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 won’t be easy.”
“Nothing worth having ever is.”
I smile. “That’s pretty damn cheesy.” I reach for him. He lets me pull him down. “Lucky for you it worked.”
He laughs as he lies atop me, and I can feel it rolling through him as he stretches out and covers me completely. The weight of him is crazy and wonderful, and I can’t catch my breath, but, God, do I breathe as hard as I can.
It’s the breath I take when his nose bumps mine.
It’s the breath I take when his tongue touches mine.
It’s the breath I take when he grunts in my ear and I hear him whisper, “Oh, Ty. Oh. Oh.”
It’s the breath I take when he swallows me down and my hands are in his hair.
It’s the breath I take that allows me to cry out when he pushes into me, and it’s the breath that leaves me when the stars explode all around me.
It’s the breath I take when I release. He follows me soon after.
It’s our breaths that mingle when he kisses me long and deep.
It’s in all these breaths. Him and me. It’s inevitable, of course.
The art of breathing always is.
LATER, AS the sunlight stretches along our bare skin, we begin to speak our plans aloud. They’re almost the same. Funny, that.
He’s drifting off to sleep when I let myself say the words that have been in my heart for as long as I can remember. It’s not as hard as I thought it would be. “I love you,” I say.
Dom smiles.
30. The Art Of Breathing
I WANT to tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in a little town near the sea. This little boy was smarter than he had any right to be. He was meddlesome. Manipulative. Damaged and broken, though he always tried to hide it. Sometimes he didn’t do a very good job at that. He always thought he knew what he was talking about, even when he didn’t. He made mistakes. He’d go on to make many of them. But that’s what happens when you’re a little guy, and despite all his faults, he loved his big brother with his whole heart.
This little boy and his big brother lived in a shitty little apartment with a mother who was not a mom. One day when the little boy was very young, the mother left.
The little boy was lost, because they’d once flown a kite together. He thought it meant something.
The little boy and his big brother drifted for a very long time.
They lived, but it wasn’t living.
They breathed, but did not understand the breaths they took.
But it wasn’t meant to last. Nothing bad ever truly does, even if it seems like it’s all there is. Even if it seems like it stretches on forever.
The little world, the little shelter they’d made for themselves to shield them, came tumbling down, and they blinked into the sunlight and saw that it was good. Sure, storms came. The ocean rose. Earthquakes happened. There were still times when they climbed into the bathtub, sure things were going to go back to the way they were.