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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

Somehow, they didn’t.

But you know this already.

You’ve heard this all before, haven’t you?

It’s funny to think, isn’t it? How long it’s been since this all started. How long ago that once upon a time happened. How little we once were. How much we have changed. We have lived and loved. We have loved and lost. Once upon a time. But don’t stories that start like that end happily? I think they do.

And I think this one will too.

It’s almost summer now. I’m at my desk in my room in New Hampshire. The window is open and I can smell the grass outside. Boxes are piled up around me, filled with the little things I’ve accumulated since last fall. It’s not much, but that’s okay. The school year is done. The movers will be here soon. So will Dom and Ben. We’re taking a trip together for a few days. Just the three of us. Getting in a car and driving just to see how far we can get. I think we’ll get pretty far, don’t you?

I’m leaving Dartmouth.

Going back to Seafare.

But, Tyson! you’re thinking. You’re leaving a prestigious school to go back home? You’re giving all of this up?

I know how it sounds. I know how it looks.

But I’m standing, aren’t I? I can stand on my own. I know that now.

I’m not giving anything up. At least, not in the way you think.

Yes, I’m saying good-bye to Hanover. Leaving the Big Green to become a Duck.

No, I’m not addicted to quack (ha!).

In the fall, I’ll starting up at the University of Oregon in Eugene. About an hour away from Seafare. It’s a decision I did not make lightly. I came out here to prove something to the world. It turned out I just needed to prove something to myself.

And I’ve done that.

I had big plans. Grandiose ideas. I was going to change the way people think. I was going to alter the future of mankind. I was going to be an astronaut. A rocket scientist. A furniture salesman (because I do love couches so). I was going to run PETA and every human being on the planet was going to convert to vegetarianism. I was going to become an ecoterrorist (the good kind) and thwart the diabolical plans of Big Oil and corrupt CEOs who dumped their wastes into the marshlands that were the home of the rare Bicknell’s Thrush so that these magnificent birds would once again flourish. I was going to do it all.

And who knows. I still might.

But first, I’ve got different plans.

To change the big, you’ve got to start small. Or rather, you just have to start different.