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
This is my brother. This is Derrick. Bear. The one in the world I trust the most. The one in the world I love the most. I can’t stand the thought of disappointing him, though I don’t think I did. I don’t know. There’s a bright ringing in my ears, and my skin feels like it’s crawling. My breath holds, but just barely.
I reach the fence on which his elbows rest. He watches the sun as it sets. It’s scary how much we look alike. Sure, he’s older now, but only by a little (though I give him so much crap for being close to thirty; it’s the end of the world as you know it, I told him a little while ago with great glee. Pretty sure that’s when the hairline starts to recede in this family. He didn’t find that to be very funny). He looks as he always has. Like Bear.
Except that he doesn’t turn to look at me.
I wait too.
“I remember, once,” he finally says. “You were… five… I think…. Maybe. I don’t know. Some age. It was after she left, at least. I know that much.”
We don’t need to say out loud who she is. We both know.
“You were at home, with Mrs. Paquinn, while I was working at the store. There was an announcement over the intercom, saying I had a phone call. Somehow, I knew. Even before I got to the phone, I knew something was wrong. I don’t know how I knew. I just did. Of course, my mind took it in a billion different directions. I thought maybe the apartment had burned down. Or that Mrs. P had….” He stops. Takes a breath. “That she’d gotten sick.” Oh, Bear. “Or that she’d come back out of the blue and wanted to make things different again. Wanted to destroy what I’d somehow managed to cobble together. I think that’s what I was expecting the most. Her. I think I always knew she’d come back at some point. I don’t know why I was so surprised when it finally happened. But… that doesn’t matter now.
“So, I knew I had a phone call and everything from plague and fire to meteors and infestation ran through my head. I ran. As soon as my name was called, I ran. And through every doomsday scenario I had running through my head, I thought to myself, just let him be okay. Just let him be okay.”
“Papa Bear, I—”
“Hush, Kid,” he admonishes softly without looking at me. “Let me finish.” He takes a deep breath. “It was Mrs. Paquinn on the phone. I asked her what was wrong. She asked me why I sounded like I was crying. That she was sure I had snot running down my face and I was probably really embarrassing and she’d have to shop in a new grocery store because she didn’t want to be associated with the guy who runs crying down the frozen foods aisle.”