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All this is just to give you an understanding of how, that September, I could have struck a match and happily watched Sherringford burn. And even so, before I had ever met Charlotte Holmes, I was sure she was the only friend I would make in that miserable place.
(as a kid, I thought we’d meet and the two of us would go on wild adventures),
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.
If we weren’t in the fight to be the best, we’d fight instead to be the most privileged.
“You absolute nerd,” I said, laughing, and her smile came back, and stayed. Incredible.
I belonged here, I thought, with her, as surely as anyone belonged anywhere.
But my family’s business was never in maintaining mysteries. It’s in unraveling them.”
No one else in the world would put up with this girl. “You are awful,” I said, and even then I was forgiving her. “I’m not.” Relief was written all over her face. “How am I awful? I want examples. Give me an itemized list.”
“Though I suppose we’re neither of us very normal.”
One day, during lunch, I watched the redheaded girl from my French class crying delicately into a camera. Her headshots, she sobbed, were on her website if they needed them. I guess I couldn’t blame her for using the press; the press were using her, too.
One night, I mentioned that my favorite song was Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box,” and an hour later, messing around on her violin, she played the opening measures of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I don’t think she realized she’d been doing it; when she caught my gaze, she jumped about a foot and slid directly into Bach’s “Allemanda.” (I learned the names of everything she played. She liked when I asked, and I liked to listen.)
“We can talk more at the poker game tonight. I’ll be there as myself.” “No one’s going to come. Everyone thinks we’re murderers.” “Everyone will come,” she said, correctly, “because everyone thinks we’re murderers.”
“Well, you’ll be lucky if I’m there.” “Yes,” she said simply. “I will be.”
me. “Holmes,” I whispered, and before I could say it again, she sat up like a shot had gone off. “Watson,” she croaked, and reached blindly for her clock. “I just meant to lie down for a moment.” “It’s fine,” I said, sitting at the edge of her bed. “You’re probably still catching up on sleep. It’s not healthy to go three days without it, you’ll start hallucinating.” “Yes, but the hallucinations are always fascinating.”
She said it all in a rush, like she wanted to expel it from her system. “And I’m starving. I’m never starving. I ate yesterday.”
“That’s because you’re a bit of a robot,” I said fondly, and she rolled her eyes.
“So, are you the only one who can go incognito, or do I get to wear the disguise next time?” “Do you have one in mind?” she asked, clearly struggling to take me seriously. “I don’t get to pull a Hailey on the new girl students?” She snorted. “Even if I wasn’t done pursuing innocent fourteen-year-olds, you really are just not pretty enough for knee socks.” “Well, I do a really good impression of a mindless rugger.” “No, you don’t,” she said. “Thank God. You should tell your therapist that rugby does nothing whatsoever to alleviate your very real anger issues.” “Not my therapist. My school
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I couldn’t tell you what was in her head. I couldn’t even guess. But I was beginning to realize I liked that, the not knowing. I could trust her despite it. If she was a place unto herself, I might have been lost, blindfolded, and cursing my bad directions, but I think I saw more of it than anyone else, all the same.
I knew myself pretty well; I could be so easily taken in by the now, not thinking much about the after. But with Holmes, all I could think about was the after. Silent drives at dawn, wildfire conversations, sneaking into locked rooms to steal away evidence to our little lab—I wanted those things. I wanted the two of us to be complicated together, to be difficult and engrossing and blindingly brilliant.
nothing about Charlotte Holmes was commonplace.
“Jamie Watson,” Holmes said evenly, “is far smarter than you think. He isn’t my accomplice. He’s no one’s accomplice. And he isn’t guilty of anything.”
My father is picking me up from the police station in the middle of the night, I thought, and he mostly just seems kind of excited.
I thought again about my pathetic fantasy, the two of us on that runaway train. Maybe this was the sensation of it crashing.
Without a word, Holmes reached back, fumbling for my hand, and when she found it, she grasped it firmly in hers.
Holmes stumbled into the house and over to the living room couch. Without taking off her shoes, without saying a word to either of us, she stretched out in her homecoming dress and went immediately to sleep. “There’s a guest room,” my father said as I folded myself up into the armchair beside her. “I know,” I said to him. “I used to live here.”
Though Leander, bless him, is lazy enough to solve a crime and forget to tell his client for months.
I’m sure you’ve noticed how keen everyone is to introduce a Holmes to a Watson.
“Do you think, if I set fire to the maths building—” “No.” “But—” “Still no.
I began wondering if there was some kind of Watsonian guide for the care and keeping of Holmeses.
people would much rather correct you than answer a straightforward question.
It’s why I try to avoid sentiment.” “That’s heartless,” I said, stung. All this time, had I been nothing more to her than someone to carry her bag? “I said, I try to avoid it, do keep up.”
“Come along,” I singsonged to Malcolm, “we’re going to meet Miss Charlotte, who thinks that keeping Mister Jamie in the dark is a fun, fun game.”
They’d write that on my tombstone, I thought: Jamie Watson. He didn’t.
But I was exhausted, and she was exhausted, and so I didn’t try. Jamie Watson. He didn’t.
oh, don’t look at me like that, I’ve seen you toast marshmallows on those burners, you’re just as guilty as I am—and
I may, in fact, simply be a terrible person at heart, but the difference between you and me is that I fight it. With every single atom of my being I fight against it.
I wanted to see how much this foolish boy trusted you. I threaten him, and you kiss him. Cue strings. Cue the applause.” Milo whipped around to stare at his sister, but her eyes were fixed on the phone.
He’d patted me on the arm. “You’re a good man, Jamie Watson.” It might have even been true. At least, I was trying. We both were.
We weren’t Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I was okay with that, I thought. We had things they didn’t, too. Like electricity, and refrigerators. And Mario Kart.
You have my implicit forgiveness, you know, even when you’re driving me crazy.”
“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.”
In this, as in many things, Watson is far too kind. I never corrected him on the subject because at least one of us should be. Kind, that is.
But it appears that I am willing to put up with many things for the sake of Jamie Watson.
Watson’s father thought it very funny, and Watson did too, though he refuses to admit it. I can tell he’s hiding a laugh when he curls his mouth in like he’s eating a lemon. Sometimes I say terrible things just to see him do it.
Verbum sap.
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.
Watson will say yes, I’m sure of it. He always says yes to me.
