Walk That Mile

December (Epilogue)

December

Louis swears the fluorescent lights of the library are taking a toll on his eyes and, by extension, his entire brain. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers as the words on the page in front of him swim by again. On a sigh, he closes his eyes and then opens them again to focus. It doesn't work. He shuts the book he's been reading from with a dull thud causing a couple of stray sets of eyes to wander from across the room, curious at the disruption.

It takes him under a minute to gather his stuff from his workspace and shove it in his backpack, tangling his laptop cord and phone charger together in the process. He just wants to get out of the library - hardly concerned with doing it in an orderly fashion.

He knew it would be hard, is the thing. Law school was never meant to be a cakewalk but there's a stark difference between being prepared for difficulty and being slammed in the face with tests, papers, case studies, and defense practices with hardly a pause to take a breath.

It's already dark by the time he gets outside, winter bringing slightly cooler weather and darker nights even now, at the beginning. There are strings of lights hung haphazardly around the bare trees, some white lights skirting the edges of the buildings, colored paper signs announcing holiday festivals and concerts stuck up against light posts. Even the festive cheer does nothing to hide the fact campus is already barren with only a few days until the holiday break. Louis is already counting down the finals - one test and one essay - standing between him and a flight home.

He studies the ground as he walks the familiar path toward his apartment: dirty sidewalks covered in stepped on gum and wet garbage, stray shoelaces and socks like the underbelly of a laundromat.

Laundry.
Shit.

"Fuck," he says out loud without missing a step. He was supposed to put his laundry in the dryer before he left for class - not leave it sitting in a damp heap inside the washing machine for seven hours.

It's pretty much the way his day - the whole week, really - has gone so he can't even pretend to be surprised by the realization. His track record for today alone has included waking up past his alarm, not being able to find two matching socks, spilling coffee on the kitchen floor, being late to his first lecture, getting a headache that refused to go away, and then locking himself in the library for four unproductive hours under fluorescent lights. And the laundry. He forgot to put the fucking laundry in the fucking dryer.

The streetlight flickers over the entrance of his apartment - lazy, like it's deciding whether to stay on or turn off permanently. At this rate, he wouldn't be wholly surprised if it just called it quits. He takes a moment to pull out his keys, absently checking his phone before he remembers it's already dead. He rolls his eyes. What a fucking day.

His building is too old to have a functioning elevator so he takes the stairs, vaguely wondering if he's made the right choice on this law school thing. It's not the first time the thought has circled through his mind, nor will it probably be the last. A familiar voice echoes from the back of his mind - low and steady, thick like honey - it's only the first term, it's nearly Christmas and you're tired, nothing good is ever easy. His lips twitch as the voice quiets again. Sometimes he thinks that voice is the one thing helping him get through this term at all.

The lock on the front door sticks as usual so it takes Louis a moment to get it open, twisting the knob back and forth before it gives way.

This far into the term, he's not surprised to find someone already in his apartment (though, admittedly, the first time he'd walked in to unexpected company, he'd thrown his keys across the room in self defense).