A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1)

by Brittany Cavallaro

I was maybe the only person to ever have his imaginary friend made real.

Truth be told, I liked that blurriness. That line where reality and fiction jutted up against each other.

But I had never wanted to be her boyfriend. I wanted something smaller than that, and far, far bigger, something I couldn’t yet put into words.

If we weren’t in the fight to be the best, we’d fight instead to be the most privileged.

In that moment, I would’ve followed her anywhere.

I belonged here, I thought, with her, as surely as anyone belonged anywhere.

The way we were with each other wouldn’t have made sense to anyone else if I’d tried to explain it.

She patted me on the shoulder and took off down the path, leaving me behind, both charmed and insulted. The side effects of hanging around Charlotte Holmes.

was sure Holmes noted that too. Her brain was like a bear trap: nothing escaped alive.

I wanted the two of us to be complicated together, to be difficult and engrossing and blindingly brilliant.

wrinkled my nose at her, and she hit me in the arm. God help me. I couldn’t stay mad at her, even if she did turn out to be a cold-blooded killer. I was in way, way too deep.

It was easy to turn the volume for the outside world all the way down, what with the screaming panic in my head.

“Do come home soon. It won’t be London without you.” “You never knew me in London,” I said, smiling. “I know.” Holmes looked down at me with gleaming eyes. “I intend to fix that.”

A final note on Watson. He flagellates himself rather a lot, as this narrative shows. He shouldn’t. He is lovely and warm and quite brave and a bit heedless of his own safety and by any measure the best man I’ve ever known. I’ve discovered that I am very clever when it comes to caring about him, and so I will continue to do so.