Breathing represents Sunny’s struggles to communicate with his father, as well as his anxiety from the childhood trauma he endured. Sunny introduces breathing as a motif at the beginning of the text. At his track meet, Sunny explains that he often hears his father yelling at him from the stands, telling him to remember to breathe, which Sunny writes actually has the opposite effect on him: “then I immediately start thinking about what breathing sounds like. I can never really find it [...] And then I start thinking about what not breathing sounds like” (9). Darryl puts enormous pressure on Sunny to succeed in running, and this pressure manifests as Sunny’s anxiety and difficulty breathing.

Sunny and Darryl struggle to communicate effectively with one another, which is another way the breathing motif appears in the text. When Sunny confronts Darryl about his reasons for quitting running, Sunny explains the effect that Darryl’s words have on him: “My form was this, my stride was that, my breathing is off, breathe, Sunny. Breathe. That’s what you say? You say I have to breathe, but I can’t. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe” (91). Sunny tells his father that his criticisms and scrutiny, as well as the pressure Darryl puts on him makes him feel like he is choking.