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 push it away.
“It’s… quaint,” Corey says as we pass by houses along the beach. “It’s not Tucson, that’s for sure.”
“I’m pretty sure there are a few differences where we grew up,” I say dryly.
He flashes that liquid smile at me. It’s cunning, like he knows something I don’t. “Undoubtedly. There’s nothing else?”
“What else could there be?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Something. Anything.”
“No.”
He nods and looks back out the window. “I’ll miss you, you know. When I’m gone.” He reaches across the seat and takes hold of my hand. Our fingers intertwine, and it’s familiar. It’s comforting. It’s almost like home.
Almost.
“It won’t be for forever,” I tell him. “You know it won’t. You’ll come see me, and I’ll come visit you, and the next four years will go by so fast until we’re side by side every day again… I’ll work for the Environmental Protection Agency as a toxicologist or whatever else I decide to do. You’ll be an overworked victim’s rights activist. Then I’ll become a billionaire and I’ll buy PETA and make it not crazy again. And then we’ll get a house. You and me. You’ll become a lady of leisure, and I’ll stop the whaling ships along the coast of Japan. Those savages.”
“All that, huh?”
“All that.” It’ll happen. I know it will because I can do it all. I’ve got everything in front of me here. My entire fucking life. I just have to get through this summer, and then real life can begin and I can pick up the pieces and become who I’m supposed to be. It’s that easy. It has to be.
He squeezes my hand. “I’m going to hold you to that, Thompson.”
“I promise.” I allow myself a moment of weakness and pull his hand up to my lips and kiss it gently. He squeezes my hand in acknowledgement, but nothing more.
I turn back to the window. I shouldn’t have come back here, I think. Should have stayed in New Hampshire…. I don’t know why I said yes.
Sure you do, it says, voice full of cheer. You aren’t that stupid.
Go away. Just… go away.
It laughs.
Soon, we pass a familiar sign:
WELCOME TO SEAFARE!
“I’m home,” I whisper to the rain.
IT HITS a few minutes later. Not quite panic. Not quite suffocation. I almost can’t name it, but as we drive farther and farther into Seafare, it becomes more palpable.
It’s queer, really. It’s a sensation that I can only describe as doubling. In the four years I’ve been gone, Seafare has expanded drastically. What were once empty, lonely stretches of beach are now brightly lit shops selling glued-together seashells, ice cream, and postcards. Gas stations. A CVS on almost every corner. Starbucks on almost every corner. A Walmart.
There are people everywhere, even in the rain. They walk on what is ostensibly now a boardwalk. Some have umbrellas. Others have parkas. Some don’t seem to care at all. They walk their dogs. They ride their rental bikes. They eat their food under gaudy awnings. It’s alive and vibrant and garish.