bad ones. And the ones where we didn’t think we were going to make it. But we did. Somehow we did.
Then there’d be some old sci-fi movie on TV as I flipped through the channels and I’d find myself about to call out to Otter, to tell him to come watch it with me so we could make fun of the special effects, the overacting, but each seriously digging the vibe of black-and-white post-Cold War paranoia in the form of giant spiders attacking New York.
Otter, you’ve done more for us than anyone. You protected us. You sheltered us. You held us together when everything else threatened to break us. I don’t know if we would have made it without you. Or, if we had, if we would have ever known happiness like we do now. We are who we are because of you. No amount of thanks could ever show how much that means to me.
Then there was him. Always him. Every little thing I saw or did or heard reminded me of him. It was my first months in New Hampshire all over again, when I was just a Kid harboring a bright and longing crush on a best friend who I knew would never be mine. Four years later, though, he was mine and that crush had long since evolved into something deeper. More mature. More wonderful. Dominic Miller was loved by me in a way that I’d never loved anyone before. But it wasn’t enough. He didn’t deserve just to be loved. He deserved to be cherished. And I wanted to be the one to cherish him.
It hurt. Misguided? Probably. Selfish? Yeah. That too.
Necessary?
I think so.
Dom, I—
Bear. Otter. Can you give us a minute? He did nothing to disguise his anger.
Bear had looked to protest, but Otter led him away.
Dom argued with me then. In a way I’d never seen from him before. Fiercely. Bitterly. He told me I was running away again. That I was running and this time I wouldn’t come back. I probably wouldn’t even look back. I would leave them (him) all behind and I would forget about them (him). I probably never even really needed them (him). I understood his words were born of desperation, that they weren’t what he really thought, but they still hit me like a hammer to the chest. Dominic, my big, solid Dominic, was scared.