The Art of Breathing

by T. J. Klune

  “Tyson!” Corey calls. “There you are.” He grabs Dominic by the hand and drags him over to us. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

  This is a horrible and horrendous lie, and he knows it. “Funny,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’ve been in the same spot the whole time.”

  “Hiding behind the Gross Tree Bush Thing,” Creed says helpfully.

  “Why do you guys have names for everything?” Corey asks as Bear continues to stroke the plastic. “Green Monstrosity. Gross Tree Bush Thing. I bet Bear and Otter have names for their penises too.”

  “I’m already in therapy,” I remind him. “That can’t possibly help the situation.”

  “Having a good birthday, Tyson?” Dominic asks me as if we didn’t just spend the most awkward lunch of our lives together and as if he hasn’t just spent the last hour being the object of Corey’s affections.

  “Superb,” I say. “Illuminating. Eye-opening.”

  “You okay, Ty?” Corey asks. “You sound a little… uptight.” He inches a step closer toward Dom. Their arms are touching. He wouldn’t be able to do that if he didn’t have arms! I think savagely.

  So, it whispers. We’ve pretty much given up on the whole “seeing them as friends and nothing more” thing, then? I’m impressed. It lasted… what? A week? Two weeks? That’s quite the willpower you have their, Kid. Something to be so very, very proud of.

  Shut it.

  “I’m fine,” I say, though it sounds like I’m either about to explode or lay an egg. Possibly both.

  “Good,” Corey says, obviously pleased about something. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty to talk about on our trip, then. You and me in a car for two whole days? My, what could possibly happen?”

  “Texas Chain Saw Massacre comes to mind,” I say. “Or possibly Thelma & Louise.”

  He grins. “I think we’re on the same page, dear heart.” He winks at me, and I muse on how dull a spoon can be and still be able to gouge out an eye.

  “Texas Chain Saw Massacre?” Bear echoes incredulously. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

  “Good job, Kid,” Otter says. “If you ever wanted to not go on a road trip with your friend, that was the way to do it.”

  “Oh shit,” I groan.

  “This is not going to go well,” Creed agrees.

  “Bear?” Anna says. “Maybe you should just take a breath before you pass out.”

  Bear ignores them all, even as his face turns red. It doesn’t take a genius to see his mind is racing at a billion miles an hour and going off in directions that a normal person with normal brain function couldn’t even possibly imagine. Let’s see how well I know Bear, shall we? There are a lot of weirdoes out there, he’s probably thinking. What if they’re driving and they cross into California and for no reason other than for it to happen, the car breaks down? And of course it’ll be in the middle of the night because that’s when these things always happen. Their cell phones won’t work because for some reason, the satellites are hidden behind mountains or clouds or whatever and they’ll be stuck out in the middle of nowhere next to an abandoned meat-packing plant that’s the only building for forty miles. Tyson won’t be able to resist going over to it because he’s sure it’s still in production and will want to find some way to blow it up, because he’s no longer an ecoterrorist-in-training. No, he’s gone on to full-blown terrorism now, all because of vegetarianism, but he’ll find the meat-packing plant is not in production, and it hasn’t been for years, and is now instead the home to a cabal of sadistic psychopaths whose only mission in life is to cause as much human terror and destruction as possible. Tyson and Corey will attempt to flee the chainsaw-wielding crazies who just finished having sex with their mothers on top of a blanket made from the skins of their victims, but they’ll be trapped inside the meat-packing plant because it’s been turned into a carnival of terror where once you go in, you can never get out. These things happen in California all the time. I know this because I watch the news now, and I read articles, and every day there are mass chainsaw murders in California, and I don’t know why no one has done a single thing about this epidemic of fear, but you can sure as shit bet that Tyson won’t be allowed to go there, no sir! I’d rather him be pissed off at me for the rest of his life for thinking I’m interfering with him even though he’s now twenty years old rather than have him become the sex blood slave to a crazy named Harvey who keeps him locked in a cage made out of femurs and attaches a collar around his neck made of dried out tongues and tied together with eyelashes still glistening wetly with tears. Of course I’m going to interfere if it means saving him from such a fate! There is no way in hell I’m going to let him be a fuck buffet for a bunch of inbred Californian psychopathic chainsaw cannibals! I know what happens in California! I’ve seen the news!

  Not bad, huh? Yeah, try living with him continuously and see if it’s still amusing.

  “You bet your ass you’re not going to California!” he finally explodes. “I’m not going to let you get raped by psycho cannibals!” Bingo. “And I swear to God, you better not think you’re ready for this jelly, because I will make sure your milkshake brings no one to the yard.”

  Dammit. So close. Even I don’t know how he got to that one. I must be slipping with my Bearology. I used to have his neurosis down to the smallest detail. Which makes me very, very sad.

  “We’re not going to get raped and murdered,” I say.

  “And even if we did,” Corey says, “using the laws of averages and Horror Movie Trivia, at least one of us would need to survive so we could come back for the sequel.” He shakes his head sadly. “It probably won’t be me. I’m not white.”

  “I would feel really sad if it was you,” I say, lying through my teeth.

  “I somehow doubt that,” he replies, that smirk back on his face.

  “No raping!” Bear shouts.

  “They’re not going to get raped,” Otter says, trying to soothe Bear. “Tyson isn’t stupid enough to go into an abandoned meat-packing plant in the middle of nowhere.” Good to know he came to the same conclusion I did.

  “Well,” I say, “I probably wouldn’t. But if it looks like it’s still in operation, all bets are off. Do you know how many of our animal friends are monstrously torn apart every—”

  “Kid, you’re not helping your cause,” Creed says. “I’d shut your trap.”

  He’s probably right. Bear looks like he’s ready to lock me up in my room, never to release me from my tower.

  “I am twenty years old,” I remind them. “Legally, I can go wherever I choose.”

  “Probably not the best argument,” Otter says, “however true. Especially since you’d be using our car.”

  “I’ll just rent a car!”

  “You’re not twenty-five,” Anna says.

  “And you have, like, four dollars,” Corey reminds me.

  “I am going to be trapped with all of you for the rest of my life,” I groan, and for some reason, this causes almost everyone to smile stupidly.

  “We’ll go through Idaho,” Corey offers. “Then down through Nevada. Avoid the whole ‘cannibal Californian’ thing all together.”

  “No,” Bear says quietly. “Stay out of Idaho.” He glances at me, and we both know why. That’s where she lives. Or at least, that’s where she was living the last time we heard from her. It’s not like there’s any chance I’ll accidentally run into her, but with all the things that have happened to our family, I wouldn’t dismiss it completely. We tend to get the brunt of the bullshit all at once. It’s kind of our thing.

  “One of us could just go with them,” Creed says.

  Who do these people think they are? “Now wait just a goddamn minute—” I start to say.

  “That’s perfect!” Corey says, overriding me. “Dominic! Weren’t we just talking about how you have some time off coming to you?”

  “You asked me that, yes,” Dom says slowly, and I can almost appreciate the diabolical trap Corey has intricately
spread out all around us. I can do nothing as I watch him tighten the noose. “Randomly. Out of the blue.”

  Corey claps his hands together. “Well, then, Dominic can go with us to Tucson! We’ll be gone, what… a week at the most? Two days there, three days to hang out in Tucson, and then two days back with just Dominic and Tyson. Alone. By themselves. Surely you could ask for the time off, couldn’t you, Dominic? And, Bear, wouldn’t that make you feel so much better about the trip knowing a rather large police officer was escorting our young, impressionable, and obviously easily murdered by psycho cannibals selves through the wilds of California?”

  The more he speaks, the more his death at my hands becomes an inevitability. That asshole knows exactly what he’s doing. This whole thing should be over and done and never discussed again, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling homo.

  And since the (loaded) question is directed toward me, naturally everyone turns to look at me. Otter looks worried. Judas (Creed) looks like he thinks this is the funniest thing to ever have happened anywhere and can barely contain himself. Anna is scolding JJ across the room with her eyes only (in that weird way that only parents can do) as JJ prepares to massacre a bunch of balloons with a fork. Bear looks between Dominic and me, a look of dawning comprehension falling over his face. His mouth tightens and his eyes narrow.

  And yet, wonder of all wonders, he waits. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t say what he thinks is best for me, and for once, I’m pissed that he’s not taking this decision away from me, that he’s making me act like the smart and mature and totally responsible twenty-year-old I am (or like to think I am, anyway). Just two seconds ago, I was mad that he was trying to make a decision for me and now I’m mad that he’s not. Jesus fucking Christ. I have to be bipolar. There’s no other explanation for it.

  God. Being an adult sucks so much ass.

  And Dominic, of course. Dominic, who stands there larger than anyone has any right to be, watching me with guarded eyes and a blank face, and I want to scream at him to just tell me what the fuck he wants, what the fuck he wants me to do. What he wants me to say. What’s that word Bear used to use? Projecting. Of course I’m projecting, because he doesn’t want anything from me, he doesn’t need me to do or say anything. His life and world was perfectly ordered until I came back.

  And yet he waits and watches in that infuriating way.

  In the space of the seconds that have passed, three responses have formed in my head, and it’s anybody’s guess which one will actually come out.

  One: Are you out of your fucking mind? Of course I don’t want you to come! I’m fighting a losing battle to get these ridiculous fantasies out of my head of your dick in my mouth, and you want to be plastered by my side for a week? How could you possibly think that’s a good idea. Don’t you know what you do to me? Don’t you know why I didn’t come back? You broke me, Dom. You broke me into a billion tiny little pieces, and somehow, I’ve put myself back together, only to have you here again. I love you. I don’t think I ever stopped. But I can’t have this because even though I’m back together in some shape and form, I still don’t know how to breathe.

  Two: Of course I want you to come. That way we can be by each other’s side as much as possible because I highly doubt once this summer’s over that I’ll ever come back here. I really think Seafare and I might be done. So let’s go do this one last thing before I figure out how to put my life back together and get myself back on track. One last thing so that I can look back years from now and not feel completely guilty about how I decided to run away yet again.

  Three: Sure, Dom! That’d be swell. We’ll have a blast! I really appreciate you taking the time out of what I’m sure is a busy schedule to come and babysit Corey and me. Maybe that’ll give us more time to reconnect and see what’s what. Maybe you can drive part of the way too? That’d be awesome.

  Three choices. Three different reactions.

  Which one do I pick?

  Surprise! The fourth one.

  “What about Ben?” I ask stupidly while it laughs hysterically inside my head, calling me an asshole.

  “That’ll be his week with his mother,” Dominic says softly. “They’re taking him to Disneyland with a group of other autistic kids. Supposed to be a big to-do.”

  “And you weren’t going to go?”

  He shakes his head. His face is still blank, like any decision I make wouldn’t matter in the slightest to him.

  You’re projecting, it says, sounding amused. Jesus, you’re supposed to be this fucking genius, and here you are, wondering yet again why a boy doesn’t like you like you like him. How positively dismal has your life become that this is what you are now? You’ve been to hell and back and this is what you’ve made of it? This is what you’re going to allow yourself to be? Such promise, they’ll say someday. He had such promise and he let it all be squandered away. I hope I’m still around to tell you I told you so when that happens.

  I mimic Dominic as much as possible. I shrug. “Doesn’t matter to me one way or another. I don’t think we need a babysitter. But it would be all right to have company on the trip back home.” I think about each and every single word as it comes out of my mouth to make sure there could be no hidden meaning gleaned from any of them. I’m not being paranoid. Just careful. (And paranoid.)

  He shrugs too. “That works.”

  What is that supposed to mean, you son of a bitch? I almost scream at him, but I stop myself even as I feel it start to well up in my throat.

  Corey claps his hands together. “Wonderful!” he exclaims much too brightly. “Then it’s settled. Dominic will accompany us to Tucson, and we shall see what we see!”

  Everyone starts talking at once.

  THE PARTY is winding down and people are saying their good-byes. I’m in the backyard, and Jerry and Alice Thompson hug me tightly and tell me how happy they are I’m home again and that they’d better see me before I leave for Tucson. I smile at them as they leave me with a wave. Good people, them. The best.

  I’m tired, though. Today has been weirdly draining. I’m not in a panic, not yet. I can still breathe, so at least there’s that. But I can’t help but feel the rug has been pulled out from under me, and I’ve somehow tumbled down a rabbit hole where I’m late, I’m late, and nothing makes sense because it’s all brightly colored and upside down.

  If I could just find some control, everything would be okay. I know it would.

  I slide off my sandals and curl my toes in the grass. It’s cool against my skin.

  “Hey,” someone says from behind me.

  “Hey, yourself,” I say back.

  Bear stands next to me and brushes his arm against mine. I feel better now that it’s just the two of us. “You sure about this?”

  “About what?”

  “You know.”

  Yeah. “Honestly?”

  “Sure, Kid.”

  “I want everything to go back the way it was.”

  He laughs quietly. “It wasn’t always that great.”

  I nudge his shoulder. “We had our moments, you and me.”

  “We did, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, Papa Bear.”

  “I’ll kill him, you know.”

  This startles me. “What? Who?”

  “Dominic.” Bear’s voice has gone hard.

  “Bear—”

  “If he hurts you,” Bear says, “I’ll kill him. I don’t care that he’s family. I don’t care that he’s one of us. You were mine first, and I swear on all that I have, if he does you wrong, it’ll be the last thing he does.”

  I’m absurdly touched, even if his anger is misplaced. “Don’t think it’ll come to that,” I say roughly. “It’s not him, you know. It’s me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  I laugh. “That’s not even remotely true.”

  He moves then to stand in front of me, facing each other and eye-to-eye. I don’t remember when that happened, t
he moment he didn’t have to look down anymore. It’s almost like looking into a mirror. It’s odd, really. But it’s home, too, so I don’t question it.

  “It is,” he insists, his eyes flashing angrily. I don’t know who he’s pissed off at right now, me, Dom, himself, or this whole situation. “You are just the way you need to be. If anybody tries to tell you otherwise, I’ll knock them flat on their ass.”

  “Sure, Bear,” I say, because I have no other words.

  He nods and takes a step back. His eyes soften and a faraway look crosses his face. “I never thought we’d get to this point,” he says.

  “What point?”

  He shrugs. “Here. Now. You and me. You… you’ve grown up.”

  “Everyone does, Bear,” I say lightly.

  “I know. It’s just that….” He shakes his head. “I just thought there’d be more time. I thought I’d have longer.”

  I roll my eyes. “We only have the rest of our lives. You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m not leaving forever. It’s just a week.”

  A small smile curves his lips. “Yeah?”

  “We’re brothers, right?”

  “Sure, Kid. Brothers.”

  “And brothers stick together. No matter what.”

  “No matter what.”

  “So then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “I always worry.”

  I laugh. “That’s because you’re you. That’s what you do. And there’s nothing wrong with you, either.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he says.

  We’re quiet for a time. Just a thing brothers do, I guess. Finally, “Bear?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m doing the right thing. Right?”

  “About?”

  “Everything.”

  He shrugs. “I think so. I hope so. We’ll find out, I guess. And even if it’s not, and even if it doesn’t go like we think it will, then you come back to me and I’ll put you back together and make sure all the little cracks hold together.”

  I nod. “How do we think it’s going to go?”