A man walking his dog looks at me twice and I know he’s about to ask if I’m okay, so I take off as fast as I can, my feet just skimming the ground. They are like air, touching down and then lifting off again, barely leaving a print.

Soon I have a stitch digging at my ribs, but I’m going to run through it. I’m not stopping. Not yet.

When I run I forget. No thoughts, just movement. To keep my hands loose, I pretend I’m holding eggs, just like my coach tells me to. It helps keep my whole body relaxed. I can control my breathing: taking in air and letting it out as smoothly and evenly as a steam train. This is what I do. I run.

I feel my phone vibrate in my back pocket, but I’m not stopping. Not for them.

I check for cars and run across lanes of black tar and traffic lights and up onto the footpath on the other side. I pass the oval where a game of cricket is being played and I don’t stop at the water fountain.

I run past an old woman watering her garden and around a little kid on a scooter. I run into the strange time of the night where streetlights flick on as I swoop under them and tiny flies circle my legs. I run into the twilight of my old street, where my new house sits in darkness because the builders have left and there’s no-one home to turn on any lights.

I run down behind the house, dodging the tree ferns and ignoring the sounds of the neighbours having a barbecue and kids kicking a soccer ball against our shared fence.

The cumquat bush is still under the window ledge. I teeter on the edge of the green-glazed pot and stretch up, my skin slick with sweat. My fingertips skim the bottom of the metal guttering, unable to take hold. I need to be higher. I need to get up.

I drag across a couple of bricks from the pile Dad plans to turn into a pizza oven one day. I stack them as securely as I can on the rim of the cumquat pot. This time I lean back against the laundry wall as I balance on the brick pile. I can do this.

I’m tall enough now to reach the guttering. I grab it with two hands, feeling it bend under my weight, and leap up as high as I can, scattering the bricks under my feet. Swinging my leg up, I pull and drag my body across the ridge of the gutter, the cold metal pushing into my skin. And then I’m up and over, sprawled on the corrugated roof.