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Only inches from me and from the van's door, he sprinted forward between us, ducking beneath the van's broad side-view mirror to pass me. He was moving like a barracuda, navigating across the ocean floor through sharp rocks and crags without a thought. I tried to imitate his moves, clumsily, apprehensively, desperate to regain my lead. He fought back, ducking around sport cars in adjacent lanes.

We muscled each other neck and neck until he quietly dissapeared behind me, along with the blur of brownstones, storefronts, and construction sites. Even as I started to feel confident, my thighs were heating up like an overworked engine. I was sweating, panting, but I pushed forward, slashing the front tire right and left as I shifted my weight around for extra speed.

I glanced backward to check his position. He was tailing me, smiling. It was cool to be in the lead, but somehow he still had the upper hand. I pushed myself so hard that my breath was narrowed, and my eyes darted with panic through the world of blurring colors and shapes (the truck backing up, the white car rolling out blindly from the right, the red Camaro coming up behind us).

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