“Do dogs dream?” she asks the air, because Yunior doesn’t seem to be paying attention. “Do you dream about Nova?”
The dog pauses, wagging his tail with greater force.
“Nova. Nova, Nova, Nova.”
Yunior turns, wiggling all over, and leans low on his front legs, yapping.
“Sorry. No Nova here. I’d keep him in my pocket, but he’s a little too big. Only just, but still.”
Source: Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Ones Who Couldn't Let Go
“Shit,” Oren mumbles.
“Shit,” Mayhem echoes.
“Fuck-fuck.”
Manu looks around, shrugging. “I didn’t want to get jinxed.”
Source: Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Light in Her Dreams
“Someone might like you, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be there for you. They can love hanging out with you at happy hour, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to understand if you call them at two in the morning. In fact, the more people like you, the more likely they are to want you to be nothing except the things they like about you. But most people like being liked, so when they feel someone wants them around—and people will want you around if you’re giving them something—they try to please that person. They bend over backwards. You end up used, and used is not loved. Do you get that? Nobody has a lot of friends.”
Source: Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Light in Her Dreams
“No one ever expects Maya. She’s like a suckerpunch personified. If you fool yourself into thinking she isn’t paying attention, or that she’s too shy or introverted to disagree with you, she will put you in your place. I like that about her, though. She’s not a mean or a hard person, but she maintains her boundaries. I’ve never been good about that. My boundaries get trampled, and I become ugly and mean. I act like someone else entirely, and I— Well, anyway, she’s everything you see and everything you don’t.”
Source: Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Light in Her Dreams
“I’d rather kill you than let him have you,” Maya whispers, and then she lunges, her elbow circling Harper’s throat, her body pressed to his back. “Either of you.”
“Thanks,” Harper manages to grunt.”
Source: Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Black Tree Chaise
“Amaris keeps texting me pictures of him. She took him to the record shop. She says he’s really into Pink Floyd.”
He laughs, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I mean, who doesn’t love The Wall?”
“I always thought he was a Yellow Submarine kind of frog.”
Source: Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Black Tree Chaise
“He passes the cigarette, grunting softly and pretending to be very interested in the skeleton eavesdropping on their heart-to-heart.
She softly slaps his shoulder. “Don’t make those caveman sounds at me. You know I’m right.”
“Yeah, but have you ever called your mama out on anything?”
“Never had to. She’s always been right,” she says, squaring her shoulders and smiling slyly.
He laughs.”
Source: Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Black Tree Chaise
“Beni was a sliding-scale therapist, his degree in the shape of a tattoo gun.”
Source: Blackpines: The Magpie Witch: The North Star in Eclipse
“That depends on how trouble is approached. We came to you nice and slow, and voilà: you can trick nearly anyone into thinking you’re domesticated.”
“Don’t talk about me like a dog,” he warns. “Besides which, you forget that I’m first and foremost a scholar.”
“Ah, I see. You’re utilizing a rare branch of philosophy: the one founded on lying to yourself because it’s convenient.”
Source: Blackpines: The Magpie Witch: The North Star in Eclipse
“Her messages remain resolutely static.
She sends Harper one, just to make sure it isn’t her signal: [knock knock]
But he replies quickly: [no]”
Source: Blackpines: The Magpie Witch: The North Star in Eclipse