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
And it’s funny, really, because all I can think about is how a nine-year-old kid sitting across from me might actually be smarter than I am. I wonder if Bear felt like this with me. It’s terrifying.
Shit. I messed up. Big-time. With him and with Dominic.
And I have no clue how to fix it.
9. Where Tyson Plans Attends a Protest
A WEEK later, I still have no idea. And trust me when I say I’ve thought about it harder than anything else. I know the simplest ideas are usually the best, but I can’t bring myself to pick up the phone, the nightmare scenarios of how those calls would actually play out running through my head.
Hello?
Dom? It’s Tyson. Let’s be friends again!
*click*
Or:
Hello?
Hiya, Dominic! It’s me, Tyson! Long time no talk? How you been, best friend (and guy I used to be in love with then cut out of my life when you married someone else BEHIND MY FUCKING BACK)?
I’m sorry, I don’t remember any Tyson.
*click*
Or:
Hello?
Hi, Dom. It’s Tyson. I’m so sorry for being really shitty to you.
Hi, Tyson! Glad you called! Stacey and I were just on our way to church to renew our vows because we’re so madly in love! Would you like to join us? You could be my best man! Don’t worry about your heart. I’ve already stomped all over it. But you’ve had four years to get over it, which, as a normal human being, you clearly should have, because that’s how things work in the real world.
It’s been so long since I’ve heard his voice that I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m pretty sure if I called him, all I’d be able to do is squeak and grunt and he’d think a gorilla was having sex with a mouse on the other end.
The alternative is to see him face-to-face, and since that is completely out of the question, I’m stuck where I started.
“It can’t possibly be that hard,” Kori tells me as we drive toward town in Otter’s Jeep. She has a scarf around her head, large sunglasses covering her face. She looks awesomely glamorous. That is until she speaks. “You’re being such a fucking douche about this whole thing.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel,” I grumble. “Seriously. Hold nothing back.”
“Someone has to,” she retorts. “You obviously have no common sense. Otherwise, this whole thing would have been resolved long ago. Men are so idiotic sometimes. I swear, you’d rather sit in a pile of angst than actually have a single conversation that could go a long way to resolving years of shit that you yourself were the cause of.”
“I was the cause?” I say, outraged, even though I have no real right to be. “I didn’t marry a woman!”
“Which affected you how?”
“It was… he should have… it was for….” Goddammit.
“Exactly. Should he have told you before the wedding invites went out? Probably. But you never gave him a chance to explain because you had this foolish romantic notion in your head about how this would all play out. He’d wait for you, and when you got done doing whatever the fuck you were going to do, he’d be there with open arms and you guys would be together forever.”