The Art of Breathing

by T. J. Klune

  “What?” I ask.

  “About you.”

  “Does she?”

  “For a long time. After you left, things got… difficult with me.”

  “You were lost,” I whisper.

  “Yeah. For the longest time.”

  “We screwed up, huh?”

  He snorts. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Was she mad?”

  “Nah. Not her. I think she knew before I ever said anything. I wasn’t the… easiest… person to live with after you left. Then Ben came and I pushed you away. I had to make sure they were okay. That I’d do right by them.”

  “What happened?”

  “You were always there. Turns out it’s hard to push someone away when they’ve taken your heart. She knew. I thought I was doing the right thing, but she knew. She finally asked me one day what I was going to do to get you back.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I thought about lying. That I didn’t know what she was talking about. But by then, we were already over and we both knew it. We made better friends than anything else. So I told her I didn’t know what to do.” He laughs to himself. “She told me to man the fuck up.”

  “And did you?”

  “I was getting there,” he says. “But then I heard you were coming back and I waited. I told myself that you’d come back and I’d find you and we’d hash this out and we’d see what we’d see. So I waited.”

  “Until you could arrest me, huh?”

  He smiles. “Something like that.”

  “I was scared.”

  “You were shaking.”

  “I was so mad. At you. And at me. And then you arrested me.”

  “I dream about that.”

  “Arresting me?” Kinky fucker.

  “No. That moment. When I saw you again for the first time. That defiant look on your face. The way you stuck out your chest, trying to make yourself look bigger. You know what I thought right then?”

  “Probably how long you should tase me for, huh?”

  “No,” he says. “I thought, ‘We’re inevitable.’”

  “Yeah, Dom,” I say hoarsely. “You and me, huh?”

  “Sure, Ty. You and me.”

  “Stacey knows.”

  “Yes.”

  “Bear knows. And Otter.”

  “Do they?” No concern in his voice. “I thought they did.”

  “I think Bear’s known for a long time.”

  “He’s smart.”

  “Sometimes. Dom?”

  “Ty.” My name on his lips is something I’ll never tire of hearing.

  “Stacey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s okay?”

  “She is. She told me something once. At the end of me and her.”

  “What?”

  “She told me if you truly love someone, you could let them go.”

  “Oh.”

  “Or, she said, you fight like hell to get them back.”

  “You and her?” My heart breaks for the woman I long considered to be an enemy. I never wanted this, not if it meant others being hurt. Not truly. But something in his voice causes my heart to race, my skin to prickle. And then he speaks again and everything changes.

  “No, Ty,” Dominic says. “She was talking about you and me. And you can trust me when I say I’m going to fight like hell. Because no matter where you’ve been or how long it’s taken you to come home, we’ve always been inevitable, and that will never change.”

  I can say nothing in return because my voice no longer works.

  Sometime later, before he drifts off to sleep, he finds my hand with his and holds it tight.

  We drive on.

  24. Where Tyson Meets His Match

  IT’S A little house in a little neighborhood. Not bad, but by no means the greatest either. There’s a small fence around the front yard. There are flowers and bushes along the house that look as if they could stand to be watered. The lawn needs to be mowed. There’s an old car in the driveway, but it’s missing a tire and is up on a jack. It’s late afternoon, and I can’t tell if anyone is home.

  Dom had wanted to come, almost to the point of arguing with me. I told him if he meant what he’d said in the car, he’d let me do this. A little manipulative, sure, but I don’t want him to see her for a very simple reason. He’s never met her. Therefore, he can never be tainted by her. Should this go wrong (and there’s no reason to suggest it won’t—ever the optimist), I don’t want him to see her. She hasn’t gotten to him yet. And if I have anything to say about it, she never will.

  He wasn’t happy, of course. He wants to protect the ones he loves.

  Loves. Jesus Christ. That’s something I’m still not able to wrap my mind around. Either this has been the best trip in the history of ever or it’s about to go ass up.

  Drive away, it whispers. You’ve got what you wanted. At least the foundation of it. Drive away now. Pick up Dom at the shitty motel and drive home. Go back to Seafare and the Green Monstrosity and Bear and Otter and let them worry about things for a little. That’s what they’re there for. Then you can focus on Dom and whatever is supposed to happen. All you have to do is drive away.

  It would be so easy. I’d start the car. Put it in drive. And leave. This would all be behind me, and I’d never wonder about it again.

  They’re nice, these thoughts. But they’re wrong.

  I’d think about it. And I’d dream about her. And I’d always wonder.

  But wouldn’t it be better to wonder? If you wonder, you might not know, but at least there would be no more sorrow. There’d be no more hurt.

  That’s true. But I have to know. I have to know for myself. And for him. If we’re to have any future, then I need to know all of me.

  If you’d have told me a few days ago that I’d be sitting in front of Julie McKenna’s house after hearing Dominic Miller say he loves me, I’d probably have asked you just how finely cut the cocaine you’re snorting is. It’s been that kind of a week. God. My life is so fucking strange.

  Do it. Do it now. I’m either going to do it or leave. So just fucking do it.

  I open the car door.

  I remember her laugh.

  I close it behind me.

  I remember her smile.

  I’m halfway across the street.

  I remember her smell.

  I’m on the sidewalk.

  I remember how Bear sat in front of me, telling me she was gone.

  My hands curl into fists at my side and my throat constricts.

  Bear says, Breathe.

  Otter says, Breathe.

  Dom says, Just breathe, Ty. All you have to do is breathe. You breathe because it’s all inevitable. It’s all so inevitable. I promise you that you won’t be lost anymore.

  I breathe. Most people don’t know just how precious the art of breathing truly is. I breathe because of Bear. I breathe because of Otter. I breathe because of Dominic, who I love. Of course I do. And I’ll tell him. I’ll tell them all. And we’ll figure everything out together and everything will be as it was and as it should be. It’s inevitable.

  I don’t breathe because of her. Maybe I did at one point. Maybe that’s all I did. And maybe in the memories I have of her, there are good ones, times when she was my mother and I was her son and nothing else mattered. She left, but there was good in her. There was. I remember it. I remember the way her hair tickled my face when she kissed my nose. I remember the way she swung me up in the air. I remember the way her hand felt in mine as we listened to the waves on the beach. I remember that kite. I remember her.

  But mostly I remember Bear. And Otter. And Dominic. They are my brothers. They raised me. They loved me for who I was and for who I’ve become. I’m lost, but Dom promised he’s found me, and Bear says the same. These are the men I aspire to be. These are the men I need. These people are my family, and they’d never leave. They’d never leave me behind.

  And maybe that’s enough.

  Maybe
that’s all I need.

  I touch the fence. It needs to be sanded down and repainted. It’d look just like new.

  I watch the house, willing any sign to come from it to show me I shouldn’t just leave.

  There’s nothing.

  That’s it. I’m gone.

  “What are you doing?” a voice asks from behind me.

  I turn.

  Standing near the driveway of my mother’s house is a young girl of maybe eleven or twelve. She’s pretty, her dark hair braided and falling on her shoulder. She’s dressed in shorts and a white shirt streaked with dirt. There’s no fear on her face as she watches me, just curiosity.

  “Uh, just… looking at houses,” I say lamely. “I like… fences.” Oh, because that doesn’t sound creepy at all.

  “Oh?” she asks. “How peculiar. Is there something about this particular fence that does it for you?”

  “What? No! I’m just going for a walk. Around the neighborhood. To see the sights.” Yeah, that sounds so much better. Good job. You’re doing great!

  She shrugs. “Free country, I guess. Though I don’t know what sights there are to see here. It’s pretty bad.”

  “Nah. I used to live in worse. The apartment my brother and I used to have had bugs all the time.”

  “Like cockroaches?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I don’t care about cockroaches,” she says. “Did you know they can survive a month without food?”

  “I’d be okay if they didn’t survive at all,” I say.

  “I like bugs,” she says. “I’m going to be an entomologist when I grow up.” She points down to her shirt. “I was digging back in the woods, trying to find Rosalia funebris.” She looks me up and down. “That’s a banded alder borer beetle, in case you didn’t know.”

  “I knew that,” I say, even though I had no idea. I’m not going to look like some rube in front of a child. Who the hell does she think she is?

  “Sure you did,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You totally look like the type that gets dirty.”

  “I get dirty!”

  “You nails sure look manicured,” she points out.

  “Goddamn Kori,” I mutter as I hide my hands behind my back. “That was thanks to my ex-girlfriend. Well, sort of. Not sort of she gave me a manicure. Sort of she’s my ex-girlfriend. She’s also my ex-boyfriend. Wait, that doesn’t sound right either.”

  “You’re a mess, huh?” she says. “Almost offensive too. I think the term is transgendered. Are you transphobic?”

  “No! I’m not phobic anything.”

  “Well, entomophobic, anyway.”

  “I’m not scared of bugs! I just don’t like them.”

  “Most of them won’t hurt you,” she observes. “Especially if you leave them alone.”

  “I know that!”

  She nods, but it’s so obvious she doesn’t believe me that I want to knock her upside the head, but then I remember she’s a child I don’t know, and I think it’s probably frowned upon to hit unknown children on the street. Or anywhere else. “So,” she says, “you have an ex-boyfriend and girlfriend all in one? That’s pretty epic. There was a transgendered boy at my school, but he got made fun of and his mom took him out. Life sucks like that sometimes. And then you die.”

  “That’s a morbid way of looking at things.”

  “Or realistic,” she counters.

  “He’s not transgendered,” I say, though I have no idea why I’m explaining myself to her. “He’s bigendered. That means that—”

  “I know what that means,” she says. “I’m not a little kid.”

  “You sort of are. How old are you? Ten? Eleven?”

  “Twelve. How short are you? Four foot two? Three?”

  “I’m five seven!”

  “Something to be proud of,” she assures me, though I think she’s actually mocking me. “So we’ve established you are scared of bugs, have a fence fetish, and have dated outside of societal norms. Anything else I should know?”

  “Do you always talk like this?” I ask.

  “What? Like I know what I’m talking about?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  She grins. “I like you.” Then she frowns. “Wait. You’re not like a kidnapper or a rapist, are you? I have to warn you, I have a black belt.”

  “I’m not a kidnapper or a rapist,” I say. “What do you have a black belt in?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “But I own a black belt. Didn’t it sound intimidating?”

  “Not really,” I say. “I’m not scared of a little girl.”

  “But you’re scared of bugs. They’re a lot smaller than I am.”

  “I am not!”

  “Boys,” she says, rolling her eyes. “All bluster and noise.”

  “Tell me about it,” I mutter.

  She claps her hands against her chest. “You would know about it, wouldn’t you? Because you’re gay.”

  “I suppose.” This conversation needs to be over so I can skulk in front of the house some more. Or leave and never look back. That sounds good too.

  “Well, that’s fascinating. So, which one are you?”

  “Which one what?”

  The little girl looks over at the house. “I hear her talking sometimes. She can get loud when she wants to. Once, she was yelling into the phone and I heard a lot. That was before Frank left.”

  A buzzing noise picks up in my ears at the name Frank.

  “I don’t know who she was talking to, but she was yelling about them. Sometimes, she gets drunk and tells me stories. It doesn’t happen much anymore. The stories. And her getting drunk. I think she’s actually trying this time. Who knows whether or not she’ll make it. Jury is still out on that one.”

  “Who are you?” I ask her, though in my secret heart I already know.

  “You’re too young to be Bear,” she tells me. “Such a funny name, that. She told me you gave it to him.”

  “When I was just a little guy,” I whisper.

  She nods sadly. “Then you must be Tyson. Well, Tyson, I don’t know why you’re here, but it might be better if you left. Things might have changed, but it’s nowhere near where it should be. She’s never going to be what you need.” She says this with such a familiar air of forced adulthood that I’m taken aback. She’s essentially me.

  “Izzie?” I ask her, dazed.

  And she smiles, and gone is the cynical edge, the sarcastic lilt. Bear smiles the same way. So do I. As does our mother. It’s uncanny.

  Isabelle McKenna, my little sister, says, “I used to wonder if you’d ever come for me. Now I just wonder why you came at all.”

  MY HEART hurts a little when we walk inside and she immediately starts picking up the clutter around the house, obviously embarrassed by it. She mutters to herself that she most certainly wasn’t expecting guests as she empties an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and ash. Some have lipstick on the filter, dried and flaking. The house smells stale, and, frowning, she opens a window.

  “It’s not usually like this,” she says, but she won’t look at me. “I’ve just been busy with Rosalia funebris and haven’t had time to clean up.” She rushes around the living room, straightening out pillows and magazines. Wiping crumbs off the chipped coffee table. A layer of dust coats the top of the TV. A ceiling fan squeaks overhead.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her as gently as I can. “Stuff like this doesn’t bother me.”

  “Why not?” she asks. “It should. It’s a breeding ground for bacteria. Who knows how many strains of Escherichia coli are growing in here?”

  “Probably at least six or seven,” I say.

  She glances at me, eyes narrowed. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Good,” she says. She picks up a trio of coffee mugs and heads for the kitchen on the other side of the living room. “I’d hate to have to kick your ass.” She disappears through the doorway.

  I walk around the
room slowly, following her to the kitchen. There are celebrity magazines in piles on the floor near the couch. They look old and worn, and I can see the mailing label is made out to a hair salon. There are photos on a shoddy bookshelf, their frames plastic and cheap.

  Here is Izzie, a toddler smiling with a princess’s tiara on her head.

  Here is Izzie, dressed as a pirate for Halloween.

  Here is Izzie, waving as she climbs onto a school bus.

  Here is Izzie, sitting on Santa’s (Satan’s) lap.

  Here is Izzie and my mother. Our mother. Izzie sits on her lap, that familiar smile on her face. Mom isn’t smiling. This is the first time I’ve seen what she looks like since the day she knocked on the door to that shitty apartment so very long ago. She looks tired. And old. Rough. I don’t remember what happened to the one picture I used to have of her that I kept hidden in my drawer. Maybe Bear found it. Maybe I just threw it away.

  Out of the dozen photos, there’s not a single one of Bear or me. I should have known this. I should have expected this. And I think I did. It still hurts. I don’t know why.

  Besides Izzie, Izzie, Izzie, there are more photos of beaches and foggy Irish moors and Stonehenge and castles rising impossibly out of steep cliffs. They line the wall with no rhyme or reason, torn out of a magazine or travel brochure and pinned to the drywall. I reach out and touch each one, the paper curling around the yellowing edges. These are hers, too, I think. My mom’s. She always did dream of faraway places. It’s sad to think she only ever made as far as Idaho.

  The kitchen is dated, a Formica table in the middle, two folding chairs underneath on a linoleum floor. The fridge is a pale green, and some cabinet doors are missing their hinges. There’s an old electric range. An old microwave. An old everything. Everything in here is old. Secondhand. It might as well be how things looked for me growing up. Different place, same things. For a while, anyway. Before Otter came and saved us. Before Dom came and changed me.

  Dom. Jesus, how I wish he was here right now. I don’t know that I’m strong enough to do this on my own. I don’t even know what to say to this little girl, this little girl who might be the only other person in the world aside from Bear and me to understand this life. To understand how it feels. To understand what it means. This little girl who’s furiously scrubbing at dishes in the sink like they’ll never get clean unless she gives it all she’s got. There’s no dishwasher. So maybe this is normal for her.