Coin Tricks

by Willow Scarlett

How poor did you have to be to steal soap?

I was all tangled between what I should do for my job and what I should do for a human in trouble.

“I like using my hands. That’s one of the reasons why I love magic.”

His smile made him look less like a street rat and more warm, like an ad for summer ice cream.

How could I have thought about calling the cops on this guy? He wasn’t some greedy klepto. He was just a skinny kid looking out for his family.

I want to look after the books. I feel sorry for them.”

Maybe Sid didn’t have as much food, and he definitely didn’t have as much family making noise—his house didn’t echo with raised voices and chatter—but it was clear that his sister was loved.

gift from the hands is a gift from the soul.”

“Science fiction’s meant to be sad, right?”

“Let me just tell you one thing: If you don’t enjoy this, don’t tell me. You’ll break my heart.”

“Sci-fi is about the future, but it’s mainly about people. Big things like love and hate and betrayal, human stuff that won’t ever change.

I was just a series of violent urges barely restrained in human skin.

“Definitely seems like magic to me.”

Maybe guys who looked like Sid got cuddles and kisses that actually meant something. Maybe not. Maybe only straight people got that. But I dreamed of it anyway.

But still, it’s not easy to talk yourself into not liking your brother, even if you know he’s a dick.

Plus kids are real people, they’ve got their own brains.

“Because your opinion matters too. You don’t just have to listen to what other people say.”

were like that, a network spreading out from the house and neighborhood, sparking and glowing and always growing.

Guess that’s how you measure a friend: not how long they’ve been in your life, but how much better they make it.

Have you ever been so scared of something happening that you try to make it happen, just so you won’t be scared of it anymore?”

You’re allowed to be shitty when you’re scared.”

“I’ve got magic for you.”

I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to hear him say that he wanted it too, that he thought about me like I thought about him. I wanted him to tell me that it had hurt like dying to lose me because I was his future and losing me was losing his future.

Sid was my impossible dream. He was the promise of something so good that I knew I could never have it and that was both pretty and sad to think.

How had he gone from the sad soap-stealing punk to the most important person in my life?

Looking at Sid made me happy. And that’s what beauty means, right? Beauty was when it felt good to look at something.

smile. I could see mushed up crab meat in his mouth, all pink and white. And that, right there, was the moment I knew I was in love. Love’s the only word you can use for looking at someone with a face full of surimi and still thinking they’re beautiful.

You look at me like I’m magic.”

I feel like you’re too good to be true, you’re the magic that I grew up and stopped believing in. No tricks, you’re not trying to impress, it’s all real.

That was Sid: brave when I couldn’t be.

I was anything but scary as I memorized the lush curves of his lips and the feel of his hair, the short sides coarse and warm against my palms and the top longer and soft between my fingers.

“Sid, I’m always going to want to kiss you.”

This wasn’t just me—we were both nervous. We both wanted this. I didn’t have to be frightened.

I wish I could absorb you. I wish I could merge with you. I wish I could be one with you, the same person, the same skin.

“I don’t need tricks. I don’t need magic. I just need to know that you want me to kiss you.” I was so scared of sounding pathetic that I over-compensated and my voice came out rough and coarse.

How could such a fragile body hold the man I love?

But, still. I held hands with my boyfriend in broad daylight. How weird was that?