The Childhood Nights

All it takes is a second for someone's whole life to change. One moment for your reputation to be ruined, one second to be cheated on, a small fraction of time to die. Less than a minute to be told that you will never be able to have children, that you have cancer, that your parents are getting a divorce, that your mother or father is dead. That's all it takes: a second to fall in love. Your life is spent waiting for those miraculous minutes of your first love and your graduation from high school, but also those seconds to tear it all down with your first heartbreak and the deaths of loved ones, and even yourself. One second for you to never hear someone's voice again, the cries of children for their mothers, or seeing a smile of pure joy. That's all it took for Gianna Collins to die: one tragic second.