out of breath
thinking about new runner! reader who has adhd and God knows what else, who isn’t even good at running.
you used to avoid running at all costs, making jokes about how much you also hate cardio, lamenting to your professors about how the feeling of your heart beating that fast feels like an incoming panic attack….
sure, your parents both did track in high school, so maybe you have the genes for it, but.. you’ve never felt truly… good at something. anything, really.
A “run” for you mostly consists of sprints, cooldown walking periods, and alterations between jogging and cooldown walking periods when you get tired. You used to run on the treadmill to grind for that perfect time for that perfect amount of mile(s). But there’s something about running outside in nature, where there are different textures underneath the stomp of your cheaply made black boots, where you feel the different dips and humps in the paths, animals to look at (mostly squirrels and birds), and a few people to observe.
You watch with awe, slowing to a walk and stop as an American robin gobbles down an insect. You can’t tell what kind of insect it is, since you don’t spy it until it is in the bird’s beak, moments before being eaten, but it seemed to have a stinger of some kind. You watch as it finds a moth in the grass and eats it as well.
“What a cute little guy!” You marvel, excited at seeing such an interesting act out in ‘the wild’, so to speak, instead of just on the internet. It felt so special to your warming heart.
“Aye, ‘n wot’cher’ lookin’ at?”
You jump at the new voice with an unfamiliar accent. You’d crouched down as to not scare the birdie away, and looked up. The man is decently tall, taller than you anyhow. He seems rough around the edges appearance wise, but his voice register comes off as strikingly friendly. He’s got a muscle tank, a greyed mohawk, scars, and a few tattoos. You’re immediately intimidated.
“Oh, sorry, am I in your way?” You stand up fast, getting a little dizzy in the process.
“Not ‘a all..” You shift your feet nervously as you watch him study you with baby blues. “Name’s Johnny,” he finds himself saying, when he decides you’re worth his while, holding out a callused hand to your softer one.
“Oh, umm..” do strangers normally talk in the park? you wonder, but shake his hand firmly and tell him your name you go by. He seems pleased by the strength in your grip.
You eye his earbuds, running strap on his arm, and vest. “You seem.. pretty serious about this stuff.” He laughs lightly at that. No way this guy is real. His laugh sounds like if little baby bells were flowers. If that even makes sense.
“Nah, ‘s jus’ fer recovery. Fun.”
“Re…covery? From what?”
“I may nae look eet, but aim—“
“Ex-military or something?” He blinks in surprise at your accurate guess, dark eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings. No way this guy is real.
“Aye, how’d you..”
“Your dog tags.” You pointed at his chest, where a thin beaded chain lies, as well as dark hairs nesting, poking out of his tank.
“Oh, aye, right, of cairse,” he huffs a laugh,
“Yeah.. didn’t know ex-military guys could be nice,” you say, a little inquisitively, and a little suspiciously- that is, wary of him.
“Nae, na’ really, but my ma raised me right.”
“ ‘S that right?”
“Aye,” he nods, “I’ll show you.”
And show you he did, at y’all’s first date together.