"D'ya reckon what Trent said was true?" I asked with my mouth full.

"Mmm." Dianne had her eyes closed. Occasionally she'd chew her food. I knew something was wrong but I continued. "I'm a bit skeptical that doing 37 runs in a row will make you remember the steps."

"Mmm."

"Hey, what's wrong?" I asked, putting my arm around her. Instinctively, she rested her head on my chest, just below my shoulder. "Are you not feeling well?"

"Mmm," she repeated. She's never been like this before.

"Talk to me." I said in a slightly authoritative voice. But I purposely didn't ask her a question because she'd only reply with 'mmm'. She snuggled closer to my chest and I felt so tempted to sit her on my lap, but I thought that would create the wrong atmosphere.

She sighed deeply and said in a small voice, "I'm feeling a little dizzy." I rubbed her arm with one of my hands and held her free hand with the other.

"Take a bit of a rest, love." I pressed a lingering kiss on her temple. Before I finished my sentence, she'd fallen into a light sleep. I wondered why she was feeling this way. It was too late for her to have caught the bug I'd caught last week. Maybe she'd eaten something dodgy. Maybe she was late for her period. Maybe she was having a delayed reaction to having her hair ripped out. There's no point saying all these maybes. If she wants to tell you, she will. I shifted and she woke up again.

To my surprise, she got up and stretched. "Come on. Let's start again." I gave her a look that asked, Are you sure? and she said, "Yes. This salsa isn't going to learn itself."

After a moment of deliberation, I asked, "Do you want to try out Trent's idea? If you're up to it."

"Yeah, why not?"

On our first run, we did it without the tricks, but the second one Dianne told me to do the lot. She took a good battering on that one though because I went smack into her knee.

"You alright?" I asked her, knowing full well she wasn't.

"Yeah, fine." We carried on going despite Dianne's obvious pain. This day I wasn't as tired as the other day, so she didn't send me into a fit of giggles.

"This is the third run, isn't it?"

"I think so, yeah."

I could tell she wasn't well judging by her complexion and her eyes and halfway through this run, you could see why.

Whoa! She stumbled and was about to pass out, and I thought, Oh God. She's going to try and faint again. So I instinctively wrapped her in my arms, picked her up and sat her down on one of those chairs.

As I went over to my phone I said to her, "Put your head between your legs." At the same time, I thought, I can't let this opportunity go to waste. This could make a good thumbnail. So I picked up my phone, angled it towards the both of us and pointed at her. Then I grimaced for good measure.

A few seconds later, she came to and stood up again. "Let's go again." Man, she's fit. I mean I know she's fit, but athletically, she's so fit to just carry on.

"No way. You're tired and have literally just fainted. Sit down and chill out for a bit."

"I'm fine." I opened my mouth to interrupt.

"You're not fine." I sighed. "Sit down and snuggle with me. I could do with a rest too."

So I led her to the sofa where we'd had our lunch and opened up my arms wide. She came and stretched out on the sofa, laying her head on my lap. As I played with her hair, she slowly started drifting off to sleep.

In a slightly groggy voice she said, "I love you, Joe."

"I love you too, Di."