People think ten seconds isn't a long time. And they're right, it's not. But a lot can happen during ten seconds. Good and bad. Life can change in ten seconds.

Mine did. Ten seconds has changed my life many times.

The first of which happened in 1992. A lot of things happened in 1992. Bill Clinton became president. Riots broke out in L.A. Jay Leno took over the Tonight Show. The Redskins won the super bowl. The Blue Jays won the World series.

But they didn't matter as much as those ten seconds where I met her. Where I met my best friend. Where I found my other half.

Ten years old and I found her, or maybe she found me. Either way, we found each other. And that's all that matters. Our fathers grew up together. Rock star Danger Davies and surf legend Jamie Carhart. Surprising even themselves with how they became friends. One man all energy and chaos, the other all peace and harmony. They were the kind of friends who could go years without seeing each other. Then one day life would bring them together again and it was as if nothing had changed.

May 21, 1992 was the day life wanted them to meet again. It had been two years since they last saw each other. Jamie's first surf circuit after a three year break was just beginning. The kick off was at Huntington Beach for it's annual surf competition. Jamie invited Dad, and surprisingly he could go. Surprisingly he wanted to. He invited me to come along, and normally I would have done anything to get out of it, but if my dad was there, I was there too. I was 100 there. Wearing my favorite polka dot skirt. Happy, ecstatic, cheeks threatening to crack from smiling so widely.

I remember the exact moment I saw her. A gust of wind blew the ocean air across my face, almost like it was beckoning me to look her way. Beckoning my eyes to wander down the beach a little ways. Through the swarms of people, through the laughter, through the waves, I saw her. A mop of bleach blond hair and a mouth full of teeth barreling our way. Dad was telling some story about him and Jamie, when they were my age. But with each step she took towards us, his words took one in the opposite direction. Everything was moving away from us. For ten seconds there was nothing outside myself and this girl running through the sand. Slippery hands going to unzip a wet suit. I found it odd she'd wear one on day as balmy as this.

Ten seconds and she already had me curious.

Board tucked beneath her arm, she ran and unzipped her suit all at once, golden skin beneath a colorful bikini partially exposed. You could tell she was someone who tanned easily. You could also see the trait was lost in the fact that she was never not tan. There was never a period of time where she could easily tan cause she already was. Her body had been permanently tattooed with the sun's love.

The world slowly started coloring itself in again when she reached us. Somehow those colors shone brighter with her there.

"Hi Mr. Davies"

A squeaky voice filled the air.

"Hey there Shawn..." my dad's hand softly sat on my back as he shook her hand, "...I'd like you to meet my daughter Ashley."

"Hi."

My own squeaky voice filled the air. But mine was more shy. More nervous. Less fun.

"Hi Ashley."

She had a silly smile on her face. One I matched as our hands met.

"So you ready to watch your dad blow these guys out of the water?" My dads old and worn in voice interrupted the easy silence.

"Definitely."

She shook her head to the side, sending a large clump of wet hair in the other direction. Even through the dampness I could tell her hair had no definitive length. Sections ran longer and shorter than others. Almost as if she cut it herself but never finished the job. Something more exciting always came along and prevented her from cutting it all. I'm sure she didn't mind, though. I'm sure she liked it that way.

And the strange thing was I liked it too. I was a girly girl. I was a princess. But there I was staring at this girl who was the complete opposite of me, and somehow, I found myself there. I was staring at this stranger with her short messy hair, ugly black suit covering half her body, and I was comforted. I was curious. I felt happy. I felt alive.

I wanted more.

I wanted more from a girl who looked nothing like one. A girl who's tall and lean body was the opposite of everything a girl should be. It was everything a boy should be. She could have easily been a boy. But that's where it didn't matter. It didn't cover up one obvious fact. It didn't hide what shone so brightly in front of me.

Shawn Carhart, with her boy name and body, was still the prettiest girl I'd ever seen.

"I was gonna go sit with my mom" her eyes squinted, almost like she was going to tell me a secret. "It's closer to the water."

"Oh." The tiniest hint of sadness in my voice.

Her eyes perked up, that silly smile formed on her face again, one that I noticed made her left cheek dimple. "Wanna come?"

"Yeah" I giggled a little, "that sounds cool."

She did the hair thing again. Where she whipped it all to the other side of her face with such ease. It was like she didn't care about anything. She was so laid back. I loved it.

We walked side by side through the crowd. I could feel tears of water dropping on my body every now and then. No doubt coming from her. Like little gifts from her to me. Each one I felt only made my smile grow.

As I lie here, if I try hard enough I can still feel them. I can still feel all of her little gifts. But with each beep in this depressing room, they grow farther away. Each beep of my heart sends every one of her drops of water farther away. By simply living, everything I had with her moves farther and farther in the past. I hate that beeping. I hate having to hear my heart still beating. Hearing it push everything else away.

I wince, I can't tell if it's from the thought or my knee. My shattered knee. My knee that's kept me right in this hospital bed.

"Dreaming?"

She's here again. Spencer. I'll wake up some nights and she's sitting with me. It used to be once and while, but she does it more often now. Ever since the visitors stopped pouring through the door. Maybe she feels bad for me.

Hell I feel bad for me.

Most times she's reading through a book. Sometimes she looks like she's working. You know, making sure I'm still alive. Making sure that cruel heart still beats inside my barren chest. Cruelly echoing through the emptiness that now rests there, inside my body.

At first I found it weird that she'd sit with me. I never talk to her. I never answer her questions. I usually weep and soak my face with tears. But somehow she stays with me. She sits there like a night light. And that's exactly what she's become. At first I hated her light shining on me from that uncomfortable bed side chair.

But now the times I wake up and find that same chair empty, I don't like it. Just like a little kid who's night light has been turned off, I'm scared.

I glance at the clock on the wall. 11:47. I haven't even made it past the day I'm trying to sleep through and I've already woken up. I really should sleep. I really need to. As Spencer has told me countless times, my therapy starts tomorrow. My physical therapy. The one that's gonna teach me to walk again.

Just like a baby. Fitting since that's kind of what I am now. I've lost everything. The life I had died weeks ago, and now I have to start again. I have to learn everything all over. I have to do it all on my own. And I really don't want to. I really really don't want to. I don't want another life.

"Ready for tomorrow?"

Of course she'd remind me that whether I want to or not, I'm going to start another life any way. No matter how hard I try to stop it, life is going to go on. It already is.

She keeps her eyes on me, book folded in her lap, simple hands held on top of it. A calm smile on her face that amazes me. Oddly she looks at me as if I might answer. Like she's waiting on it this time. And for once, I figure why not.

"I guess."

The words are choked, broken, rough, and scratchy. Almost like I've surprised even my own voice by using it. Like I've woken it up from a peaceful sleep, a far too comfortable sleep. With how low my voice is, I'm afraid if I had let it lie there under comfortable covers any longer I'd completely forget how to use it.

But she heard me. She heard me loud and clear. Relief registered all over her face, almost like she was afraid too. She was afraid I might never use that voice again.

"Good."

Her mouth forms a smile around the word. Normally I'd hate it. I'd hate anyone who showed any form of happiness inside this room. This room with it's plastic blinds and flowers on the walls. Walls with all my misfortune scattered on them, beneath the flowers. Windows that shine my disaster on me, masked by the warmth of the sun.

No one should smile in this room. But she does. And I let her.

"Well then I'll see you tomorrow Ashley."

She stands and looks down on me for a beat, weighing the possibility that I might say something again. But I'm not going to. I've said all I can for today. She knows it too, smile forming tighter on her lips. She nods lightly and walks out.

The room's darker now. I'm the kid who's parent sneakily switched off the light while they were sleeping. My head lolls to the side, tears creeping from my eyes like a leaky faucet. A faucet that's leaked for so long no one even notices the water dripping from it. No one sees how broken it is because they can't remember a time where it wasn't broken. And no one really cares to fix it.

I'm that leaky faucet. But something tells me someone cares to fix this one. Something tells me she's going to keep twisting and turning it until it works again. And something tells me she just walked out of this room.

Somehow the thought closes my eyes. I think it might have even stopped the tears, but I really can't tell. I can't tell any more when they've stopped. I never know when they're pouring from these sad eyes. Just like that leaky faucet.

The same dull ache spreads across my back as I try to fall back asleep. Those drops of water from 1992 are lightly tapping on my skin again. The ones that made me smile so long ago. They're whispering against me now. As if they're trying to help soothe the pain. As if they're going to take me away from this place. They're going to help me forget this bed and this room. My eyelids grow heavier as the water skids harder across my skin. I feel my shattered body leaving this room once again.

I'm so close to her now. I can see that dimple, that shaggy hair, those squinting eyes. She's laughing and running towards the water. One last glimpse back at me before she dives into the ocean. Her giggling echoes all around me as I wait for her to resurface. As I wait for her body to spring out of that water. Wait to see her head flick from side to side, sending her hair in all different directions.

But she's not going to. I know she's not. For some reason I'm still lying in this bed with my eyes screwed shut. Praying that she'll appear. Praying she'll shoot out of that water. But I know she's not going to.

My eyes fly open. She's not here. I'm not on that beach. Those drops of water are gone.

It's been fourteen years since that first day on the beach. When I met her. When I met my other half. When I fell in love with her.

It only took 10 seconds.

Now I lie here in this cold and dark room fourteen years later. Alone. My best friend. My everything. She's gone. My other half. She was ripped right from me.

And it only took 10 seconds.