reading sample: Chapter 1: Breathless

“Hey, watch it!”

She looked up from her book to witness the near-collision between the skater, the cyclist, and the jogger. The teenage girl on the skateboard moved on as though nothing had happened, the male cyclist (who had stopped, one foot touching the ground for balance) gesturing after her wildly. The jogger just shook his head with a lopsided smile as he picked up the pace again.

She was about to resume her reading when she noticed something else: a cellphone peeked from a pocket of the jogger’s sweatpants, precariously so. And indeed, even as she watched, it slipped all the way out and tumbled to the ground.

“Sir!” she called after the man in the sleeveless hoodie, who was running on, oblivious of the mishap.

“Sir! Your cellphone, sir!” she called, a little louder.

He still showed no reaction. Apparently, he thought she meant someone else.

On impulse, she snapped her book shut, rose from the park bench, and went to pick up the cellphone. Its owner was bringing more and more of a distance between them at a rather impressive rate. If he went much further, he would barely be able to hear her any more.

Muttering to herself that some people should really be more aware of what was going on around them, she took up pursuit of the jogger. She didn’t intend to let his long-limbed figure disappear from sight.

She could run, mind you, only that she hadn’t done it in earnest in a long time. And whilst that hooded man’s light-footed jog looked effortless, she still had to be yet a little faster to actually catch up with him.

It took her the entire stretch of the park to make it. There was no spare breath in her lungs to call out to him again, hence she made a desperate dash past the man and in front of him, holding up his cellphone as she skidded to a trembling halt.

He nearly collided with her, barely stepping around her (“Woah!”), and made to run on. But then he stopped as well and turned around.

She heard rather than saw it from where she had crouched down on aching feet.

“Now wait a second—is . . . is that my cellphone?” His voice sounded pleasant; more cultivated (for lack of a better term) than she would have anticipated from his outfit.

She held the item in question further up and in his vague direction. “It would seem so,” she somehow managed in between strained breaths. “Damn it, you’re one hell of a runner!”