Taking courage from the warm hands which encased hers, Sue slowly spoke.
"It started when I first woke up, and hasn't let up since. I have…I do not know how to explain this, Jack…strange…sensations in my head."
"What sort of sensations?"
"That is exactly what I cannot explain, either to you or to my doctor!" Sue muttered in frustration. "All I can say is that they wax and wane, give me headaches, and are unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I cannot fathom what this possibly could be. They are at once similar, yet also different from each moment to the next. I have given up trying to figure out what it could be!"
"Does anything make it better, at all?" Jack asked hopefully.
"They only true improvement is when I am lying perfectly still in my bed at night, not moving a muscle. They usually decrease then, but not completely. Sometimes when I am sitting up in a chair, am alone and very still they can decrease, too. But the instant someone comes into the room they begin again. Lip reading has never been so close to impossible. I see someone open their mouth, prepare myself to concentrate on their lips, and suddenly the sensations come upon me worse than ever. They are so distracting that I cannot focus at all."
"Even now, when I am talking to you?"
"Every time you speak my head feels stranger than it does when you are merely looking at me."
Fearful of causing her more pain, Jack was on the point of signing that he would minimize his spoken conversation when Providence planted a curious, practically impossible, thought in his mind. Spoken conversation made her worse. Being alone and quiet made her better. She professed that these 'sensations' were unlike anything she had experienced before. Could it possibly be?
Wishing to test his outlandish theory, Jack mouthed, but did not voice the words,
"How about now?"
Sue started, as if she were shocked.
"I…I felt fine just now. The sensations did not come."
"And now?" he said aloud. She winced before he even finished his question.
He embraced her as if he solely wished to give her comfort. In reality, his hands slipped up to her computer mouse and clicked on an icon on the monitor which caused the speakers to play the local radio station.
Sue instantly moaned.
He turned it off. She took a deep breath, relieved.
He parted from her, staring at her in awe.
"Sue…I think I know what might be 'wrong' with you," he whispered.