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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

He disappears from view.

Twenty minutes later, we pass out of Seafare, Oregon. The sun rises in the sky ahead of us as we travel east, and I tell myself this is just a bump in the road. One day, I’ll look back at all of this and laugh.

I’ll just laugh.

5. Where Tyson Gets the Mail

THE HOUSE is empty when I get home. Fridays are my short days, and Bear and Otter are still at work. The house is cold. New Hampshire in December is cold. This isn’t something I ever really thought about when we decided to come here. I’ve learned rather quickly that I hate the snow with an unbridled passion. It seeps into my bones. It gets my feet wet, even through my boots. I hate it. I hate every part of it.

I’m flipping through the mail in the hall, unwinding my scarf from around my neck, thinking I might just go up to my bed and curl under the covers and not worry about a damn thing for the next couple of hours. It’s been a rough day. School isn’t like I thought it’d be. The people aren’t like I thought they’d be. Apparently being a sixteen-year-old freshman in college is something of an anomaly. People here don’t know what to make of me any more than they did in high school. Apparently being a genius of sorts has a social stigma to it that I didn’t expect. People are ruthless and don’t care who they step on to get what they want.

Fuck it. The semester is almost over and then we’ll go home and I’ll get to see Dom and I’ll feel right as rain. Only a couple of more weeks. That’s it. I can make it. I have to make it. Maybe I’ll call him when I get upstairs. He doesn’t have to work today, I don’t think. And even if he does, I’ll still get to hear his voice mail message. His voice is all I need.

A white envelope catches my eye, feminine handwriting in a letter addressed to Bear, Otter, and me. Curious, I pick it up. It’s heavy and stiff. The return address is for Stacey Warner and… Dom? Wait. Why do they have the same address? It’s for Dom’s house, right down the road from the Green Monstrosity. They don’t live together. Dom would have told me. He would have told me she moved in.

I tear the envelope and my phone rings. I think about ignoring it, but it’s him. I know it’s him by the ringtone I’ve got set. I can’t ignore him. I’ve never been able to.

“Hey,” I say when I answer the phone, a grin coming unbidden to my face.

“Where are you?” he asks quickly. He doesn’t sound like himself. He sounds panicked.

“Home. Why? What’s wrong?” I tear the envelope.

“Shit,” he whispers. “Ty, I need you to listen to me, okay?”

“What?” I ask, pulling at a piece of cardboard in the envelope. I pinch the edges and pull.