Bear, Otter, & the Kid 03 - The Art of Breathing (59 page)

“They might,” he agrees.

“And I’m still going to be slightly manic.”

“Probably,” he says. “Slightly.” He moves his hands up and down my back.

“And I come with a whole shitload of issues.”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he says, kissing my forehead.

“And I never stop talking.”

“Noted,” he says, lifting my shirt so he can touch bare skin.

“We need to make plans,” I tell him as he kisses my neck.

“We have been,” he says. “And we will.”

“Dom?”

“Ty?”

“We’re inevitable. Aren’t we?”

He stands up tall and cups my face in his hands. His gaze locks onto mine, and I tremble. “Yeah, Ty. We are. We always have been. And we always will be.”

There are other things that need to be said. Other things that need to be worked out. Other worries to focus on. And one very important thing he needs to hear from me. But those can wait. For now.

My shirt is up and over my head, and I’m fumbling with his buttons and zippers and buckles. I graze his flesh with my hands and I think back on what it’s taken for us to get to this point. All that we’ve sacrificed. All that we’ve done wrong. All the hurt and the pain and the sorrow. It’s worth it. I know that now. Life can suck. It can hurt. It has teeth and won’t hesitate to bite you. But if you pick yourself back up every time it knocks you down, it’ll start to hurt less, because you’ll be stronger. Greater. You’ll become who you’re supposed to be. At least, I think that’s how it works. I hope.

But that doesn’t matter now.

All that matters is him and me. Because that’s all there is.

He lifts me up and puts me back down on the bed. He stands over me, just watching.

“What?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “Just you,” he says. “Ty?”

“Mmm?”

“This.”

“This?”

“Us.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s good, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s good.”

“Solid.”

“As a rock.”

“Better.”

“Than what?”

“I thought it could be.”

“Took us a while.”

He chuckles. “You could say that.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“Nothing worth having ever is.”

I smile. “That’s pretty damn cheesy.” I reach for him. He lets me pull him down. “Lucky for you it worked.”

He laughs as he lies atop me, and I can feel it rolling through him as he stretches out and covers me completely. The weight of him is crazy and wonderful, and I can’t catch my breath, but, God, do I breathe as hard as I can.

It’s the breath I take when his nose bumps mine.

It’s the breath I take when his tongue touches mine.

It’s the breath I take when he grunts in my ear and I hear him whisper, “Oh, Ty. Oh. Oh.”

It’s the breath I take when he swallows me down and my hands are in his hair.

It’s the breath I take that allows me to cry out when he pushes into me, and it’s the breath that leaves me when the stars explode all around me.

It’s the breath I take when I release. He follows me soon after.

It’s our breaths that mingle when he kisses me long and deep.

It’s in all these breaths. Him and me. It’s inevitable, of course.

The art of breathing always is.

L
ATER
,
AS
the sunlight stretches along our bare skin, we begin to speak our plans aloud. They’re almost the same. Funny, that.

He’s drifting off to sleep when I let myself say the words that have been in my heart for as long as I can remember. It’s not as hard as I thought it would be. “I love you,” I say.

Dom smiles.

The Art Of Breathing

I
WANT
to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in a little town near the sea. This little boy was smarter than he had any right to be. He was meddlesome. Manipulative. Damaged and broken, though he always tried to hide it. Sometimes he didn’t do a very good job at that. He always thought he knew what he was talking about, even when he didn’t. He made mistakes. He’d go on to make many of them. But that’s what happens when you’re a little guy, and despite all his faults, he loved his big brother with his whole heart.

This little boy and his big brother lived in a shitty little apartment with a mother who was not a mom. One day when the little boy was very young, the mother left.

The little boy was lost, because they’d once flown a kite together. He thought it meant something.

The little boy and his big brother drifted for a very long time.

They lived, but it wasn’t living.

They breathed, but did not understand the breaths they took.

But it wasn’t meant to last. Nothing bad ever truly does, even if it seems like it’s all there is. Even if it seems like it stretches on forever.

The little world, the little shelter they’d made for themselves to shield them, came tumbling down, and they blinked into the sunlight and saw that it was good. Sure, storms came. The ocean rose. Earthquakes happened. There were still times when they climbed into the bathtub, sure things were going to go back to the way they were.

Somehow, they didn’t.

But you know this already.

You’ve heard this all before, haven’t you?

It’s funny to think, isn’t it? How long it’s been since this all started. How long ago that once upon a time happened. How little we once were. How much we have changed. We have lived and loved. We have loved and lost. Once upon a time. But don’t stories that start like that end happily? I think they do.

And I think this one will too.

It’s almost summer now. I’m at my desk in my room in New Hampshire. The window is open and I can smell the grass outside. Boxes are piled up around me, filled with the little things I’ve accumulated since last fall. It’s not much, but that’s okay. The school year is done. The movers will be here soon. So will Dom and Ben. We’re taking a trip together for a few days. Just the three of us. Getting in a car and driving just to see how far we can get. I think we’ll get pretty far, don’t you?

I’m leaving Dartmouth.

Going back to Seafare.

But, Tyson!
you’re thinking.
You’re leaving a prestigious school to go back home? You’re giving all of this up?

I know how it sounds. I know how it looks.

But I’m standing, aren’t I? I can stand on my own. I know that now.

I’m not giving anything up. At least, not in the way you think.

Yes, I’m saying good-bye to Hanover. Leaving the Big Green to become a Duck.

No, I’m not addicted to quack (ha!).

In the fall, I’ll starting up at the University of Oregon in Eugene. About an hour away from Seafare. It’s a decision I did not make lightly. I came out here to prove something to the world. It turned out I just needed to prove something to myself.

And I’ve done that.

I had big plans. Grandiose ideas. I was going to change the way people think. I was going to alter the future of mankind. I was going to be an astronaut. A rocket scientist. A furniture salesman (because I do love couches so). I was going to run PETA and every human being on the planet was going to convert to vegetarianism. I was going to become an ecoterrorist (the good kind) and thwart the diabolical plans of Big Oil and corrupt CEOs who dumped their wastes into the marshlands that were the home of the rare Bicknell’s Thrush so that these magnificent birds would once again flourish. I was going to do it all.

And who knows. I still might.

But first, I’ve got different plans.

To change the big, you’ve got to start small. Or rather, you just have to start different.

Which is why I’ll be going to school in Oregon to become a social worker. To work with kids to make sure they know they’re not alone. So they know everything is going to be okay. The scared ones. The lost ones. The angry ones. All of them. I’ll start there. One at a time. It’s not going to be easy work. I’ve talked with Georgia Erlichmann, my former social worker (and Dom’s), many times about it. She tells me that the job makes her cry a lot. That there are times when bad things happen and there is nothing you can do about it. Where kids are put back into situations that aren’t good for them and there’s nothing you can do about it. She says those are the ones that are the hardest. And that it happens more than she cares to think about. And there’s nothing that can be done about it. As a matter of fact, she did everything she could to try to talk me out of it. “It’s a hard life,” she told me over the phone, “for the kids and those trying to help them. You’re underpaid, underappreciated, and see the worst in people on a daily basis. I’ve seen a child whose mother put her cigarettes out on her arms. I’ve seen children who’ve been pimped out by their parents in exchange for drugs. This isn’t easy work, Tyson. It never is.”

“But is it worth it?” I asked her, my voice shaking.

“Every bit of it,” she said. “If you can help one kid, then yes. It’s worth it.”

“Then that’s what I’ll work for.”

She sighed. “And you’ll do great at it.”

And I will.

It’s not fame. It’s not glamor. It’s doing what’s right.

And hell, I have the rest of my life to take over PETA and the rest of the world. I’ve got to start somewhere. Might as well be where I’m needed the most.

Bear wasn’t pleased about this decision, but I think he understands now. I think part of him was just relieved that I’d be coming back home.

Yeah. I’m not moving in with Dominic. At least not yet. We’ll get there. Eventually. We want to get Ben used to the idea of me in his routine again, though Dom seems to think it’ll happen quickly, just like it did before. I’m not going to be his father. He already has one of those. And a mother too. Instead, I’ll be whatever he needs me to be. His friend. His brother. His caretaker. I’ll watch over him as if he were my own. Because he is. He’s a part of me now. Bear said once that family isn’t defined by blood. It’s defined by those who make us whole, who make us who we are.

He’s a smart one, that Bear. Sometimes.

So, you see, I’m not giving anything up. I’m gonna do what I think I’m meant to do surrounded by the people I’m meant to be with. I think it was inevitable. I can stand on my own, and I can carve my own path, but I’m not whole without my family. They’re the ones who have made me who I am and have helped me to see who I’m supposed to be.

Creed and Anna. JJ. Jerry and Alice Thompson. Stephanie and Ian Grant. Stacey. Ben.

Julie McKenna, my mother.

Mrs. Paquinn, my real mother.

Izzie, my sister, who I have not forgotten.

Otter, my almost-father.

Dominic. My love. My life. My future.

But if you were to strip them all away, if you were to reduce this story, my story, to the most single common denominator that there is, what has this been about? What has it been about since you and I met so very long ago?

My brother and me. That’s what this has been about. The whole time.

There are others to our story. Great people and grand loves. They surround us just as surely as we surround them. But it always comes back to Derrick and Tyson McKenna. Bear and the Kid.

He is the reason I can breathe. He is the reason I can stand on my own. Not because he did it for me, but because he taught me how. That’s what brothers do. That’s what he’s done for me. I hope he can say I’ve done the same for him.

Someone once said, “I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see. I sought my God, but my God eluded me. I sought my brother and I found all three.” Bear told me that a long time ago.

We were scared, once.

We’re not scared anymore.

I can hear them through the window: Ben and Dominic. Dominic is laughing about something, and Ben is saying something back. I can’t quite hear what they’re saying, but that’s okay. I’ll find out soon enough. His voice. How my heart beats. How my fingers tremble. I wonder if it will always be this way. I think it might be.

Bear was right, though. Saying good-bye is the hardest part.

But I guess it’s time. For now.

They’re knocking at the door. Can’t keep them waiting. Them and whatever else awaits.

One more thing. I scribbled this down on a bit of paper I found. I don’t remember when. I was going to give it to Bear, but I chickened out. I don’t know why. Probably because it’s so damn cheesy and blah, blah, blah. I’ll just leave it here with you, okay? Don’t make fun of me too bad for it. It just seems fitting to end this with a bit of bad poetry. Feels like tradition, I guess. Like Bear before me, I give this to you.

I’ll see you later. Okay?

Brother

You are my protector.

Holder of the secrets that we shared.

You chased away my dark monsters,

and allowed my heart and soul to be spared.

The life we’ve lived. The times we’ve had.

You’ve picked up the tatters, put the cloth to mend.

There is no one stronger than who you’ve become,

and we are brothers until the very end.

Or, Bear’s Perspective, As It Were

(Yeah, He’s Gonna Freak)

A
DMIT
IT
.
You missed me.

Well, if you must know, I’m perfectly straight edge now. Normal as normal can be. Just a typical half of a normal married couple from the suburbs. Nothing to see here. Nothing’s going to happen. Move along, move along.

Yeah, I don’t believe me, either.

Today’s a big day, if you must know.

Why?

Tyson (no longer really the Kid, is he? God, that hurts to say) is coming home today. He and Dominic and Ben have been traveling back across the country together. They rented a big RV and have been stopping at all these random places like The Biggest Ball of Twine In the History of Ever and following decrepit billboards in backwoods America proclaiming
You’ll Never Be the Same After You’ve Seen THE THING!!!!
JUST TWO EXITS AWAY!!!!!
(Which, Tyson reported back to me, turned out to be nothing more than a pile of what looked like animal bones glued together to make a weird-looking fetal alien mummy.
Très
disappointing.)