Rumi comes in at five and relieves Tasha. Tasha's got a date tonight. A Tuesday night date, she says, is promising because who goes out on a Tuesday night if they're just trying to bang? So she's gone the moment Rumi walks through the door. It's a slow night, so I send Rumi home promptly at closing and finish clearing out the front myself.

     Even though I know that Roberta and Felix will be in soon to clean, I start wiping down the counters. It's compulsory. I'm really just cleaning up the little spills I made when I was dumping the coffee. And then I rinse out the sink because why not.

     When the front door opens, I'm surprised that Roberta's here so early. I look up, ready to greet her and it's not Roberta. "Sorry, we're closed," I call to the man. He's an older gentleman, with a peppered beard, wearing one of those hats with the flaps that come down over your ears. It's a combination of green and camouflage.

     His hands are shoved into the pockets of a puffy black vest. "Are you the owner?" he asks and before I can confirm that I am he goes, "Dresden Gibson?"

     He pronounces my name incorrectly. He's never heard it before but he apparently knows of me.

     I nod my head slowly, stepping out from around the counter. "I am," I confirm, getting this feeling in my stomach that I recognize but don't know where I recognize it from. "But like I said we're closed. The hours are on the door."

     He tips his head low. I can't see the rest of his face because of the shadows the hat creates. He shifts his arms but doesn't remove his hands from his pockets. He's dressed like he's going hunting or has been hunting today — heavy boots and dark pants.

     "So then you're the queer," he responds and his voice is like a snarl.

     I know the feeling now, why I recognize it. I've felt it before in the military. This feeling like I'm not safe, like the situation is about to turn at any second. Interestingly, I hadn't felt this the day Weston died.

     "You need to leave," I repeat.

     Aurora, I think, is a small town in a progressive state that is surrounded by states that are both progressive and conservative. When Pennsylvania flipped in the two-thousand and sixteen elections, I'd been shocked, though maybe I shouldn't have been. Disgusted, actually, now that I really think about it. But Aurora is a generally very progressive town. There are houses on my street that still have Hillary signs up, nearly four years later. Aurora has felt like a bubble that warded off homophobia. Cas's experience in high school being the one anomaly I knew of.

     "You are," he says and it honestly sounds like he's getting choked up. "You are — an abomination. A blight on our military. You don't deserve to hold that title. You are no Sergeant of mine."

     I'm thinking about bombs, how they go off so unexpectedly. I'd seen what a landmine can do, how a person can be right there and the next minute be setting off the earth. It feels like I've set off the earth.

     He finally removes his hands from his pockets and he's holding a gun. This is the least surprising turn of events. Men like him don't show up without their baby bottles. They treat guns like an accessory, like it reaffirms their manhood. It doesn't.

     "Beg," he says pointing it at me, pointing it at my chest. "I want you to beg for your disgusting life."

     "Well I'm not going to do that," I say after a moment of thought. "But I will say you're on camera. Maybe I won't walk away from this but you certainly won't, either."

     This is what my brain is doing: Charles and Tasha left at five. Rumi is gone, too. But I don't remember seeing Dolores leave.

     This is what my brain is also doing: I've given Cas his letters. I've hopefully made things better not worse. I didn't tell him everything but maybe some things just don't need to be said. He'll know. He has to know. What was it I'd said to him just a few days ago? Unexpected endings are still endings. Maybe they're just more definitive when you don't get to say goodbye.

     "You're a piece of shit," he spits at me. "A fucking faggot."

     "You're not wrong," I respond calmly. "But I'm the faggot who wore the same uniform as you, took the same orders, who gets the same benefits. I did receive a Distinguished Service Cross, though, so maybe I'm actually better than you—."

     He runs after he shoots, because guns don't make men and, anyway, men don't run. Weston knew that.

     Dolores is screaming before she's even entered the room. "Dresden, oh god, Dresden." She runs over, hovering over me. Her face is washed out and I think she's going to vomit on me, which I can't handle right now.

     "I — I called the police, oh god. I saw him. I saw him on the cameras and I saw him. I saw him pull out the gun. And I thought." Dolores is hyperventilating, clutching at her chest. She's going to have a goddamn heart attack and there's nothing I can do to help her because I can't move.

     "What do I do? What do I do?"

     I hear her quick feet but am distracted by the ringing in my ears. My vision's in and out. I've been shot before but this feels different. There's no adrenaline to ease the pain. I'm feeling everything. I think I may also be bleeding out.

     My muscles start responding to my brain, again, but they're slow. I'm dizzy so I don't sit up, just lay there, staring up at the ceiling as I fumble for the clasp on my belt. When I get it undone, I pull but it's my left hand and it's weaker.

     Dolores is back. She drops to her knees. "Oh thank god you're alive," she says, touching me everywhere. "What do I do? Tell me what to do?"

     "Belt," I say and it's a hoarse sound, bursting out of me. Dolores yanks it free. "Help me sit up."

     She does but she gives me this look like she isn't sure that I should be sitting up. I hear her gag. I look over at her and she's staring at the pool of blood that I'm now lying in. I lift my injured arm out in front of me, blood is cascading through my shirt, pooling at the bottom of it so that it looks like a water balloon being filled.

     "Help me rip this," I say, feeling dizzy again. I'm nauseous too, feel the bile tickling at the back of my throat. With my left hand and Dolores's help, we rip the sleeve of my shirt. The blood splashes down the front of me. Dolores turns and vomits on the floor. This is a crime scene. But it's also a crime scene. Weston's is now the scene of a crime. A hate crime.

     I loop the belt and slip it over my arm, raising it over my bicep, past the bullet wound, as high as it can go before I cinch it hard. "Dolores, I need you to pull this with me," I say. "Dolores," I bark because she's keeled over and gasping.

     "Where are the god damn police!" she screams.

     "I'm going to bleed out if you don't help me," I say calmly. "Pull the belt."

     She crawls back over, pulls the belt with me till I'm blinking back tears from the pain. I swallow down the vomit that's sitting in the back of my throat. There's strobe lights outside the front doors. A moment later police barrel into the room. Two officers who I know, actually, who get their coffee here regularly.

     "Officer Armand," I greet with the most pleasant tone I can muster. "Perkins."

     Perkins turns his mouth into the radio clipped on his shoulder. Says something lowly, I can't hear. The ambulance crew is right behind them, rushing in with even more urgency as they run over to me. I recognize one of the crew members, Lewis. He's a friend of Tasha's, comes around sometimes.

     I think I'm passing out again, or close to it, cause I lose my balance even though I'm sitting on the floor, and fall backwards some, catching myself on my good elbow. Lewis and his partner bend near me. "Were you shot anywhere else?" Lewis asks as he removes gauze from his bag and presses it to the wound on my arm. I can't feel my arm anymore, I think a result of no longer having blood flow to it.

     I shake my head, looking up at the officers. "He ran," I say. "He ran but." I take a deep breath. The girl, his partner, places a mask over my face. I try to remove it but she holds it there. Medics come into the room next. It's too many people and I feel overwhelmed. When I was shot the first time, I passed out long enough to miss this part. The part where everyone coddles you.

     "What d'we got?" one of the medics says as she comes over.

     "GSW to the right arm, self-tourniquet, no radial pulse. BP's eighty-eight over sixty-four. Sat's at ninety-eight on fifteen."

     "Alright, get him onto the stretcher and let's get moving. Leave the belt on if it's working, he's lost enough blood. Parker, call it into the hospital. Mam, can you answer a few questions for us? How old is he? Does he have any medical history? Is he on blood thinners?"

     "No," Dolores says shaking her head. "Healthy as a horse. He's twenty-nine. The man — he just showed up. Just showed up and shot him. Why would he do something like that?"

     "Alright, take a deep breath for me. You're in shock. It's okay. You're okay."

     Lewis and his partner are back and they're shoving something under me, or trying to. "I can stand," I say, my voice muffled by the mask. "I can stand," I reaffirm because they look at me like they aren't convinced. They help me to my feet but then slide a stretcher behind me before I'm even fully standing so I'm sitting on the edge. I try to hike myself back but I've only got one working arm; they have to slide me backwards.

     I move the mask away even though my breathing is labored. "He read the article," I say. "The article. About the gay vet. He read the article." I'm huffing again and the girl moves the mask back over my face.

    "What does that even mean?" Lewis asks but it's not a question to me.

     The girl who I don't know has an expression that's so sharp it could gut someone. "It means this was a hate crime."