I’m slowing right down, my face getting hotter and sweatier, when I look up and see Jesse running towards me. Fuck. He’s running fast, and smoothly, and no, there’s absolutely no way I can let him see me right now, death would be preferable. I look around for somewhere to hide. There’s nowhere, of course.

I can’t see anything clearly with sweat pouring into my eyes but I am certain he’s seen me and he’s probably smirking too, I can just sense it. Maybe I can still fix this, I can still look good. I start running faster, my legs feeling like wobbly sticks of butter, melting and shuddering with every step, my shoes gripping my toes like a bear trap, my pelvis crunching with pain, my face feeling three times its normal size. I have forgotten what I am supposed to do with my hands and arms while running—they feel like they are swinging too much. Despite all this effort, I might actually be going slower than I was before.

We’ve almost reached each other now. I’m going to visualise myself as cool and calm. Fake it until you make it, and, who knows, maybe I actually look really good right now. Maybe I look like the sleek lycra-clad women who keep flying past me. I really could be going much faster than I realise.

Is he going to say hi to me? Am I going to say hi to him? This is worse than the tram situation. Maybe just a head nod. That seems like something runners do. I am arranging my face into an expression of polite disdain, when the pain in my abdomen sharpens suddenly, like someone has slipped a knife into my side and now they’re turning it.

I swallow a yelp and stop shuffle-running and bend over, walking to the side of the track and then kneeling down. I don’t want to be kneeling. It feels very dramatic, and I especially don’t want to be kneeling in front of Jesse. I would almost rather die. But I don’t have a choice, the pain is bending me in two, and I very well might be dying.

Jesse is suddenly beside me, panting and sweating over the top of me.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks, sucking in air and pushing his hair back.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, suppressing a moan.

‘You don’t look fine,’ he says.

‘My stomach hurts a bit, that’s all.’ I say stomach but it’s lower. My ovaries, my uterus, my bladder maybe. Something in that vicinity. I don’t want to give him this level of detail. My pelvis is my private business.

‘Like a stitch?’ he asks.