Her antique gold Old Gringo Sora cowgirl boots cost $560.Brass brown with bright floral embroidery Hand-stitched. Luscious  goat leather.  I know because she taped the ad on our refrigerator. Keep your eyes on the prize, she said.  She sacrificed five months of lattes to buy them. She says they remind her of home. We both work so hard to play hard.

The boots debut at the concert on her twenty-sixth birthday. It is also our second anniversary. The trip to Vegas was a gift from her father when he sold his house to move into a retirement community.

The music starts. The festive air chisels away at our ragged edges carved from long hours of making a full life for ourselves in the bay area. Expensive living. As we line dance, we forget it all. We are there together, celebrating jointly.

She beams, particularly at me, her long onyx strands wrap their ends around her neck, wet with sweat. I can’t help but smile back. I am a lucky man, I think. Our bodies bump and slide to the twang. She keeps looking down at her Old Gringos, grinning. Such a treasure for her on a teacher’s salary. Turquoise and yellow flowers peek out under the white lace hem of her skirt.

Out of nowhere, explosion rocks the ground. Blown speakers? Shrieks so loud they hurt my ears. Cacophony. The music stops. Metal ricochets. Moaning, screaming, eyes searching eyes. Bullets rain. People fall. Like broken stick people. Like human deforestation. Bodies twerk from some unseen force, blow by blow, they go down.

I grab her hand to pull her against me, shield her, protect her. I look for cover. Her body jerks forward with a monster-like force. I catch her eyes in the chaos. Her mouth opens, screaming. She lurches forward. I put my arms out to catch her and I fail. She slides against my body on the way down. I can’t breathe. So real, yet unreal. I look down to see her boots, now entrenched in crimson.

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Sherri Harvey currently teaches English at San Jose State University, holds an MA in Modern Fiction and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She spends her days pouring over words, galloping her horses, hiking with her dog, scaring her husband and drinking vodka in no particular order. She has published in Eventing Nation and 3Elements Literary Review. Check her out at sherriharvey dot com.