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
She was Kori when I had my panic attack moments later, touching my hair and back, her voice high and sweet, telling me it was okay, that it’d be okay. Kori comes out more for the panic attacks than Corey. I think it’s his way of dealing too.
He was Corey when he went with me to a PETA rally, that small smile on his face as he watched me scream that fur was murder. “I don’t think the ecoterrorist is in training anymore,” he told me later.
She was Kori when she announced she was switching over to vegetarianism.
He was Corey when I caught him eating a sausage pizza four hours later. “Oops,” he said through a mouthful of animal companion and absolutely no shame. “It didn’t take.” He grinned at me, and there was pig stuck in his teeth.
He was Corey.
She was Kori.
I know what it sounds like, trust me. Bigenders, much like transgenders, have long had to deal with the misconception of a mental illness. Corey told me one night, when neither of us could sleep, that doctors considered him bipolar when he was younger. Even schizophrenic. They treated him and her as such. “I’d be Kori because I was scared,” he said bitterly. “And they thought I was crazy. Most of them did, anyway.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I said, kissing his bare shoulder.
“The crazy ones never do,” he said. Then he laughed and all was right in the world.
At least for a little while.
He was Corey when he broke up with me three months later. “It’s not right, Ty,” he said. His words were kind, but his voice was trembling. “You know it. I know it. I love you too much to love you like that.” I waited until he left before I let the panic overtake me. Bear found me in the bathtub and waited with me until the earthquakes went away. Until the ocean receded.
She was Kori when she showed up at our house three weeks later in the middle of the night. I hadn’t seen her since we’d broken up, though she had called. “I can’t do it!” she cried. She was angrier than I’d ever seen her before. “I can’t not have you there. You can’t cut me out, Tyson! You can’t! I won’t let you!”
He was Corey when we met up a few days later. Both of us were nervous at first. We fumbled our words. We tripped over ourselves. But finally, we found the rhythm, the beat that we both could dance to, and instead of Corey and Ty or Kori and Ty, we became something so much more.
Corey became part of my family, the crazy, fucked-up thing that it is.
So did Kori.
He was Corey when he asked me why I never went back to Oregon with Bear and Otter. I told him there was nothing for me there.
She was Kori when she met Creed, Anna, and JJ when they came to visit. They doted on her. They adored her. And as they left, she looked at me and said, “How can there be nothing for you there when they belong to you?”