Favorable (Jamilton)

10. Jefferson

As a few weeks went by, the lessons in Thomas's classes slid by. Eventually, he had to go to the campus library to study for an upcoming exam. He thought that he could ace it no sweat, but if Jane found out that her younger brother went in to take his very first exam without studying, she'd probably kill him. 

Literally. 

With a pencil. 

Just for the irony of a pencil being the murder weapon.

It's just a better situation if Thomas went to study, that's the point. 

He went inside and the atmosphere reminded him of somewhere from a fairy tale. Old book smell and the soft humming from the librarian being the most obvious things that Thomas could point out. 

Despite paper being almost useless, large shelves were lined neatly together, creating rows of towering stories. Those seemed way better than the used textbooks in his bag. Paperbacks were stacked next to hardbacks and instead of being completely disorganized and absolutely hideous, it was actually pretty great. Impressive.

After using most of his self-control, Thomas set his bag down at the table that was closest to the shelves. A part of him knew that it was a horrible idea and he'd probably use books as an excuse to not study, but he figured that it was a great exercise in self-control and responsibility that was desperately needed. The musty smell of the books was comforting and Thomas barely opened his textbook before he was ready to wander through the aisles. 

Thomas found it harder to focus on his lesson than he was expecting. After a while of rereading the same paragraph at least sixteen times, his eyes were wandering all around the building. Anywhere from the rotting wood to the attractive librarian behind the desk was way more--

The librarian was gone. 

Thomas's mind immediately went to what could have possibly happened to the librarian. Abducted by aliens that were interested in the dying paper industry and transforming into a literal bookworm were his favorite scenarios. They were both put to death as someone walked by though. 

"Already have an exam?"

Thomas jumped and turned to see the librarian leaning on a rickety metal cart with even more books stacked on top. 

"You're taking notes wrong." the librarian started again. He sat down in front of Thomas and pointed to the bullet points scattered around the page. "You need to organize it more." 

"And who might you be?" Thomas leaned his chin in his palm and smirked at the man in front of him. 

"James Madison, apparently your note-taking savior. Now, bullet points are fine but you really need to have headers that you can put like-notes under so you can take a quick glance to find what you need. Columns also help--" 

"Wait, you aren't going to ask who I am?"

"I can't say that I exactly care. You'll also save room if you cut out unimportant words, the ones that really don't add anything other than extra letters and hand cramps. And conjunctions can go." 

Something about the man in front of him made Thomas think back to elementary school. Specifically, playing kickball and soccer and basically anything that had to do with feet and sports balls during gym class. Suddenly something dawned on Thomas and his flirtation went to dorky laughter. 

"Well if you don't like my methods then you can just say--"

"No, no, I just remember that you used to come to class in the middle of summer with your own box of tissues because of your allergies in elementary school." Thomas almost laughed harder when James's confused face looked up from the notes. "Oh yeah, and you had to sit during gym, and you would read books that nobody'd even heard of. Some kid kicked a soccer ball at your face. That was first grade, I think."