Pity Party

My mother brushed my long, dark hair back. “Sherlock, dear, I swear,” I could hear the frustration in her voice.

“I hate my hair,” I mumbled. I shook my head and it fell back into its normal messy part. Curly bangs covering my eyes and tucking it behind my ears. I started to move from the spot my mother had me stand at, but she grabbed me with a firm hand and pulled me back.

“Don’t you dare,” she said. “Your hair needs to look nice. I bought some ribbons.”

“I don’t want ribbons in my hair, mother. I’m sixteen, not six.”

She continued to brush it back and pull it into piggy tails, using a small pair of scissors, she curled the ribbons before tying a piece around each one. “It matches your eyes.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

There was a small knock on my bedroom door and the door opened. My father poked his head in and smiled. “Sherlock, you look beautiful.”

I rolled my eyes.

My mother smack the underside of my arm with the brush. “Don’t roll your eyes at your father.”

“Oh, leave her alone. Are you excited?” he asked, sitting down on the edge of my bed.

“No. I think it’s ridiculous that I actually agreed to this. I don’t like parties,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “No one is going to come anyways. They all hate me.”

“Dear, no they don’t,” my mother turned me around to look at her. She tucked a piece of my stray hair behind my ear. “Everyone loves you. They’ll come, I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, mother.”

She sighed. “We’ll give you a few minutes, Sher,” father said. Him and mother walked out. I walked over to the floor length mirror in my room and looked at myself. My mother had bought me a dark purple quarter sleeved, knee length dress. The skirt part was pleated and when I twirled it swayed around me. I could see the blue ribbons in my hair, and they did match my eye color.

I sighed and sat down on my bed. I was only doing this for my parents. Everyone in my grade at school couldn’t stand me. I was smarter than anyone in that whole school and I loved outsmarting anyone I could. I did have on friend though, John Watson. He transferred here from somewhere up north, he probably told me at one point. He was coming tonight.

“Sherlock! John’s here!” I heard my mother call up the stairs. I slid on the black flats my mother had also bought for this party and ran out the door, hopping on the banister and sliding down it causing mother to yell at me.

John stood in the living room. His sandy blond hair had been neatly parted and gelled down, he was wearing a dark red shirt and his neat jeans with the cuffs up. John smiled when he saw me and whistled, “I never knew you could dress up.”

“School uniforms leave less to the imagination,” I said, smoothing my dress out.

“Especially when you wear the boy uniforms,” John pointed out.

I shrugged, “The slacks are more comfortable than wearing skirts all day.” I heard the back door open and my brother’s voice carried to where John and I were standing. “Mycroft’s here. Would you like to meet him?” I asked John.

“Sure.”

He followed me into the kitchen and Mycroft was standing there with a man beside him. “Ah, Sherlock, happy birthday,” he said. I eyed the man beside him and I could tell he felt slightly uneasy.

“I’m glad to see your friend John Watson show up.”

“John, this is my annoying, cold hearted brother, Mycroft.”

“Pleasure,” John said. “Who is your friend?”

“This is Greg, he’s – “

“Your boyfriend. He’s standing close to you because he trust you while he’s nervous around us. He’s older than you also, about, what, five years. You two haven’t been together long, but you’ve known him since you’ve moved to London. His heavy soled shoes suggest leg work, possibly police? No, Detective Inspector. Only the best for Mycroft,” I turned towards him, “please breathe, you’re started to turn blue.”

He let out the breath he had been holding. “Sherlock, leave him alone,” my mother warned. “I’m glad you came, Greg. Mycroft has told me a lot about you.”

“I’m just stating the obvious,” I said and John laughed.

“You left some important details out,” Mycroft said.

“I don’t care. John, let’s go back into the living room.”

I sat on the couch and John took the seat beside me. Mycroft and Greg followed, taking their seats in the loveseat across from us. “What made you decide to have a birthday party?” Mycroft asked.

“Mother.”

“She is very sentimental,” he sighed.

“Too sentimental,” I agreed, sinking down in the couch. I glanced up on the clock on the wall above my brother’s head. It was getting time for the party to start and no one else had shown up. My mother had gone all out for my party; she had pastel balloons tied to everywhere surface and even a pastel banner hanging up in the kitchen saying Happy Birthday!

She even encouraged that the invitations match the decorations. I had personally hand written everyone one of them, and passed them out before class started last week. I laid them on everyone’s desk before school had started and skipped my first class. No one asked me about it during class change, lunch, or even free period.

The doorbell rang and I perked up. Maybe someone did come after all.

My father rushed to the door and opened it. It was Mrs. Hudson, our next door neighbor. “Oh! Happy birthday, Sherlock!” She scurried to me and threw her arounds me. “You look lovely dear.”

I laughed softly, “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

“And Mycroft’s here also!” She let go of me and hugged him also. “You know, Sherlock adores you, even if she won’t admit it.”

“That’s a disgusting rumor,” I said.

“Of course she does, I’m smarter.”

“Be nice to the birthday girl,” she warned my brother.

“Louise, if you’d like,” my father said, “I could hook you up with a drink in the kitchen.”

“Oh, a drink sounds nice,” she turned towards me and smiled, before walking off with him.

“What an exhausting woman,” Mycroft whined.

“Leave Mrs. Hudson alone. I quite like her,” I said.

“Who all did you invite?” Greg asked me, changing the subject.

“My entire class. Hopefully the idiots won’t come.”

“Did you invite Anderson?” John asked me.

“Unfortunately. Mother said if I came back with any extra invitations, my lab time at the university would be restricted. What would I do if I can’t do my experiments, John? Lay in bed and die from boredom?

“You’re being overdramatic,” John said.

“Sounds like another Holmes I know,” Greg joked and Mycroft blushed slightly.

I stared at the clock and watched the minutes passed slowly. Five, ten, fifteen, until an hour had passed since Mrs. Hudson arrived. I felt someone shake me and I looked up, my mother was standing above me and her hand on my shoulder. “Sherlock, you were zoned out. Did you hear me?”

“No, mother,” I shook my head.

“I said: do you want to wait longer?”

I could see her bright blue eyes reflect heart break. She made a promise to give me a birthday party with my classmates, a good party, where I would have fun and make some friends. But I knew it wouldn’t happen.

“Of course,” I said and she smiled.

“Do you know what will pass them time? Opening your presents.”

I looked over at John and he shrugged, “sure.”

She called for Mrs. Hudson and my father to join and told them what the plan was. “Get in the middle of the couch, dear,” my father said, “We’ll hand you the gifts.”

John scooted over and I took his spot. Mrs. Hudson handed me her gift first, it was a small box wrapped in bright green wrapping paper. I carefully unwrapped it and removed the box lid. Inside was a blue scarf. I took it out and wrapped it around my neck and Mrs. Hudson smiled.

“I knew you would like it,” she said. “It brings out your eyes.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

Mycroft gave me library card from the university he had attended, “I arrange that so it could give you free access to any book there. Maybe you’ll actually learn something.”

My mother smacked his arm. “Go get her present out of the closet upstairs.” Mycroft started to object, “Now, Mycroft.”

He sighed and stood up.

John gave me his next. He placed a box wrapped in plain brown paper in my lap. “You better like it because I did not spend my entire allowance on you to hate it.” I ripped the paper opened and laughed. It was a book about different fungi, mostly what my experiments had been about lately. “So you won’t eat random mushrooms you find on campus again.”

“They weren’t poisonous, John.”

“Well, you didn’t say that, Sherlock. You could have died.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, John.”

Mycroft came back with a giant bag, “Dear God, woman,” he huffed, “what is in this?”

“Did all that leg work tire you out?” I smirked.

“Open the bag before I shove you in it,” he said.

I jerked it from him and pulled it apart, closing my eyes and reaching it. Our parents always go all out on our birthdays. We normally got what we asked for, which I was more for more equipment for my home chemistry set. I could tell that’s what was in the bottom of the bag, but there was something soft on top. I pulled out a piece of dark blue clothing. I unfolded it and realized it was a coat.
It was long; it would go to my knees. It had silver buttons on the front and two on the back where it gathered in above the butt.

“Put it on,” my father urged me. I stood up and made my way to the middle of the living room and put on the coat and buttoned it up.

“Oh Sherlock, it matches your scarf,” Mrs. Hudson said.

“Give us a twirl,” John laughed. I tucked the ends of my new scarf inside the collar and twirled around for everyone like John had asked. Everyone clapped when I stopped and I could feel heat rise up to my cheeks.

“I told you she’d like it,” my father nudged my mother.

“I’m going to run all this upstairs, thank you everyone,” I said, shedding the coat and scarf off and gathering everything else in my arms. I skipped up the steps and ran to my room, shutting the door behind me and throwing everything on the bed. I took a seat in my desk chair and sighed.
No one was coming, I knew no one could come. And still my rational thoughts didn’t stop the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. I pulled my knees up in the chair and buried my face into my arms, sobbing. I couldn’t stop it. My chest was heaving and my heart was palpating so hard I felt like I would throw up. My head was spinning and this crushing feeling I would normally have if an experiment would go wrong wouldn’t leave my body. I didn’t understand it.

I didn’t hear the knock on my door, and I definitely didn’t hear John open it and rush to me. He crouched beside my desk and placed a hand on my arm. “Sherlock…” he whispered.

“No one came, John,” I said, raising my head, tears free falling. “Not a single one of them came.”
“Sherlock, I’m so sorry.”

“I tried so hard. I thought I only wanted to do this for my parents, but I secretly enjoyed the thought of a birthday party with friends. Real life friends. Why do people hate me, John?” I asked.

John ran his thumbs over my cheeks to wipe away some tears. “People are intimidated by you, Sherlock. You’re fantastically smart for your own good and you like to boast about it. They don’t know the Sherlock I do. It’s their loss, honestly.”

I nodded my head and wiped my eyes. “I hate being like this. Mother’s entire family is like this, that’s why Mycroft and I are this way.”

“I love it that you’re this way. Sherlock, you’re my best friend and I wouldn’t want you to be any different.” John pulled me up and wrapped his arms around my torso, my head burying into his shoulder.

“Thank you, John,” I mumbled.