log: jack/louis
Louis' dreams for himself in school were a distant factor at this late date. Certainly, they hadn't involved being the proprietor of an antique store in an obscure town in the pacific northwest of America, but here he was, all the same. That didn't mean a young man's dreams didn't matter - on the contrary, they'd been all that kept him going, some days. But at seventeen, he'd had all the knowledge of what would suit his personality at thirty as a midge did, and he was glad that the whims of his younger self didn't dictate his present.
School had been an altogether unpleasant affair. At best, he'd made a friend or two, here and there. The worst of it was that notorious incident where he'd been roundly beaten by a cheerful group of third-rate thugs after a fun round of gay-baiting, but that almost felt like something that had happened to someone else. It had been so long, and he'd been through so many strange and unfortunate circumstances since then that a simple beating was almost quaint. These days, tall and lanky, if not muscular, he might have held his own a bit better in the brawl, too.
Still, it didn't matter what he thought of the past, how far he was sure he'd come, when he faced down Jack looking about the same age he'd been when last he saw him before coming to Repose. His shyness was unexpected, not so tied to the person he'd known in school, but it was his youth that struck him, rendered him wordless for a moment. Knowing about something in theory was one thing - being faced with a ghost from school days was altogether another. It made him feel old, truth be told.
"Which very old thing might that be?" he asked, when he recovered his voice. He placed a hand to his heart, and smiled a little.