James and Thomas arrived at 09:06 pm. Even though it was only six minutes since the party started the Schuyler mansion was packed.
All the people made James utterly terrified, but when Thomas offered to 'keep him safe' James turned around and walked off.
James resulted to find a chair where he could sit down and read that was far from the crowd of people. Occasionally he would glance up and see Thomas talking to some of their classmates. About half of the people that Thomas talked to James didn't even know their names. He had seen them before, of course, but they were more like strangers.
Eventually, A. Schuyler aproched him. He had already figured that one of them would want to talk to him, although he thought that it would be E. A was always chatting up people and getting to know different sides and oppinions in the topics that she cared about. He and M had that awkward conversation at the store earlier today.
"Madison," she said, confident as always. She was casually leaning to the side with a hand on her hip. "Schuyler,"
She smirked. "You came. I didn't think that you would. It's great to see here, even though you're just reading."
"Well, I said I'd come didn't I," he said. James closed his book and put it down on his lap. A grabbed a closeby chair and placed it parallel to James'. "I guess I just figured that you wouldn't come after Eliza thought that you and Thomas were a couple, and Peggy told me you were quite cold towards her earlier today,"
"I didn't mean to be cold, but I found out that Hamilton and Burr's room is right beside us. And for the situation with your other sister. It wasn't her fault, we were holding hands after all,"
"Why though?" she asked. "Honestly? I didn't really want to come, but I knew that if you asked me I couldn't say no. So I grabbed his hand to make him go faster,"
"Yeah, I get it. You know what? Here," she said and handed him a piece paper with her number on. "I don't want you to leave, but you can go find a room to read in and if you want you can come out hang out with us,"
"Is that what the number is for?"
"Well, yes but if you find someone having sex in one of the rooms, call me so I can throw them out, "
James snorted. "Let's just hope that it doesn't come to that,"
"See you later James,"
A smiled at him then got up and started to talk to some people. James opened the cover of his book and slid the paper inside, then got up and started heading over to the hallway.
He knew that most of the drunk people were hanging out in the living room or outside, and he highly doubted that anyone had passed out yet.
While making his way down the hallway he did actually see one passed out drunk with a beer in his hand. He looked like he had been there quite a while though.
He didn't find a free room until he was halfway down the hallway on the second floor. Most of the rooms were just people in groups talking and drinking. But there were three rooms that stuck out.
In the first, there was a guy laying on the couch talking to himself. He didn't look drunk though.
In the second there was a couple that was telling each other 'I love you' over and over and snuggling together on the floor. Definitely drunk.
In the last, there were two girls making out on the bed. They looked familiar but he was unable to see their faces. He thought about calling A but it didn't look like they were going too far away.
James finally found a room and settled nicely in it. It was one of the guest bedrooms and it was pretty obvious. The bed was nicely made, there was a fresh scent in the room, and there were no personal belongings.
James sat down at the head of the bed and began reading. There were some noises coming from the room behind him, but they were muffled enough to not be detracting and eventually he lost track of time.
It was probably about two hours later when James had gotten to the part that was mostly uninteresting to the story. Usually, he would drag himself through it until he got to the good part, but he didn't want to right now.
He sat in silence for only a minute before he began hearing loud moans from the room behind him.
He took out his phone from his pocket and was about to call A. Schuyler when suddenly someone opened up the door.
"Lafayette?"
He was standing in the doorway, leaning to the side with his right arm on the doorknob and his left rubbing his eyes.
"James? Is that you?" he said, making his way over to him. "Yeah, what are you doing?"
"I was going to find John and tell him to call Alexander,"
"Um...Why?"
"They were going to do something but cancelled it earlier today because of some reason I didn't care about,"
"But why do you need to get John to call him?"
"Turns out they could do it anyway. Ha! You should have seen Alex' face when I told him John was going to the party,"
James looked confused to why Lafayette had told him that. At first, he thought that might have something with him to do, but it didn't.
"Why did you tell me this?" he asked him. "Why not?" Lafayette answered. He then got up without a word and left the room, leaving a very confused James behind. James sat a while and felt his mind go blank. "What just happened?" he asked himself.
He then realized that the moans from the room behind him stopped. Now it was too late to call A. Schuyler.
He was bored now. He didn't want to open his book and drag himself through the chapter and he definitely didn't want to leave the room and chat with a bunch of drunk people. And now he was just walking around in the room looking at things.
The room was quite big and there was a lot of things in it despite it being a guest room. He then noticed a vase beside the closet by the east wall. He remembered that he had seen a picture of a similar vase in one of his books. He walked slowly closer and began inspecting it. He then saw a similar, but smaller vase inside the closet of all things.
He opened the closet slowly, crouched down and lifted the vase up, but as he was about to stand up the door beside the closet was slung up and pushed James inside the closet. James hit his knee on a box that was laying on the floor and his head against the back of the closet.
Two guys walked in and began arguing. The whole conversation was blurred in the beginning but soon enough James began to pick up on something that they said.
"...you left...going to call..."
"...but I was going to John..."
Laurens?
"I still ...believe we're doing this..."
"...don't worry,"
"You told me you were... with her,"
"...to be heartbroken,"
"...Alexander,"
Hamilton!
There was a sharp knock on the door and they left quickly from where they came. James began to fall out of the closet with the vase falling out of his hand. He had gotten a bad headache and his vision was blurred.
"James is that you?" a voice asked him. Unable to answer he rolled over and tried to make out a silhouette with what he saw, but all he could see was a tall shadow. He closed his eyes and dozed off.
When James woke up it was Sunday morning. He was back in his dorm, in his bed looking at the wall. "Good morning sleepyhead," he heard someone say. He turned his head around to see who it was when a ball of pain hit him in his head. "Careful James. You got hit pretty bad last night,"
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Your roommate obviously," Thomas answered. Great.
"How did I get home?"
" I carried you back,"
"While you were drunk?"
"I didn't drink late night,"
"Oh,"
Thomas placed a bag of ice, wrapped in s towel on James' head. "Careful,"
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because I care about you, James, " he said. He then stood up and headed towards the door. "I'm getting myself some breakfast now. Come out when your feeling better,"
He closed the door behind him and left James in the dark. James struggled a bit to get up and out of bed, but getting out of his room was worse.
When he sat down at the table he was breathing heavily and his whole face was red. "I said when you're feeling better, not worse, " Thomas said. James didn't answer. "Are you sick?"
He placed his hand lightly on James' forehead. "Not yet,"
"Why are you doing this?" James asked. "This what?"
"Trying to be my friend,"
"Because I think you are a nice guy, and I really miss you,"
"You can be friends with anyone else at this school,"
"Maybe. But I want to be your friend,"
James sighed and got up. "Fine. I'll give you a second chance but if you mess up this time there is no undo,"
Thomas shot up. "Really?"
James nodded and Thomas ran towards him and hugged him. "Hey! No hugging!"
"Too late!"