Bear, Otter, & the Kid 03 - The Art of Breathing (3 page)

I laugh, trying to distract myself. I still can’t get over the fact that Bear is an English teacher. Bear. Derrick Thompson. A
teacher
. It blows my mind daily to think about him standing in front of a classroom and opening his mouth and letting actual
words
fall into the impressionable young minds of the next generation. The world is so screwed. “You just wish I’d taken your class, Mr. Thompson,” I say. “We could have sparred back and forth on the relevance of Aldous Huxley to this modern age. I would have made it rain up in your classroom, and everyone would have been all like, ‘Oh, that Tyson is so awesome. I wish I could be like him one day because he’s wicked badass and he knows more than the teacher and we all love him more than life itself.’”

Bear huffs at me. “No, they would have been all like, ‘I wish that kid who looks like a faded Xerox copy of the stunningly handsome Mr. Thompson would stop talking so we could actually learn something instead of hearing blah, blah, blah.’”

“No! They would have all been like, ‘I wish Tyson would be our teacher so we didn’t have to listen to Mr. Thompson who sounds like he just started trying to learn the English language twenty minutes ago because he’s all like duh. Duh. Duh.’”

“No! They would all be like—”

“As fun as this conversation is,” Otter says, “and believe me, it’s the most fun I’ve had in at least sixteen minutes, we should probably focus on the party.”

“We’re the most fun you’ve ever had ever,” Bear says, tapping Otter’s hand. “You best remember that.”

Otter smiles at my brother and it hits his eyes. Bear told me once that with Otter, you can tell everything he’s feeling all the time, that he can’t ever hide anything. I didn’t think it was true at the time, because I figured anyone can hide
something
if they really wanted to. I still don’t know about that.

But he’s not. Not now. Now he’s looking at my brother like he thinks Bear hung the moon and the stars, which, according to Otter, he might have. I’ve never understood how people could be so against them when they look at each other the way they do. All they’ve ever really wanted is each other (whether Bear knew it or not, but do we really need to go through all
that
again?) and to exist in their own little corner of the world. And they’ve gotten it, for the most part. Or, at least, I hope they have.

“I remember,” Otter says quietly, grasping Bear’s hand. Their wedding rings catch the low light as they scrape against each other. It’s nice, but it’s also getting to the point where if they keep swooning into each other’s eyes, we’re all going to drown in their saccharine sweetness as rainbows fly out their butts. I’ve got things to do today. Trust me when I say this moment, for me, is the equivalent of other kids walking in on their parents. It’s the same exact thing, and it’s really gross.

I make it my mission to kill the moment as quickly and efficiently as possible so we can talk about
my
problems again. I’ve learned teenagers are the most self-centered creatures on the planet. We preen more than show dogs. “This is lovely and all,” I say, quite loudly, “but I’d really like to move forward with the next item on the agenda.” I only called this meeting because I need their funds for the party. Bear has refused to let me get a job like normal people my age, saying that he wants me to focus on school.

I don’t normally ask, but on the rare occasion I need money for anything, I go to Bear and Otter. We’re not rich (or, at least, I don’t
think
we are), but we seem to do okay. Even so, I don’t want to ask them for money for Dom’s present. I want to be able to get it on my own, with my own money. This has seemed important for me to do ever since the idea first hit my brain a few months before. (Every so often, little things like that crash into me, worming their way into my head until they’re all I can focus on. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a little OCD buried in me somewhere, but I try not to let it take over if I can. Fact: do not go online to try and diagnose yourself. You’ll end up convinced you’re far worse than you actually are. Trust me; it took Otter and me three days to convince Bear he only had the flu when he was sure that WebMD was telling him he had all the symptoms of rabies. He told us we should probably go away before he started frothing at the mouth and developed a taste for human flesh. “Have you
seen Cujo
?” he growled at us. “You should probably just put me down now!” I looked at Otter and said solemnly, “I’ll do it, Pa, if you’ll get me the shotgun. He’s my dog. I should be the one to put him out of his misery.” I reached over and petted Bear’s head. “You’ve been a good dog,” I told him. “The best a boy could have. I reckon I sure am going to miss you.” Otter thought I was hysterical. Bear had just thrown up again. I tried not to take that last personally.)

So instead of asking for money, I got clearance to tutor kids in AP Chemistry and AP Calculus, seeing as how I’d taken both the year before. Bear tried to argue with me about it when I had to get his okay, but I countered that it would give me more human interaction outside of the family and that it’d probably be good for me to have better social skills as I was going to college in the fall. I might or might not have also given him that look he always falls for. He relented. And I wasn’t totally full of shit about the social-skills part.

Kids at my school were unsure what to do with me. I was too young to hang out with kids taking the same classes I was, too smart for the kids my own age, too weird to be appreciated by anyone who hadn’t been around for years. I didn’t mind. Well, not much. Okay, maybe a little, because I always felt that I was under a microscope, like some kind of weird freaky-looking thing that people didn’t quite know how to categorize.

So I figured I could improve my social skills by tutoring others and also earn money at the same time so I could tell Dom I’d gotten his gift by myself. For some reason, that last thing was very important to me.

I raised the money, yeah. But the social side of it? That was a freaking nightmare. I swear I was speaking English, but my pupils didn’t seem to understand a single word coming out of my mouth.

I don’t use big words just so I sound smart. I’m not like that. I just… I don’t know. I operate on a completely different wavelength, I guess. At least I know I’ll never be a teacher like Bear. How he has that much patience is beyond me. I wanted to pull my hair out ten minutes into the first session.

But it was worth it, because it let me afford his gift. At least, I hope it’s going to be worth it when he sees it. Is it the right thing to give him? Or is it stupid? Is it such trite sentimental bullshit that he’ll take one look at it and roll his eyes?

Crap.

I shuffle through my list, trying to clear my head. It’s not working. I’m starting to feel anxious, that old feeling constricting slightly in my chest. I need this damn party to go off perfectly or else I’m going to have a minor meltdown. I try and focus on my breathing like Eddie taught me how to do years ago when I was diagnosed as having panic attacks. Bear too, though his are lesser in strength and frequency than mine. I didn’t want to go on medication, and Eddie is a little too Zen to write prescriptions anyway, so we tried meditation and breathing, and it worked for the most part. And it should work now. I’m not that far gone yet. I don’t have the clawing at my heart, the constricting of my throat, but it could get there. It could get there so easily. One little push and everything would get a little hazy because nothing will work right, and I—

No. No. No.

All I need to do is breathe.

Just breathe.

In. Hold for three seconds.

I don’t want to go to the bathtub today.

Out. Hold for three seconds.

There are no earthquakes. I do not shake.

In. Hold for three seconds.

I am not having a panic attack. I am above it.

Out. Hold for three seconds.

Everything is fine. Everything is fine.

Bear and Otter see this, as they always do. And as always, they don’t speak, they don’t try to break me out of it. I know it kills Bear to see me this way and not be able to do anything, but Eddie told him it would only make it worse if he tried to interfere with my exercises. Bear’s always been my protector, and I know it causes him pain to not be able to stop these stupid little moments I have. I tried once to explain that it’s not his fault and that him just being there is all I need. I wasn’t very eloquent, as my explanation came at the end of one of these attacks. I was slightly hysterical after having convinced myself that Bear was going to leave that day for whatever reason and not come back. He understood, even if I hadn’t made much sense.

Much like he understands now. He knows that, sometimes, I don’t need words. I don’t need to talk it out. I just need him to be near me while I push through it. I hear his chair scrape as he stands and soon he’s kneeling next to me, twisting my chair until I’m facing him. I look down at my hands and then glance up at him through my eyelashes. He rubs his hand down my arm and I take his fingers in my lap and tug on them, something I’ve done as long as I can remember. It feels safer now. It feels like home.

“Kid,” he says gently.

“What?” I say, sounding snappish. I don’t mean to and I wince, trying to show him I’m sorry.

He looks like he’s choosing his words carefully, which, if you know Papa Bear, is a feat in and of itself. It also makes me dread the words that are going to come out of his mouth. “I know,” he says, “that Dom’s your best friend, and that’s a good reason for you to want this to be perfect. But… is something else going on? You seem a little… high-strung. Well, more so than usual. It’s been a while since you’ve had to do your exercises. At least that I’ve seen.” I don’t miss when he glances quickly at Otter or the subtle shake of Otter’s head in response.

“I’m fine,” I mutter. “There’s nothing wrong. I just want his party to go well so that he has fun. That’s all.” And that’s a big, fat lie, but I don’t want Bear to know that.

However, he doesn’t let it go. “Kid,” he says, “what’s so different about this year than all the ones before?”

Damn him.

I rub my hands over my face, wondering if I should push away from the table and head outside for a bit to clear my head. This moment has been moving closer and closer, and I don’t know if I’m ready to deal with it yet. Every day I look at the calendar and mark off each passing day and it reminds me of what will happen and what I cannot change, no matter how much I want it to. No matter how much I wish I could ask Dom to just go with—

No. It’s not fair to him. I can’t do that. I can’t. His life is here. He’s building it in Seafare and will continue to do so even when I’m not.

“It’s just….” I try to articulate, but it seems petty, childish. It seems beneath me that I should have these fears, that I should be feeling this way. It’s not who I am. It’s not the way I want to be. It’s not the way I was raised. I am so much bigger than this. I am so much stronger than this. Bear was better than this, and the stuff he had to go through was harder than anything I’m going through. I know nothing of sacrifice. I know nothing of pain. Not like what he had to do.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t ache with it.

Bear still waits, and he’s going to want an answer sooner rather than later. One of the promises I made when I stopped going to therapy was that I would talk out these moments, that I wouldn’t let them turn into something more. I laughed it off back then, figuring I was cured from my incredible neurosis, as even Bear seemed to have chilled as he got older. I made the promise, though. It was the only way Eddie, Otter, and Bear would agree to stop the weekly sessions.

And I’ve been fine. Mostly.

Puberty blows. I’m moody for no reason. I’m anxious. I’ve got hair growing in the oddest places. My voice cracks every now and then like it’s made of fragile glass. My eyebrows seem to want to make a unibrow. And I expected to shoot up at least another four or five inches, but no. Of course not. I’m a tiny, fretful, hairy dwarf, and I can’t
wait
until I outgrow this and get on with the rest of my life. Being a teenager is not all it’s cracked up to be. I can’t wait until I hit my midthirties.

And still he waits. Bear never had this much patience six years ago. It’s annoying is what it is. I think about growling at him to go away, but that’ll just make things worse. My hands are tense in his. He can feel it. He has to.

I’m articulate, so why can’t I find the words? Why does it seem like I’ll shatter if I open my mouth?

In. Hold for three seconds.

You can do this.

Out. Hold for three seconds.

Tell him. Just open your mouth and tell him.

“This is it, you know?” I tell him quietly.

“What’s it, Kid?”

I hesitate.

“Kid?” Otter asks. “Do you want me to leave so you and Bear can talk?”

I shake my head at once. “No. I need you here too, okay? You’re Otter. I need you as much as I need Bear.” And that’s true, but I still glance quickly at Bear, just to make sure that doesn’t make him mad. I don’t want him to be mad about something like that. It’s just gotten to the point in my head where they’re a team, they face things together. Bear’s my brother, but Otter’s my… what? Brother? Uncle?

Father?

Bear’s not upset. I really didn’t think he would be, but that smile on his face is still comforting. He doesn’t think I see him do it, but his gaze darts over to Otter’s, and they catch each other, just for a moment. It’s another one of those looks they have. It’s not something I’m privy to, the secret language they communicate with, but that’s okay. It’s not meant for me. It’s meant for them.

Otter stands from his seat at the table and moves his large frame until he’s in front of me. He sits on the kitchen floor, his knees bumping my shin. They’re surrounding me, letting me know they are there just by little touches. It’s almost too much. I need this to be over.

“It’s….” My voice comes out like a croak. I stop and clear my throat. I try again. “It’s stupid. I know. I keep trying to tell myself not to think like this. That it’s all for the best, that it won’t matter in the long run. That this is what I wanted, right? That this is what I want to do with my life. This is what I’ve been working toward. This is what all those late nights have been for, those times when I wanted to go to bed, but I couldn’t because there was a paper due or a presentation I had to give.”