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 d-don’t want to see you.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.” I reach the bathroom door, and it takes so much energy to push the door open
“Ty, please. I need to see you. I need—”
“You don’t n-need. You don’t.” I stumble toward the bathtub. My teeth chatter together. It hurts. Everything hurts.
You knew this was coming, it whispers. You knew. Some part of you knew.
No. No. I didn’t. This isn’t real.
Poor Tyson! Poor Kid! You need structure. You need organization. You need routine and every little thing in its place so you can categorize, so you can compartmentalize. And when something disrupts that order? You crumble. You collapse. Did you really think this wouldn’t happen? You’re sixteen years old. You can’t even handle this. How could you ever hope to have him?
“I’m coming,” Dom says again. “Tyson, I’m coming for you.”
“I d-don’t want to see you,” I gasp out. I drop the phone… and slide over the edge into the bathtub. The invitation slips from my hand and flutters near my face. And for all that is inevitable, for every word of our day, for every moment it has been for me to be able to just breathe, all I can see are the first four lines of blackened script set against eggshell white.
Mrs. And Mrs. Harold Warner cordially invite you
to celebrate the wedding of their daughter
Stacey Ann Warner to Dominic Miller,
in faith, in joy, and in love.
Breathe! I scream at myself. Breathe, oh fuck, breathe!
“Tyson!” I hear him shout from the phone. It sounds so far away, like it’s buried.
No, it whispers. That’s not right. It’s not buried. It’s drowning. Tyson, it’s drowning.
In an ocean.
Breathe, I think. Breathe.
It’s inevitable, he’d said once to me.
We’re inevitable, I’d said once to him.
And all I can do is breathe.
Just breathe.
Part Two: Coming Home
Where we love is home—home that our feet may leave
but not our hearts.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
6. Where Tyson Comes Home
Four years later
MY NAME is Tyson Thompson (formally Tyson McKenna, aka the Kid), and I’m here to recruit you.
When was the last time you had a hamburger? A piece of bacon? A succulent chicken breast from KFC (Kentucky Fried Corpses?) Last week? Yesterday?
Today?
Did it taste good? Did the juice just drip down your chin as you shoved that poor defenseless cutlet (who undoubtedly had once been something’s mother or father, son or daughter) down your throat? Did you groan in delight when you finished, licking your fingers to get one last taste of the flesh? Did you spend a few moments thinking fondly back on that meal, only to forget it seconds later and move on with your day? If you did remember the food, it was only later when it was passing through you like liquid magma as you sat on the toilet playing Candy Crush on your smartphone. It burned coming out, I’m sure, but at least you had the time to beat level 232. Right? Is that how it happened?