[ WP ] True Love is finding that person who is singing a song that no one else can hear . Everyone hears it when their love sings in their head , and the closer you are , the louder it gets . Except your True Love ca n't sing . So you just hear them randomly screeching .

I first heard the wailing about a month after my thirteenth birthday. At first, I was sure I was hallucinating, or suffering from sleep paralysis. I only heard it at night, faintly, like a tug at my consciousness. But then in the locker room, a bunch of the guys started talking about the mental singing, and I knew that's what I was experiencing. Some of them, the mature ones, had started to hear it––the voices of their future True Loves, somewhere out there in the world. 
 
 My friend Joe became quite depressed when he heard his Love singing, because everything she sang was in French. `` I knew I should n't have taken Spanish,'' he groaned. `` How am I even supposed to find her if she's in France?'' 
 
 `` She could be in Canada,'' I volunteered. He glowered at me. `` You think I have n't gone out listening with a compass? She's in France. Might as well give up now.'' 
 
 I did n't tell anybody about the wailing, not even Joe. How could I? Everybody else was hearing lovely voices, and all I got was a breathy, tuneless groan. For a few months, while everybody was growing into it, I got teased for my silence. Somebody spread the rumor that the voice in my head was a deep, manly baritone, and that's why I did n't want to talk about it. But in time, people got used to the voices, and forgot about me. 
 
 I managed to ignore the moaning until I was thirty. One night, I woke up to hear it wailing in my head, throbbing against my skull, louder than ever before. It stopped just as suddenly as it had started, but I could n't fall back asleep. My One True Love was closer than she'd ever been before. It forced me to wonder, for the first time in a long time, why she sounded the way she did. What agony could cause such a sound? Would she be hideously deformed? Was she in pain? What kind of life would I have, caring for her day in and day out? 
 
 The wailing grew louder the next day. It filled my head and haunted my steps. I could barely hear the TV over it––and then, at 2:34 exactly, there was a knock on my apartment door. 
 
 When I saw Jeanice, the wailing stopped... as did my heart. Her shining black hair fell almost to her waist. Her smile was tentative, her dark eyes glinting with nervous curiosity. Her delicate hands gripped a small whiteboard. On it was written, in a neat script, 
 
 `` My name is Jeanice, and I think I am your One True Love. I have been deaf since birth; your voice has been the only sound I have ever heard. I followed it here. May I come in?'' 
 
 I gestured her inside, wondering how to apologize for the mess in ASL, and internally berating myself for years of frustration. Of course I did n't hear singing; she did n't know what she sounded like herself. We laugh about the story now. It's been almost ten years and she still ca n't sing––but now, she does n't need to. 

