SHE'D BEEN READING AND RE-READING THE SAME SENTENCE OVER AND OVER

She'd been reading and re-reading the same sentence over and over.
But each time it made less and less sense.
She concentrated on every word in turn, but the meaning just wouldn't come. She tried emptying her mind. She tried closing the book and staring out of the window of the bus. She listened to music on the 'shuffle' setting. She planned that evening's supper in meticulous detail. She counted the number of lovers she'd had. She wondered if Andy counted, since they hadn't strictly speaking slept together, but they'd definitely had, as Bill Clinton might say, "sexual relations". She tried to remember the name of every person she'd ever snogged. And then the name of every road she'd lived on.
She reopened the book at the page she'd marked with a bent down page.
She looked at the troublesome line.
Still no good.