I was 15-years-old when I attended Colton Grammar School for the first time.
It was my 11th year, and I remember being so torn between anger and pride at having been accepted. It had made my parents glow, and I was glad to full-fill their dream of seeing me graduate from a top school, but all the same it wasn't where I personally wanted to be. I had friends at my other school, after all; close friends. Long-time mates who I would hardly ever see now; between moving hours away from street where I grew up and the extra work-load my new school inflicted on my schedule, they were all but gone to me.
Still, what was there to do but move on and keep marching forward (I was British, after all). I made new friends, joined some after-school activities, and came to love this new school just as much as my old one. I even came to fancy a boy that shared some of my classes.
His name was William, but he discarded his first name after the initial day of class, opting to go by his middle name instead; Sherlock. I quite liked it, really. It was an unusual name that seemed to fit him perfectly; a peculiar name for a peculiar boy.
His attitude was tart on the average occasion, but somehow I managed to look past that in my youthful infatuation with his dark curly hair and light, intense eyes, always focused yet flittering around the room as if he could see every little detail that the world over-looked. He would sprout what he claimed to be "deductions" about our classmates and teachers, often flustering them in the process, and he wasn't very well liked for it. Not that they were to blame, of course; the deductions seemed more like an exposure in most circumstances, to be truthful. Who was cheating with whom, who had not actually read the chapter assigned for last nights homework, who had an unhealthy infatuation with a married teacher; these were carefully guarded secrets that people didn't tend to enjoy having thrust out into the open with careless hands. Yet he did them anyway, his only concern regarding whether he was correct in his assumptions or not.
Perhaps I wouldn't have even spared him a second glance if it weren't for the fact that I considered him handsome; a shallow admission, I know. Yet it was my saving grace among my peers, who would lessen their sneers only slightly when I'd explain that my stolen glances to the rude boy were superficial at best, and it wasn't as though I approved of him, or anything of the sorts. Heavens no! I just appreciated a well molded face and tall structure, but only from afar, certainly. Never would I actually date such a person, of course not, are you mad?
It was a clever fib that I myself believed for a time. The glances grew to lingers, however, and the physical appreciation turned to genuine curiosity. I often found myself drifting away from class lecture to instead study Sherlock Holmes and all his complex mechanics. For all his intelligence, he seemed to struggle with some of the most ordinary things, deeming them unimportant and thus needless to learn. Students would often snicker at him in Astronomy as he would stare at the teacher blankly for a question that should have been obvious to even the most common citizen, yet I knew he had once known the answer; I had seen him scribble it down on his paper before hastily turning it in and rushing out the door.
Why he pretended to be ignorant was beyond me. If it had been just anyone, I would have assumed he was embarrassed of his aptitude in retraining information; but this was Sherlock. He didn't seem to be embarrassed over anything. On the contrary, he was rather like a colorful peacock bird, showing off his prowess with any and all opportunity presented, then sauntering away with an air of self-satisfaction.
It was months before I gained the nerve to try and stir-up a bit of casual conversation with him during our daily breaks. He only graced me with what appeared to be a poorly concealed sneer and quietly neglected any advances I tried to make.
If he had been trying to drive me away, it worked. I stopped trying to talk to him, even managed to focus a bit more during class again, but it wasn't terribly long before my thoughts drifted to the sulky boy once again. Perhaps that was his best definition; sulky, but not always in an agitated way. Sometimes he was just glum; I think he may have been a bit lonely, sitting in his chair day after day, ignoring and subsequently being ignored by all of his peers. He certainly hadn't been very eager to reciprocate my subtle offer of friendship, but I reasoned that I supposed I'd be weary of people too, if I heard them talking about me the way people talked about him.
I thought of asking him to join me for lunch, but thought better of it. My friends certainly wouldn't have been comfortable having him at our table, and that point aside, he would have declined anyway. So I did the next best thing. I forced myself into his space, much like how he forced his observations on his fellow students.
He glared at me when I sat down across from him, lunch in hand, but I paid him no mind. I simply ate without lifting my gaze to him, a sort of small peace offering, and after a moment of him scrutinizing me he appeared to accept the fact that I wasn't going to budge. He rested his chin on his folded hands and closed his eyes in thought, as he always did, and seemed to forget I was even there.
Sherlock never ate lunch at school, yet I saw him bring an insulated lunch bag every day that he stored in his locker (not that I was spying on him, of course. I just happened to notice. My locker was close to his. I wasn't spying). I sometimes wondered if he was bullied out of his lunch, but despite Sherlock being popularly disliked the other students didn't tend to get physical with him. Exclusion, and the occasional snide remark, seemed to be their preferred method of punishment when it came to him, so I doubted that someone had taken to the idea of stealing from him.
It took a full two-weeks of repetitive silent lunches (during which time I concocted a story to convince my friends I was only eating with Sherlock because it happened that our parents were important acquaintances, and my mother now insisted that I show good manners by not allowing their son to eat alone) to finally feel safe in trying to engage Sherlock in conversation again. It had been a few days since he'd last glared at me, and I took it as a sign he was slowly starting to accept me being around him.
I asked him why he didn't eat. Sherlock didn't even open his eyes to acknowledge that he heard me, but after a few still seconds past, his words came out slow and precise, but distant. Wherever he was in that vast mind of his, it was far away from the small cafeteria table where we sat.
He told me that eating wasn't important, that he had to focus on his mind, not his stomach. I didn't agree with him, but when one gets Sherlock to talk to them without deducing or insulting being involved, one does not push the subject further.
The next day I asked him what he doing when he was "focusing" on his mind. He told me he was building a palace. I had no idea what he meant, but was very surprised. It seemed awfully romantic and, honestly, quite out of character for him. Did he imagine he was some kind of Prince, working his way through his journey to complete some noble quest? (Then again, perhaps he just felt like a royal among peasants).
As it turned out, neither theory was correct. Sherlock later revealed his palace to be a memory retention process, one that allowed him to categorize all information that he could make use of in the future. It sounded a bit far fetched to me, but I tried to make my own "palace" when I went home that day, only it wasn't so much a regal castle as much as it was just a disorganized depiction of every palace I'd seen in movies and pictures. I tried to place my history homework in the palace library, but found I didn't remember anything particularly more the following day. I told Sherlock that the Palace method hadn't worked for me. He told me he wasn't surprised.
Conversation seemed to open up a bit more after that day. At first it mirrored a game of ping-pong; I'd ask a question, he'd answer it, and unless I continued to push and inquire the ball would drop and the game would end, leaving us to sit in silence until lunch period was over. Eventually, though, Sherlock began to take notice if I seemed more interested in an assignment than trying to engage him, and would ask stiff questions regarding what I was doing. I told him the details of each assignment, but the first two times he merely scoffed and went back to his Mind Palace.
The third time, however, Sherlock glared at me until I looked up from my text book. His arms were crossed and his leg was jittery, bouncing his knee successions, and he looked positively annoyed.
"Stop doing that." He'd snapped at me, and my jaw almost dropped. He hadn't been mean to me since the start of our little lunch routine; I hardly saw any reason for him being offended now.
As it turns out, Sherlock liked to be listened to; with full attention, of course. So when he had something heavy on his mind, he would insist that I stop whatever I was doing and pay my full regard to him as he quietly spoke his thoughts out loud, shifting through the processes of his mind like it was a physical object laid before him. I would try to help, but more often than not he'd wave any of my suggestions away. Occasionally, though, I'd apparently say just the right thing, and Sherlock would exclaim a sort of overly excited "Yes!" and go racing down the hall, abandoning me to eat the rest of my lunch alone.
I didn't mind too much; I was getting more and more used to being alone. Spending so much time with Sherlock during lunches had made my friends a bit weary, and they were slowly drifting away from me. More often than not I was hearing about their outings rather than being apart of them, always with some vague excuse of "we tried to get a hold of you, but, you see…"
It made me angry more than anything, honestly. After all, what was so wrong with being friends with a person? (if you could call what Sherlock and I had friendship). So what if he wasn't accepted into the social norm; that meant I wasn't allowed to sit with him during lunch periods? I didn't care if I was branded as one of the outcasts; I wasn't going to be silently pushed around by people who had no business doing so.
Still, I felt the sting of being pushed aside pretty plainly when it came time for the schools formal dance; that was one plus about Colton. Unlike some of the other schools, they held what would likely be the equivalent of an American prom at the end of the year for older students; there was to be champagne, ball gown dress, gourmet dinner, and of course dancing. This was all good fun-if you had someone to attend with, that is. Not a date, necessarily, but in the very least some mates to have a good time with. The majority of my friends all but snubbed me at this point, however; there was simply 'not enough room' for me in their expensive, long limousine.
Luckily, not all of my friends behaved in such a way. Jackie, one of the first friends I made when I joined Colton, insisted that I join her and her 'platonic' date for the evening; the poor boy was tasked with picking us up and fetching us drinks through-out the night, but he was so smitten with Jackie that I don't believe he even cared. The event went smoothly; I felt I had made a good choice on my dress, formal and flattering without being overly revealing, and the food provided at the dinner was certainly worth the expensive ticket price. When it came time for the dancing, I stole Jackie away for part of the evening, only returning her to her date when a slew of slow couple songs began to play. I entertained myself with champagne while I watched my friend be twirled on the dance floor, and began to stroll around, people watching and occasionally small-chatting a fellow student. The band that had been orchestrating the more classical numbers came to a close, and to my surprise I saw Sherlock disembarking from the stage along with them. When I approached him, he only rolled his eyes and insisted participating for the event had been necessary for his grades; which was, in turn, necessary to keep his parents from hounding him.
After that, I spent a good remainder of the dance along side him, drinking and listening as he predicted who was going to have sex tonight and who was actually planning on dumping their significant other as soon as the night was over. Some of his observations seemed too far-fetched, even for him.
"Henry and Lisa? Sherlock, they've been together years; look at them! They're absolutely in love with each other!"
"Love." Sherlock snorted, drumming his hands on the table as he often did when he was bored, "They are not 'in love'; not at this point, anyway. Just look at the signs; Henry's tie has been crooked all night, but Lisa has not once attempted to fix it for him, and Henry, despite being the avid fan of the female body that he is, has barley spared the cleavage provided from Lisa's dress a second glance. Probably because he's too busy trying to inconspicuously look at Jamie Larson, who obviously means to meet up with him later tonight. It's all painfully plain to see."
"Wait, Jamie?" Sometimes I wondered if Sherlock was pulling this information out of thin air, "Jackie's ex-boyfriend Jamie? Sherlock, he's not gay-"
"Well clearly he's had a change of heart." He was using that higher pitched voice with me now, the one that meant he was borderline mocking me, or else mocking Jamie; either way I kept quiet on the issue for the rest of the night.
It wasn't until the event was almost over that I realized I hadn't had one single slow dance. I looked around; Jackie was wrapped up in her dates arms (apparently she liked him more than she let on), but other students were dancing with one another too, some who weren't even couples. I suppose that had sealed it for me. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I turned to Sherlock at that moment and asked him to dance with me.
He should have said no, or rather, that's what I would have expected him to do. Perhaps he simply liked being unpredictable, or maybe he harbored a secret fondness for dancing; but either way he accepted the offer and led me out onto the dance floor. To my great surprise, Sherlock Holmes was a wonderful dancer. In stark contrast to his daily personality, when we moved along to the music, he was gentlemanly and tender, holding me and spinning me very delicately as though I might be bruised. I very nearly fell in love with him right then and there, his hand in mine, ignoring the curious glances all around us.
Unfortunately, the music eventually ended, and so faded away the sweet Sherlock that I hadn't known existed. The formal event was over; students began to exit the building, on their way to after-parties in bars and in homes, but I was looking towards Sherlock and hoping against hope that he would ask me to stay with him. It didn't matter if all we did was help clean up the remainders of the dance; I just wanted to know that he wanted my company.
All Sherlock did, though, was make his way over to his violin and ensure that all its clasps for its suitcase were secure. He made to leave, and like the desperately infatuated teenager I was, I followed him, asking what his plans were now that the dance had ended. He told me that he was to meet some people, and I was pitifully eager when I asked if I could join him.
He only stared at me for a few painful, awkward moments, before finally telling me, "They are not the type of people you need to be meeting. Go and do whatever it is you people do."
Those words stung and stuck with me for multiple reasons; the rejection of joining Sherlock, his reluctance to introduce me to the people he spent his time with, and most of all his clumping of me with 'people'. The word he used most often to describe those he didn't understand and didn't relate to. I thought I had begun to break through whatever barrier he had put up; apparently I had not. Apparently we were not the friends I had tricked myself into believing we were.
I cried in the bathroom afterwards. I had thought to just grab a cabbie and go home, but sweet Jackie messaged me on my mobile and was once more insisting I joined her and her date. Apparently there was a gathering at a club that was becoming quite the party in itself. I seized the opportunity, got drunk, kissed strangers, and proceeded to force the entire embarrassment of Sherlock's rejection from my mind.
When I sobered, I worried about things being awkward during lunch hours now, but to my surprise Sherlock didn't show up to school after that. He must have slipped in at some point to take his finals, I suppose, but other than that there was no sign of him returning to the school. I messaged him once or twice on his mobile, but I never received a response. Despite what happened at the dance, I was still heartbroken all over again by his disappearance, but time heals all wounds I suppose.
I heard rumors here and there that Sherlock had gotten mixed up in a bit of trouble, spending a bit too much time with the homeless of London and lodging around drug dens, but I refused to believe them. Sherlock was an intelligent boy; he wouldn't fall into that sort of life. I was more likely to believe that he'd been picked up by the British government and was having his intellect be put to use. Though it wasn't quite on the wide scale that I imagined, I wasn't surprised to see Sherlock's face in newspapers later on down the road, famed as a consulting detective. I felt a bit proud for never falling into the rumors of him becoming nothing more than a junkie.
Then I was watching the news one night with my husband, Peter, and it happened; the screen flashed in large, bold print that William Sherlock Holmes had committed suicide. I couldn't believe it.
I cried that night in Peter's arms, and felt like a teenage girl all over again. I looked up more information on Sherlock's life after school, and came across the blog of a John Watson. His posts involving the professional life of Sherlock, on-going even after his death, moved me to write my own story on my experience with the worlds first, only, and sadly last consulting detective. It's just a small peek into the more personal side of Sherlock, and he would probably roll his eyes at me taking the time to write it. I feel as though it's helped with his passing, though; all my love and support goes out to John and whatever other friends Sherlock surely had. Though I only knew him a year, and in his younger days at that, I remember what a unique person he was and know that there will never be another like him.
I miss him terribly, even after all this time. If John is correct, if he is still alive, I would like nothing more than to tell him that whether he knew it or not, he had one friend at Colton Grammar School. He had me…and I will always be grateful for the time we spent together, and will never forget those lunches, or that dance, for as long as I live.
Signed,
The Girl Who Fancied Sherlock Holmes