Coin Tricks

by Willow Scarlett

The cotton was so old it had crumpled and folded onto itself like sand dunes eroded by the wind.

His smile made him look less like a street rat and more warm, like an ad for summer ice cream. Maybe if I leaned in he’d smell like coconut

His laugh was a bit like a sneeze or a cough, mostly air with just a hint of happy voice underneath.

Sid smiled a sweet little smile all warm and soft like clothes right out of the dryer.

The full wattage of his eyes were turned on me, two green suns.

“It’s easier as a lesbian than a gay guy,” Moa said. “Our scene’s so tiny we can’t afford to lose anyone.

all his choppy hair out of his face so I could get a better look at those dark lashes and freckled cheeks and bright smile. In The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt had called it ‘the golden thread’ that made everyone and everything else look dull.

That was one cool thing about Sid’s clothing all being crap: he was lily-white but he got frowned at nearly as much as a brown boy.

you saw straight white couples have in movies. Not the Hollywood sex but the moments afterward, when they cuddled in bed. I never saw that in porn and I’d never had it in my life. I was big and brown and no good at flirting. I sort of blended into the background. No one looked at me unless they were after something rough—quick and dirty and full of regrets to wash off with the memories in the shower the next day. Maybe guys who looked like Sid got cuddles and kisses that actually meant something.

My longings were impossible. I had to stomp them down like embers in a dry forest, kill them before they could grow into hopes or expectations that would hurt so much more to be crushed.

Warren was happily trying to lick Sid’s face off. Sid was letting her. It was like a scene from an ad for fast food or mother’s day, sugary-sweet and aching like a bad tooth.

Kiri asked as she leaned against me. She was getting too big to do that, but it was still adorable. Like a dog resting into you, warm and trusting but so heavy. How you never knew if it was being friendly or trying to treat your legs like bowling pins,

So Junot Diaz was asked if using Spanish freaked out his English readers. And he said, ‘Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put in two sentences of Spanish and they’ll say we’re taking over.’ And that was cool and I know what he means—like how even a short powhiri[18] pisses people off—but then I read this book, and it goes on and on about Tolkein and Lord of the Rings and stuff, so you know the author loves it. So

Two small bones stood out where his wrist met his hand, rising out of the thin arm all rounded and soft like heaps of fallen leaves.