Brittany Cavallaro Quotes

When I saw a story about a stolen painting on the front page of the newaspaper, I told my mother that Charlotte Holmes and I were going to solve the case. My mother cut me off saying, "Jamie, if you try to do anything like that before you turn eighteen, I will sell every last one of your books in the night, starting with your autographed Neil Gaiman.

Lena pulled the money back out and pressed it into Holmes's hand. "Keep it," she said. "I kind of like being your test subject . . . Ugh, don't be weird about it. We're friends. And I don't, like, need the money." Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed me on the cheek. "Thanks, Jamie. That was a lot of fun, but I want to get to ask you inappropriate questions. Maybe we could have pizza in town sometime."
"You're having pizza in town tonight with Tom," Holmes said.
"Sure," I said, ignoring her. "I'd like that.

I have a rainy-day fund, you know," she said, not quite looking at me. "Until recently, it was raining...rather a lot. But I...I've been trying to use an umbrella.

Holmes," I said, reaching up to touch her hands, to fold them in mine.
"Do you forgive me?"
"You sound like you're making some kind of decision," I said, because she was scaring me a little.
"Do you?"
I paused, thinking. Not long ago, I'd wanted everything from her. For her to be my confidant, my general. My best and only friend. I wanted her to be the other half of me, like we together made a coin. She the king's head to my tails. I loved her like you would the person you'd always wanted to be, and in return I would have followed her anywhere, excused any action, fought to keep her hoisted high on her throne.
When that myth I'd made of her shattered, I didn't know what to do. This last year, any thought I had of her felt wrong. Skewed. How could I understand what had happened, when I had put up so many lenses between my experience of her and the girl herself?
Holmes wasn't a myth, or a king. She was a person. And to have a relationship with a person, you had to treat them like one.
"Can I forgive you a little now?" I asked. "And then a little more tomorrow, and the next day? If there is a next day?"
"Yes," she said, quickly, like it was more than she had asked for. Like I might take it back.
"Provided you don't blow anything up, of course."
"Yes."
"Or try to look in my ears again while I'm sleeping -"
"Yes," she said, laughing. That look on her face, always, like she was surprised to be laughing, like it was somethi

That was your brilliant plan?" I whispered. I turned my T-shirt so the spatter of blood faced my back, then slipped my jacket on over the top.
"You," he said, sitting on the bed, "were in a state of déshabillé.¨
¨Since when do you speak French?"
"I did suffer through two solid years of class with Monsieur Cann," he said. "I wasn't sleeping the whole time."
"No, of course not. You woke up during the lesson on how to describe the scandalously underdressed."
"I also know in flagrante," he said, "and coitus interruptus -"
"That's Latin," I protested, but he was laughing.
"I hope it was worth it." He swept a hand across the room. "Did you find what you needed?"
"I always do."
Watson's eyes crinkled at the corners. He didn't pry further. How glorious that was; it gave my mind time to sort and contextualize what I'd found.

Holmes paused. "No lecture?"
Leander - because it had to be Leander - laughed. "You've done worse things, and anyway, it's fairly clear you aren't actually having sex. This may be indelicate, but those sheets aren't hardly wrinkled enough. So I'm not quite sure what I should be lecturing you on."
That was it. I was going to pass a law against people making deductions before lunch.

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

I'm happy Mariella left. At least fifty bucks' worth of this haul is hers. Was hers, I guess. Oops. – Lena

After I avoided all my calls for another day, Mrs. Dunham came by my room and politely told me that if she had to speak to my panicked mother one more time, ahe would very publicly set herself on fire.

Well, then, I also take issue with the idea that I don't give you compliments. Your father claimed that I would give them to you every 'two to three years'."
Watson bit his lips again. He was going to do himself an injury.
I ticked them off on my fingers. "For someone who does not style it, you have very good hair. You are better at French than you think, though your written syntax is appalling. And you have developed an excellent right hook."
"Thank you," Watson said gravely.
"You're welcome," I said. "That should tide us over for at least the next six months.

I love you. I've never in my life loved anything more.

I've got to find Holmes."
"I guess that means you haven't heard. Oh, Jamie, I didn't want to be the one to tell you. But there's been an accident. A horrible, horrible accident.

Jamie Watson is far smarter than you think. He isn't my accomplice. He's no one's accomplice. And he isn't guilty of anything. – Charlotte

I tried to fight the feeling that I was a guest star in my own life.

I'd left her in Sciences 442, after a long, trying day. The spectacularly bitchy text war she pitched with her brother wasn't even the worst of it. She didn't show me the original message she sent him, but I saw the ones he'd returned. No, you didn't find my spy, he insisted. He's obviously still at large. For instance, I can tell you right now that you're wearing all black, and that Jamie Watson is annoyed with you. I have eyes watching you right now.
THAT IS NOT SPYING THAT IS SHODDY AMATEUR DEDUCTION AND IT IS INCORRECT, she replied furiously.
She was, of course, wearing all black.

I imagine she'd do anything to keep you alive. But giving her your heart is like handing a glass figurine to a child. She'll flip it over, peer through it like a lends. Shake it to see if it makes a sound. In the end, it will slip her hands and shatter. In the end, it's your fault. You were the one who gave it to her.

But these - they weren't case updates so much as letters, the kind you wrote to someone you knew so well you could imagine them beside you, even when they were across an ocean, living out another life.

Precollege program orientation was scheduled for two days after Watson arrived, and I discovered a few things in the meantime.
1. My uncle Leander has a memory like a steel trap. He took Watson and I to the all-you-can-eat Indian buffet around the corner from our flat, to the antiquarian bookshop to look at first editions of Faulkner, to the teahouse painted to look like a starry night, all of which Watson had mentioned in passing that he loved, and whose repetition now left Watson in a state of expansive joy.
2. I should have found this delightful. I did not. As, throughout all of this, Leander referred to Watson as my boyfriend.
2b. Loudly.
2c. He did this as often as he could.
2d. To wit: "A latte for my niece and her young man"; "Charlotte, wasn't that your Jamie's favorite, A Light in August? Faulkner's later work -"; "Child, go and get your boyfriend another napkin, we aren't barbarians/" And then that smile Leander had, something like a wolf after eating a fat peasant child.

A voice cut through the blood-roar. "Watson," Holmes shouted, at what sounded like an enormous distance, "what the fuck do you think you're doing?

You have my implicit forgiveness, you know, even when you're driving me crazy." . . .
"Jamie."
"Charlotte."
"Do come home soon. It won't be London without you."
"You never knew me in London."
"I know. I intend to fix that.

Even someone as disguisting as Dobson deserved the chance to grow up and become a better person.

I want to be good without being nice. Can I do that?

We weren't Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I was ok with that, I thought. We had things they didn't, too. Like electricity, and refrigerators. And Mario Kart.

I had never in my life made something for someone else that wasn't a cup of tea. True, I could download a food app on my phone or leaf through one of the cookbooks Leander kept on the counter (though I didn't want to consider why he owned a copy of 38 Meals for Your Picky Toddler), but I was intelligent. I was capable. I could figure this out for myself.
An hour later, I nudged open the bedroom door, carrying a tray.
Watson sat up on his elbows. "What do you have there?" he asked, his voice coated in sleep.
"I made you breakfast."
"How domestic of you." He picked up his glasses from the bedside table and put them on. "That's - that's a rather large plate you've got there. Plates?"
"This is tray one of four," I said, placing it at the end of the bed.
He blinked at me. Perhaps he was still tired.
"Don't begin eating until you see all your options," I told him, and went off to fetch the next platter.
By the time I'd arranged it all on my coverlet to my satisfaction, Watson had roused himself appropriately. He'd put on one of my oversized sleep shirts - CHEMISTRY IS FOR LOVERS - and poured himself a cup of coffee. That surprised me; he usually took tea.
"I need real caffeine to deal with this.

Watson."
"What?"
"I'm sorry I picked a fight with you," Holmes said sleepily. "But you should know I had a good reason."
"I know, I was being an idiot."
"No, it wasn't your fault. The note said you'd be killed if you stayed, so I fixed it. I was horrible until you went away.

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So you're saying," I clarified, "that you can punt only middling-well for a sober person."
"Do I need to make this thing do backflips?" Watson asked, and dug the pole into the muck. Our boat tilted crazily to the right. I made a high-pitched sound, then clapped a hand over my mouth.
"You squealed. Did you just squeal?"
"If you have to ask," I said, with some dignity, "then no, I did not."
He dug in the pole again, and we spun in a neat circle.
I bit my lip when he laughed at me. :Jamie, I swear to God I will pull this boat over -"
He lifted the pole again, threateningly. I lunged forward, and Watson leaned backward, and then began windmilling his free arm to keep his balance. I considered pushing him in, but the water smelled a bit like bad fish, and anyway, I liked his shirt too much to ruin it.
"You were going to let me drown," he protested, pushing us off again.
"Yes. In knee-deep water. It would take some skill, but I believe in you.

As for Holmes, she disappeared into her magician's trunk and swallowed the key. There would be no prying her out, not until the big reveal.

For once, Watson didn't look the worse for wear. He never fared well on planes across the Atlantic, sleeping fitfully or not at all, but this morning his hair was so extravagantly tousled, I knew he'd spent the whole flight unconscious. Though the red lines near his temple (striated; elastic?) flummoxed me until -
"You had on a sleeping mask," I said, delighted beyond all sense. "Tell me, was it one of those with the eyelashes printed on it? Was it silk? Was it your mother's, or -?"
He pulled it from his pocket and tossed it to me; I caught it one-handed. Black silk, sans eyelashes. "You're a jerk," he said, laughing. "I bought it in the terminal."
"Why would I be a jerk? I'm only asking about your beauty sleep.

There needs to be a German compound word for feeling both guilty and enraged. - Jamie

That was when I remembered rules 1 and 2.
"Search often for opiates and dispose of as needed."
"Begin with the hollowed-out heels of Holmes's boots.

Wuz.' They spelled it 'wuz.' 'Wuz'! I'm in AP English! I read a lot! I read big books. Big f***ing books! I read Tolstoy, and Faulkner, and - 'wuz'?

That's point one," I said, affecting unaffectedness. "Points two through ten have to do with that ridiculous list your father made you as to how to deal with ... me."
Watson had the grace to wince. His father had given him a strange little journal into which he had compiled a list of suggestions for how to handle one's Holmes (as though I were a small-breed dog or similar), drawing not only from Dr. Watson's own accounts but also from his own efforts with my uncle Leander back when they'd been flatmates. This was absurd on many levels. Leander was very easy to live with. He hardly ever stalked around anymore with a pistol in his bathrobe pocket.

The two of us, we're the best kind of disaster. Apples and oranges. Well, more like apples and machetes.

I'm sorry I didn't trust you," I said to my Holmes, in a low voice . . . "I meant to say that I won't doubt you again."
"You won't," she said with flat surprise. "You really won't, will you?

I'd prefer to think that we aren't all so mercilessly bound to our pasts.

I'd heard it said before that Prague was a fairy-tale city. Watson repeated it now as we made our slow progression in from the airport. Steepled roofs, pastel buildings, cobbled roads an switchbacks. An astronomical clock that stood stories high in a public square. I'd been there once before with Milo when we were children. Our Aunt Araminta had decided we needed "culturing". I think she may have mistaken us for bacteria.

But tonight I'll go alone. You're about as stealthy as a lame elephant. See you later." 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.

You think you're defending my 'honor,' but you're just as bad as he is.

Anwen uncrossed her arms, adjusted her skirt. She glanced from me to Watson. "If it's not an imposition," she said. "You can come too, Jamie. If you want."
At that, I pinched his leg.
"No!" he yelped. "No, go on. I, ah. Have a lecture."
"Are you sure?" I ask him, sniffling.
"I'm sure," he said, and reached out, very gently, to brush away a tear from my face. His dark eyes softened. He really was a better actor than I gave him credit for. "I'll see you later, pumpkin."
As I led Anwen out to the street, I texted from my bag:
Watson?
Yes, pumpkin?
New condition: you cease and desist all gourd-related nicknames.
Done. But pinch me again, and I'll start calling you pickle.
Do that, and I will find and them publish your diaries in a website with a vociferous comments section. Thought I was not a gourd, I was most definitely not a vinegar-soaked phallic object.

I felt like I was being pulled through a dark, dank wardrobe into some boozy Narnia.

He put it into drive and turned on the headlights. And there she was, standing in their white glow.
Holmes's skin was smoked black from the explosion, her hair flecked with snow. Her violin dangled from her fingers. She opened her mouth, and I saw her say my name.
I was out of the car in a heartbeat, and in the next, she was in my arms . . . "You're alive," I murmured, tucking my head over hers. "I'm so sorry.

He is a boy and he is in love with me, but only because the world bores him. His world is boring because it loves him, you see.

It appears that I am willing to put with many things for the sake of Jamie Watson . . . 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 . . . 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.
Later today I will ask him to spend the rest of winter break at my family's home in Sussex . . . Watson will say yes, I'm sure of it. He always says yes to me. – Charlotte

She was altogether colorless and severe, and still she managed to be beautiful. Not the way that girls are generally beautiful, but more like the way a knife catches the light, makes you want to take it in your hands.

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.

I'd always hated those films - they'd portrayed Dr. Watson as a bumbling idiot, and Sherlock Holmes as an automaton.

You can call him," I said, watching his brows knit, his eyes shutter. "Talk through it all. At which point, you can forgive him, or you can tell him to go to hell."
"Pass."
"Or you could never call him again."
Watson snorted. "There. A workable plan. Anyway, I thought you were the one asking for advice on Milo."
"Fine. Enumerate my options, please."
"You can call him. At which point, you can forgive him, or you can tell him to go to hell."
"You're funny," I told him. "Hilarious."
"Or you can never call him ever again. Or -"
"Precisely. Fuck him.

Do you need the access code? I can text him for it. He changes it remotely every two days."
"The code to his childhood bedroom. He changes it. From Berlin."
"Well, he's the head of a mercenary company." She reached for her phone. "Can't have anyone finding Mr. Wiggles. Plush bunnies need the same protection as state secrets, you know.

After Watson held a pillow so that I could punch it, after he'd cried in the bathroom where he thought I couldn't hear, we put on sweatpants and went down to the twenty-four-hour-off-license and bought as much ice-cream as we could carry.

The door was locked - another difficult detail to explain away if we were caught inside. Sighing, I pulled my picks from my bag and got to work.
"To think," Watson said, "I used to wonder why girls carried purses."
"We need somewhere to keep our mace." I smiled as the lock shifted and gave under my hands. "Will you keep watch on the landing? Think of some suitable explanation if we're caught."
He leaned to look inside. "As long as your plan isn't to go out that window," he said, taking in the four-story view.
"My father trained me for every eventuality," I said, and left the door cracked as I slipped inside.

I don't need someone to fight for me. I can fight for myself.

Jamie Watson," he said. "Do you know, you look just like your father when I met him. Which is making all of this quite a bit stranger for me, so could you please get out of the bed you're sharing with my niece?"
I scrambled to my feet. "We're not - I'm not - it's very nice to meet you." Behind me, Holmes was snickering, and I rounded on her. "Come on, really? Some backup would be nice."
"So you want me to give him the details, then?"
"Do you want me to give you a shovel so you can keep on digging me this hole?"
"Please," she shot back. "I'd rather watch. You're doing such a nice job of it, after all.

I came at her like a snake.
"I am fully done with other people telling me what to do with my history," I said. "My past made me who I am. There is no way to wipe it clean. I am the evidence. If you look at me and see track marks and too-skinny arms and hands that know how to hold a gun and a brain that is sharper and faster than yours, then that is not my problem. Do you hear me? I have regrets, and I have made mistakes, but I am who I am. I'm done pretending that I've wholly remade myself, that I'm going to ... to hie myself away in some lecture hall for the next four years to make you all comfortable." She was backed up against the door, now, her arms wrapped around herself, and I didn't care. "If you want to stop seeing it, you'll have to stop seeing me, and I am not going to disappear.

With the air of long practice, Holmes waited until Milo raised his mug to his lips, and then reached up to whack his elbow. Coffee splattered down his front. She smiled her black-cat smile.
"When we're finished here, I'll fetch you a bleach pen and a new shirt," Peterson said to a sputtering Milo.

John H. Watson might have been many things - a doctor, a storyteller, and by most accounts a kind and decent man-but he clearly wasn't a zoologist. There's no such thing as a swamp adder. And the idea that Sherlock Holmes deduced its existence from a saucer of milk is ridiculous- snakes have zero interest in milk. They also can't hear anything but vibrations, so they wouldn't hear a whistle. But they do breathe, so a snake couldn't survive in a locked safe.

I could tell he was lying. But it didn't mean I knew what the truth was.