Chapter Text
“Rhett James McLaughlin, you are not stupid, so stop acting like you are.” Rhett’s father glowered, his eyes flashing with anger at the thought of his son going to film school instead of actually accomplishing something that mattered. He ran the palm of his hand against the edge of his desk, voice booming, “What are you even thinking?”
Rhett shrank back against the wall, as much as his large frame could shrink, anyway. Despite his 6’7” frame, his father could make him feel small with just a handful of words.
“We just… uh… um… we thought…” Rhett stammered, not sure how to fully phrase exactly what his plan was.
“You thought you’d go to film school, make movies, be some big shot celebrity in Hollywood? That’s not real, Rhett, people like us don’t do that. We buckle down, we work hard, we provide for our families. You’re not going to film school, and that’s final.”
Rhett’s eyes welled up with tears, so he turned his head. He didn’t want his father to see him cry, didn’t want to show that weakness he felt inside. From the outside, his family seemed picture-perfect. His parents were still married, and they had the perfect number of kids-- just two, not too many, and not too few. The only thing that could have made their family seem more perfect to the outside world was if Cole had been born a girl instead of a guy. Rhett let the thought blossom in his mind, giving a lighthearted thought to the overall impending doom he felt from his father’s expectations. Cole as a girl, that’d be funny. However, behind closed doors, things were different than what the world saw. His father was harsh, and at times it felt like his family was pulling apart at the seams.
“Now, Rhett, if that’s all settled, I’d like to get back to work. Please close the door on your way out.” His father, a professor, often worked with his door closed late into the night. Rhett wondered if the long nights of hard work were worth it. Did his dad really enjoy the idea of just slaving away until he died, doing something he didn’t care about? He shuddered at the thought of late nights spent in a stuffy office, trying to grade papers or something, ignoring his family and abandoning his filmmaking passions.
“Hey, mom, I’m going to go for a walk, okay?” Waiting for a nod as his mom washed dishes by the kitchen sink, he stepped out the door into the crisp fall air. His mind wasn’t sure where he was headed, but his feet took charge and led him right where he needed to be. When he reached his best friend’s front porch, he realized it was fairly late in the evening to be showing up. He eyeballed Link’s window, and then he picked up a tiny pebble.
He tossed the pebble gently at Link’s window, causing a light tap. He didn’t see anyone stirring in the room, though. What if Link wasn’t even in his bedroom? Rhett picked up another pebble and tossed it again, another tap. Rhett grinned, chuckling to himself in the dark at the realization that in movies, this was something you usually saw guys do outside their girlfriend’s window, not their best friend.
With no response again, Rhett readied himself to walk home, but then he froze as he saw the bedroom light flicker on. The curtain peeled back and Link looked at Rhett through the window. He held up a finger indicating that Rhett should wait, then he disappeared behind the curtain. Just a minute later, Link bounded out the door.
“Yeah. I mean… no, actually. They’re really not.” Rhett confided in his best friend, telling him the full story of how his dad refused to let him go to film school, how he insisted on Rhett getting a real job, becoming a doctor or professor or engineer.
“Come on, engineering can’t be that bad, can it? What would we do, build bridges? Design structures?” Link tried to find the positive in the situation. Rhett, however, lingered on the word we . It implied that where he led, Link would follow, and if he had to go to engineering school or something, then in Link’s mind, so did Link.
Rhett stared into the darkness as Link continued to talk about the possibility of them going to college together, certain that being a doctor wasn’t the right fit for him since he was so woozy around blood, meaning the best fit was for the two of them to become engineers. He continued, telling Rhett that maybe they could find jobs at the same engineering firm or something, and tossed out the idea of them being roommates, because obviously they would be roommates, right? Rhett heard Link talking, trying to make Rhett feel better about all of this, but the details about what he was saying were fuzzy.
“Link,” Rhett interrupted after a few minutes, “is that really what you want, man? To get up and go work someplace, suit and jacket and all that, mapping out roads or doing whatever it is that engineers do? That’s really how you want to spend the rest of our lives, buddy? You want us just to work until we die here in North Carolina, without achieving our dreams, our goals that we planned together?” Rhett’s voice was almost pleading, but Link remained silent for several seconds, closing his eyes and flexing his shoulder blades against the tree bark. Rhett examined his face as Link furrowed his brows, then finally spoke.
“No, Rhett, I mean, you know I want to make something with you. Something bigger than us! You know that film school is our plan and all that, and that it’s everything my heart is set on. But if you’re going to engineering school, then I’m going to engineering school. Whatever, we’ll figure it out.” Rhett admired his friend’s ability to roll with the punches here, but it made him feel a little bit sick inside that solely because his dad made a decision for his life, his friend was feeling like he had to change the course of his own, even though he acknowledged he didn’t want to. Where was their chance to figure out who they are, what they wanted from life? What did his dad get to dictate what they both did for the rest of their lives? His nostrils flared as he felt this deep-seated mixture of grief and rage, like he was angry he lost something he didn’t even have yet.
“We don’t have to do this,” the taller boy spoke earnestly. “We don’t have to be engineers, we don’t have to trade our freedom just because my dad says so. We don’t.” His eyes were welling up again, but he knew in the darkness of the night, there was no chance his friend would see, so he didn’t stop them this time.
“Rhett, what the hell are you talkin’ about? Your dad said you had to do this, so we have to do it. That’s just how it is.”
“No! No, Link, you aren’t listening to me!” Rhett insisted. He reached forward and grasped Link’s hand in the darkness, making sure his friend was listening. “We. Don’t. Have. To.”
Link allowed Rhett to hold onto his hand for dear life, allowing himself to be the anchor to his friend’s sudden rebellion.
“Then what exactly do you suggest, Rhett? What’s goin’ on up there?” Link reached up with his free hand to tap Rhett in the center of his forehead.
Rhett pressed his eyebrows together, working something out in his head like he was doing some sort of complex mathematics.
“How much money do you have saved up, Link?”
Link’s sapphire eyes rolled upwards to think about it. “I don’t know… a couple hundred from mowing lawns, maybe a little more under my bed from my birthday. Why?”
“I have some, too. Stuff from work, from Christmas last year, that sort of thing. What if we just… drove to California? We could intern at a studio or something, heck, we could work in the mailroom. Work our way up through the system, make a name for ourselves. We could actually do this, man. We’ve got a car, we’ve got gas money.” Rhett’s heartbeat quickened as he thought of the possibility, the actual potential they had to run towards freedom, towards the dreams that were actually theirs, not the ones imposed on them by family, or what their small southern town thought men should do after high school.
“You mean, like… after we graduate? We could skip out on college and just go out West?”
“No, Link. Like now.”
“Now?” Link’s voice quivered a bit. It shook with potential, but also the fear of making such a big decision. He was just 16, Rhett 17, and they had so many possibilities ahead. Was engineering school going to be that bad? I mean, it would give them something to fall back on if their dreams of entertainment didn’t work out as planned. But where Rhett went, Link followed. Not passively, not to avoid making the decision, but actively, a conscious decision to follow his best friend into the wild unknown. It was their dynamic, and who they were to the very core of their being. Link decided there were worse ways to spend life, worse ideas than going to California. That was their eventual plan, wasn’t it? So why not now? “Okay.”
They stood out there for quite awhile, trying to figure out their plan. They agreed it would be too difficult to leave in the middle of the night, both since their families would hear them, and because it would just be painful. No, they’d leave in the morning. Pack their bags, leave Buies Creek, leave high school and their friends and families and girlfriends and all talk of wasting their lives on a career path they didn’t want. They’d work their asses off to achieve their dreams, just like they’d planned when they made a blood oath just a year or two ago. They’d prove Rhett’s dad wrong. They shook hands firmly, business partners in this shared bond to run towards their dreams. Then, they parted ways for the night.
Link sniffled as he quietly packed his bags. He’d miss his mom, sure. But wasn’t this the best possibility? He and his best friend wanted to make something together, and this was their chance to go do it. As he tucked his favorite shirts into his duffel bag, he started to feel a lightness he hadn’t ever known. As he pulled his money out and stuffed it inside a sock in the corner of his bag, he was more certain than ever that they were making the right decision. Everyone around them was growing older, even they were growing older, and getting to the point in life where they’d have to make adult decisions anyway. He didn’t want to die knowing that he hadn’t lived up to his potential, and this was his way of making sure that he had some control in the situation. Besides, where Rhett went, he went.
Most people didn’t understand their friendship, figured that if they were that close, they must be… well, even closer. Their town once pushed a man to leave because at his karate studio, he taught bits of Eastern wisdom, which went against the norm in small-town North Carolina, and two teenage boys who were that close as friends, well, they responded pretty similarly. They just didn’t understand. Rhett looked after Link like a brother, something Link didn’t really have as an only child. They took care of each other, and there was nothing weird about that. Link wondered what people would say, though, when they realized that the pair were gone. He knew what conclusions they’d draw. “Screw it,” he whispered to himself in the darkness. “Let ‘em.” He zipped his duffel bag closed and set it next to the door.
At home, Rhett packed his own bag, removing all of his basketball gear to fill the spaces with the things he’d need for the trip. Heck, for the rest of his life. Were they coming back? He didn’t think they could, not if they left like this. His heart fluttered with anticipation, and he found it so hard to sleep that night. He knew his best friend, who tackled worry with a nap, was probably snoring and mumbling in his sleep right now. But Rhett, well, he didn’t work like that. So he stared up at the ceiling in the darkness. What would the future hold? Would they even be able to pull this off? He had an idea, peeling back the covers and climbing out of bed. He snuck quietly towards his dad’s office, seeing that the light was finally off. It means the path was clear. He snuck into the office, and in the back of a drawer, he found the last item he needed to take. Filled with memories of family Christmases and vacations, but also with ridiculous interviews and sketches he and Link had filmed together, he knew the camera needed to go. If their dream was filmmaking, they weren’t leaving town without a camera. Rhett grabbed it and every blank tape he could find, then returned to his room. All packed, he tried once more to sleep. Eventually, his eyes did close, if only for a few hours.
The next morning after breakfast, Rhett gave his mom a big hug, kissing the top of her head.
“Bye, mom,” Rhett said into her hair. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Honey, I’m gonna see you after practice. You’re actin’ like we’re never gonna see each other again!” her sweet drawl and blindness to the situation at hand both made him smile and want to cry. His emotions were so mixed… this was such a big decision, and while it could go amazingly well, it could fail. Either way, they’d probably be hurting a lot of people in the process.
“I know. I just wanted to let you know that I’d miss you today, that’s all.” Rhett’s stomach knotted, so he stuffed the feelings down deep inside. If he let them bubble to the surface too much, he might not have the courage to press on with the plan.
Pulling out of the driveway, duffel bag and backpack already in his car, Rhett drove to Link’s house. They carpooled to school more often than not, so this wasn’t out of the ordinary. It allowed them time to hype each other up for the day, or just mellow out and listen to their favorite music. After school and practice, they’d sometimes explore the woods or visit the Cape Fear river for a swim on nice days. “Hey, man, you ready?” Rhett asked as Link opened the passenger door.
Link smiled as he put his backpack and duffel in the car, then climbed into the passenger seat. Their fingers brushed as they both went to turn the music up, but Link gave control of the volume to Rhett, who cranked it up to the same volume he would have chosen anyway. Their favorite Merle Haggard song played on the station they were tuned to.
With the windows down and his shirt sleeve ruffling in the breeze, Rhett pulled onto the road. As they pulled away from Buies Creek altogether, he smiled, optimistic with what the future might hold.