‘I’m on the other side, I’ll be there in a bit.’
‘Can’t you walk the rest of the way?’ Malik said tersely and I ignored him, waiting for him to take me to the right entrance. I didn’t know what his problem was, but at that point, I didn’t care. I wanted to get on with the day and smash the race.
‘Pull up here, please,’ I told him when I spotted Lucy in her hot-pink vest and matching yoga pants, opening my window and waving at her. Why was it that when I wore similar bottoms they looked like leggings, but on Lucy they looked like yoga pants? Even with no makeup and her hair scraped back into a ponytail, she looked like a model for gym wear.
She was on her phone when the car came to a halt, so I called out her name through the open window to get her attention. When she looked up at me, she looked strange; bewildered, almost.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ I muttered as Malik all but shoved me out of the car and roared away.
‘Hey, Luce, you OK?’ I asked, giving her a hug. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘I’m OK,’ she said quickly, giving me a strained smile. ‘You ready for the race?’
‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’
The Seven Sisters Road entrance to the park was grimy. There was pigeon poop everywhere, and the distinct stench of weed, wee and desperation. Still, nothing could quell the excitement brewing in me. I had been training for this moment for months and I was ready to put my stamina to the test. Fine, it wasn’t twenty-six miles like Malik’s stupid marathon, but it was worlds away from my fitness levels pre-list and I wasn’t about to let him or anyone else bring me down. The fact that there was a greater purpose to this than proving that I could run without fainting made it all the more worthwhile.
We followed the crowds of people to the starting point. It was mostly women, all dressed in pink. There were children, old people and everyone in-between, all coming together to raise money for vital research. The atmosphere was warm and supportive and all along the route, friends and family had set up deckchairs and picnic blankets to cheer their loved ones on. I felt a slight pang that I had no one, but then, neither did Lucy.
The race began and to be honest, it wasn’t really a race. There were people walking along the route that took us around the perimeter of the park like they were on a casual stroll. I wasn’t one of those people. When the buzzer went, I shot off like a firework and ran like my future depended on it. With adrenaline coursing through me, I focused on the finish line and ignored all the noise around me. There were no other people, strolling or otherwise. There was no Lucy looking panicky, no Malik getting pissed off, no Noah ignoring my swipe, no Zakariya dropping me hints, no Sheila harassing me, no Ma and Baba overlooking me, no Pinky and Pretty undermining me, no aunties at weddings making me feel ugly and useless.
There was just me and my feet pounding against the tarmac, the blood thumping in my ears, the wind rushing through my hair. Nothing else mattered.
I finished the race in thirty-four minutes, which wasn’t fast – there were plenty of people who finished before me – but I did have to wait fifteen minutes for Lucy to join me. While I waited, I did my stretches, took some pictures and talked to other participants. There were so many women there who had either survived cancer or had lost loved ones to the disease. Talking to them was humbling. In that moment, I decided to commit to fundraising for Cancer Research regularly and to participate in Race for Life annually.
Lucy finally managed to hobble across the finish line, gulping for air and clutching onto her side like an appendix had burst. It was pretty funny, seeing her with her face the shade of beetroot, strands of hair sticking to it, sweat dripping in rivulets down her neck.
‘W-water,’ she gasped, grabbing a bottle from a volunteer and downing it so fast that she spilt half of it over her pink vest. Collapsing onto the grass, she lay there spreadeagled and I sat cross-legged next to her while I waited for her to get her breath back.
‘How come you’re not suffering like I am?’ she said when her skin eventually paled from tomato soup to more of a candyfloss pink. ‘I think I have a stitch. It’s worse than a stitch. It’s like surgery. Except the surgery went wrong, because I was being cheap and went to Prague to do it. And now I have an infection.’
I tried not to laugh as I surveyed the hot mess that was Lucy Robinson sprawled out on the ground talking nonsense. She was usually so perfect and composed and the reversal of roles tickled me.
‘Luce, you know I’ve been running for months now, right? Training for this very moment? I think I could have managed 10K, you know. It would have been hard but I reckon I could have done it.’
‘I know you said you were training but I thought you were exaggerating,’ she moaned, rolling over to her front. ‘How am I going to get home?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll ask my brother. He’s being a moody git today but there’s no way he’ll say no to a pretty woman.’
At this, Lucy sat bolt upright. ‘NO WAY. I’ll book a ride.’
‘Why? Because you look like a trainwreck? Who cares, it’s just Malik. And you still look good, sweat patches and all.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Don’t ask him, OK?’
‘All right, calm down, I won’t!’
True to her word, Lucy went home in a taxi, too exhausted to go out for a meal in Green Lanes like I had originally planned, so I plodded over to the bus stop. I was on such a high from the race that I didn’t fancy seeing my brother’s moody mug.
Checking my phone, I saw that Zakariya had replied to one of my Stories, congratulating me on completing the race.
‘Thanks,’ I typed out as I sat at the bus stop waiting for the number 29 to take me home. ‘I’m not gonna lie, I smashed it.’
ZAKARIYA: I wouldn’t expect anything else from you. How are you celebrating?
MAYA: Lucy got a stitch so she went home. I’m celebrating with takeout and a hot bath.
ZAKARIYA: Not all at the same time, I hope?
MAYA: Soggy doner kebab is the best, haven’t you heard?
Ma and Baba were out when I got in and so was Malik, so I did exactly as I had planned. I soaked myself in a hot bath with Epsom flakes until my skin shrivelled like a raisin and the water grew murky and tepid. I followed this up with a greasy kebab from my local Turkish takeaway and ate it in front of the TV while a mindless movie played in the background.
For the first time that day, I checked RateYourDate. As usual, there was nothing from Noah. I no longer felt a crushing sense of disappointment when I saw that he hadn’t responded to me, but I still felt a niggle of it. I kept telling myself that it was probably because he hadn’t logged in. Maybe he wasn’t checking the app intentionally, because he was already seeing someone?
