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 am going to miss yu, so yu know. Yu grew up ok, despite everything. I hope yu don’t hate me or n e thing for this, but maybe Ill be back one day if this doesn’t work out. Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe, I was never meant to be a mom. I see yu sometimes and I think how much better it would have been for yu if yu were never born. But I remember yu as such a happy baby, not like Ty who cried all the time. Yur smile still makes it worth it and I hope yull still smile even after this.
Please make sure Ty gets the note I wrote for him.
I don’t know what else to say.
Please don’t try looking for me. I don’t want Tom to get mad.
Mom
P.S. I left a little bit of muney to help yu out for now. I really can’t give more becuz Tom sez we need to save for our future. Remember, Rent is due at the beginning of the month, along with the other bills. Yu paid those for me n e ways, but what kind of a mom would I be if I didn’t remind yu.
THERE WAS a second note.
Do you remember that one too?
Ty,
Yu listen to yur brother and do what he sez, ok? Mommy loves yu!
Mom
That’s what I found when I came home from work that day. It was a Saturday night. I didn’t know where the Kid was.
She left $137.50 in an envelope with my name on it.
The next day, I turned eighteen. Three days after that, I graduated high school.
It’s funny, then, after everything, that when the doorbell rings, I don’t even think of her.
I haven’t thought of her in months.
There are other things now.
Like the man before me, that look of fond exasperation on his face as I spout off about how our kid is going to grow up to be a serial killer with a tail. God, I love him so fucking much. “Did we even test for that?” I ask him, sounding hysterical. “Was that one of the tests? To see if our sperm makes serial killers with tails?”
“No, Bear,” my husband sighs. “I don’t think there was a test for serial killers with tails.”
“Well, there should have been!” I shout at him, even as we stand in the room painted the palest of blues with cartoon elephants and tigers stenciled onto the walls in a field of grass and flowers. There are clouds on the ceiling above and a goddamn crib, a crib where our son is going to be in about three months, because for some reason, Otter fucking Thompson convinced me that we should knock up some woman we didn’t even know, a pretty young thing named Megan who was injected with my spunk and now has a child growing inside her. A fucking baby that no one knows about, and what the hell were we thinking?