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Link had had his journal for 68 days. It was pretty full and pretty dingy, but he loved it. It was a wrinkly, yellow composition notebook with “L.N.” scribbled on the front. He had the intention of using it for school assignments, but it quickly turned into a place to vent about the one thing he couldn’t vent about to his best friend’s face.
That being said, Link was not just crying over spilled milk when his beloved journal ended up going missing. He had had it in homeroom, and first and second hour. He remembered seeing its yellow edges poking out of his backpack. But as he reached his hand inside during silent reading time in third period, his hand grasped nothing but old gum wrappers and used bathroom passes.
At that moment, he felt his world fall apart around him. His lungs deflated, his heart nearly exploded, and his hands began to sweat. Maybe he had just imagined bringing it to school that day, right? Wrong. He vividly remembered writing a new passage and he wouldn’t dare to leave it on his desk in his room for Mama Sue to snoop through.
That was it. Life as he knew it was over. Carter Moretti (or Mussolini, as Rhett and Link often called him) would probably be the one to end up finding it. Because of course the school bully would find his journal confessing his love for someone he could never have. Or maybe he’d get even luckier and have it be found by the head cheerleader, Jessica White. She sure wouldn’t keep it under wraps and she’d let EVERY girl at Harnett Central know just who Link Neal had the hots for.
***
“Rhett! Hey, Rhett!” Link stumbled through the hallway in front of me, passing through the after-school crowd of high-schoolers eager to get out after a hard day’s work, “Rhett you gotta help me.”
“Sure thing buddy, whatcha need?”
“My notebook… yanno? My yellow one. I had it for half the day. Homeroom, first period, second period. It’s gone! I feel like I looked everywhere but it’s not in my bag or locker or truck or-”
“Woah, woah, slow your roll,” I laughed, “take a breather before you turn blue. Why is it such a big deal? I’ll buy ya a new one. How much are they? 89¢?”
“I don’t care about the notebook ya big dunce! I care about what’s in the notebook.”
“Well, what’s in the notebook? Nuclear codes?”
As I laughed Link stared blankly back at me, and his whole demeanor switched from frantic to frightened.
“Actually, j-just forget about it,” he stumbled over his words and his feet as he began to walk backward away from me, “I’ll look for it myself, you don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”
“Listen, buddy, it ain’t that big a deal. I got basketball practice but I can look afterwa-”
“NO!”
Link and I rarely ever yelled at one another, especially over something as trivial as a raggedy old notebook. I looked at him with wide eyes and he looked back at me just the same, but before I could reply he had turned around and sprinted away in one quick motion.
What was so important about those notes?
***
It didn’t make any sense. I always kept my eyes glued on that stupid notebook, from the first time I wrote Rhett’s name in it until the last time I saw it.
I had been writing for 43 days, 3 hours, and 17 minutes, not including the few weeks I used it for its intended use. It was supposed to be for school assignments, specifically math. That’s what Mama Sue said she bought it for. But calculus got pretty boring afterwhile so I ended up ripping out all the used pages and began spilling all my thoughts into it. It was really scary at first, and pretty risky considering what I scribbled all over the pages. I never had it out of my sight when I was in class and when I got home it slipped safely under a loose floorboard under my bed.
The first few pages were pretty average 13-year-old girl “my life is such a bore” diary entries. Soon thereafter, though, I began having dreams about Rhett and I. The first few times I’d wake up groggy and half remember what had even happened, I figured it was just him and I hanging out in the backwoods or skipping rocks down the creek. It quickly became clear to me that that was not what was happening. We would hold hands, drink one milkshake with two straws like some cheesy 50s movie, share the same bed during sleepovers. The craziest part of it all was that I actually liked it , and whenever I’d wake up I’d feel somewhat sad that it hadn’t been real life. So, my elementary journal entries soon became page after page of love confessions for my life long, boy companion.
That’s why the notebook was so dang important to me. If word got out that I was in love with my best friend I’d get my ass beat. I’d probably get kicked out of my house, disowned by my family, and would have to move halfway across the country and change my entire identity. Oh yeah, and Rhett would never talk to me ever again. That’s the most exciting part.
***
"See ya guys Monday!" I yelled as I waved and placed a sucker in my mouth. Basketball practice seemed to drag on more than usual. It could've been because it was Friday, but I knew deep down it was because I wanted to know what was in Link's stupid notebook. He and I tell each other literally EVERYTHING, he probably knows what underwear I wore to bed on December 9th, so the fact that he was keeping a yellow composition book under such tight wraps was unsettling to me. Part of me was dying to know, but another part of me was dying not to. Some voice in the back of my head was telling me that everything would change if I was the one to find it before he did.
The sun was beginning to set as I made my way through the long, empty halls of Harnett Central. I debated even getting my coat out of my locker since I felt like I had just left Hell, but I ultimately decided for it since I'd beat myself up when I froze to death over the weekend.
As I was crouched, stuffing my coat in my duffle bag, I couldn't help but let my mind wander over to Link again. Things between us had been weird for a few weeks, to put it simply. We hadn't been fighting or anything, but we didn't really have the strongest bond in the world, either. Something in him had switched - a lot of things actually. His personality went from loud and giggly to quiet and almost hesitant. It was like he was nervous whenever he was around me. He never called me on the phone and we hadn't spent the night with one another for at least two months. Don't get me wrong, it's not like we were suddenly enemies. We still went out to the backwoods, still sat with one another at lunch, still copied each other's homework. We just weren't Rhett AND Link, anymore. There was me, and there was him, and that was all.
With the slam of my locker and a skip in my step, I was ready to get out of there. I went through a list in my head of everything I needed and everything I had. Homework? Check. Books? Check. Gym clothes? Check. And even though I knew for a fact that I did, I had to make sure I closed my locker. As I turned my head back in the direction I had just come from, I saw it. An old, stained cardboard box overflowing with miscellaneous objects. On the front, "Lost & Found" was scribbled poorly in bold, black marker.
Right on top was a familiar yellow composition notebook.
***
January 19th, 1994
Writing all of this out is probably going to change my life. I know that sounds really dramatic since only me and the ants that hang out on my window sill are gonna see this, but I’ve always thought that speaking things out (or writing, I guess) into the universe changes the way life goes.
I have all of these weird thoughts in my head. It started a few weeks ago, during winter break, when I had the same kind of dreams every night. They were pretty innocent at first… but as time went on they changed drastically. Shy glances, prolonged hugs, and flirty laughs quickly morphed into hand-holding, bed sharing, and movie scene kisses. I tried not to think about it for the longest time, but once I began waking up in cold sweats realizing I actually liked what I was imagining, I decided I needed to write it all out. So right now, as the shadows of snow slide across my paper, I'm risking it all.
I don't know how long it's been love. I have convinced myself that it has been a pretty decent amount of time. There's no way it happened during the dreams. You can't fall in love with someone because of a dream. You can fall in love with someone subconsciously, though. With the way they talk. With the way they smile. With the way they move. With the way they laugh at their own jokes before they even get the whole thing out. With the way they reach for your hand to help you up on the roof of the Omega to watch the stars together. With the way they get excited to see you after a long day at school. With the way their face lights up when they watch you enter a room. With the way they put their arm behind your seat in the car while they're driving. With the way they love you, even when they don't always tell you.
You can fall in love with your best friend.
I would know.
- Link
***
My drive home seemed to take twice the amount of time as usual. I hopped into the Omega quicker than I ever had and took off down the deserted streets of Angier back to my hometown. Link’s mysterious yellow notebook sat on the seat next to mine, laying perfectly in my peripheral view, burning a hole in my seat.
I hadn’t thought about if I was going to read it or not. Lord knew I wanted to, but He just wouldn’t tell me if I should . I knew if it was important enough Link would tell me eventually, but quite honestly, I didn’t want to wait. I’d always secretly wondered what words he was spilling onto those pages. It caught my attention after he stopped pulling it out in pre-calc class one and a half weeks into the grading period. He began pulling it out in English, study hall, and even at lunch when I was in line waiting for food. I struggled to figure out what was in it, and I couldn’t figure out why he never pulled it out when he was around me.
That’s when I decided he must have some deep, dark secrets in there. I thought maybe he had a crush on one of my exes and was too afraid to tell me. Or maybe he had some terminal illness that he was keeping from me until the day his Mama would knock on my door a blubbering mess. Or maybe, just maybe, he was writing about me. That had always been the hope, subconsciously. I knew that much. But as time passed and feelings grew I so badly wanted to rip that stupid notebook out of his hands and see my name on a page decorated with hearts.
I remember the night it happened. Link and I had just left his last soccer game of the season and finished up our celebratory dinner together just as the sun began to fall. We decided we’d go out to the backwoods to chat and watch the stars. Link liked to do that. The autumn air was crisp and uncomfortable, but neither one of us dared to suggest we go home. Those were the moments we lived for.
Buies Creek fall weather was usually bearable. The air wasn’t humid and sticky, and the temps never got too hot. Something Link always failed to remember, though, is that it always got freezing once the sun went down. That being said, whenever we’d go out after a game or a movie or a party, he never had a jacket. That October night was no different. I had a hoodie and Link didn’t, so as I laid there comfortably, he laid there interrupted by shivers every few minutes.
“Ya gotta stop forgettin’, bo,” I said as I pulled my hoodie over my head.
The dark haired boy next to me sighed, breath swirling in the air in front of him, “You don’t have ta do that…”
“I know,” I grinned, “I want to,”
That’s when I noticed a blush on Link’s cheeks, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or nerves.
“Perfect fit,” I laughed at the sight in front of me. My hoodie was about two sizes too big on him, but he pulled it off well.
“Now you’re cold,” he frowned.
“I’ll be alright. I got muscles to keep me warm,” after I flexed my biceps, Link chuckled back at me and playfully swatted my arm away.
That’s when the mood changed. I felt it immediately, and I felt that he did, too. It was almost as if the wind stopped and the crickets went mute and all that the world held was Link and I and the thoughts I’d never dare tell them.
That’s when he sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and lied down on my chest. I looked at him with wide eyes, but he didn’t see it. My heart pounded under his ear and I feared he knew exactly what I felt for him at that moment. I feared that he had known all along and that he was teasing and flirting in hopes that I would cave and he could laugh and ruin everything we had. That was pretty elaborate, though, and extremely unlike Link to do something so backhanded. Especially to me.
Almost as if he had been reading my mind, he popped his head up and smiled sweetly, “Don’t be nervous. I don’t bite.”
I grinned in reply. That’s when I knew I loved him.
***
Still not in my backpack.
Still not under the wiggly floorboard.
Still not in my top desk drawer. Or the middle one. Or the bottom one.
I was freaking out. Not like an “oh well, this sucks” kind of freaking out. I mean my palms were dripping and my limbs were tingling and my heart was exploding. I hoped Rhett had found it and used his tiny bit of common sense to know not to open it. Maybe he thought it was chemistry or creative writing or doodles. He didn’t have to know. Why would he need to open it?
But, as far as I knew, he was 20 pages deep. He knew how I described his eyes and he knew what my heart did when he walked into a room and he knew who was at the forefront of all my dreams. I was absolutely mortified.
And then my phone rang.
“Link!” a familiar voice exclaimed, “Sorry to call so close to dinner. I just saw something and I thought you’d want to know.”
My heart dropped. It wasn’t Rhett. It was my girl-friend, Stevie.
“It’s okay. What’s up?”
“Well, I’m in the Recycling Club, yanno?” I nodded although she couldn’t see me, “We ran kind of late today and as I was walking to my locker I saw Rhett in the hall. A part of me wanted to say hi, but I saw that he was preoccupied on something else.”
“Like what? Is this just gossip cause I’m kind of busy…”
“No! Hear me out. I promise it gets interesting.”
“Alright, alright,” the phone pressed up between my shoulder and my ear as I plopped down on my bed.
“So he turns around at his locker, right? And right behind him is this big brown box and I don’t know what it is but I can only assume it’s-”
“Oh my god,” I cut her off, “the lost and found. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I have a sneaking suspicion you know where this story is going.”
“Shit, Steve. I gotta get that notebook back.”
“Well, how will you without sounding totally desperate?”
“Just kill me now. Put me out of my misery.”
“Sorry, but I really wanna watch this love story play out.”
“No story to be told. Just me bein’ weird and gay and stalkerish and now he is going to hate me forever and I’m going to die.”
“Stop run-on-sentencing. Breathe. You aren’t actually dead.”
“Yet.”
I had told Stevie about my secret harbored feelings for Rhett about two weeks prior. She snuck up behind me at lunch while I was writing all alone and I couldn’t just pretend like she didn’t know how to read and hadn’t seen the confessions spilled out all over my pages.
“What if he reads it?”
“What if?”
“No but seriously. I don’t even know what I would do.”
And I didn’t. I dreamt about the moment that Rhett found out for weeks and weeks, and every scenario was different. Maybe he would punch me in the gut and spit on the ground I walked on. Maybe he would understand and say he just wants to stay friends. Or maybe, just maybe , he would throw his arms around me in excitement and say he’d never been so happy.
***
As I sat criss-cross applesauce on my bed, I didn’t know what to do. One part of me wanted to see every marking made in that raggedy journal, and the other part of me wanted to respect my best friend who clearly didn’t want me to know what was inside.
But why was it such a big deal? Link and I didn’t have secrets - no matter how embarrassing or hard to admit. We were each other’s confidants. A secret of his was a secret of mine, and vice versa. Minus the whole being in love with him thing, of course.
The clock read 6:18pm as I decided to take a peek. Maybe I would get the answers I needed just by reading one page, so I opened it up and gave the first one a go.
“January 14th, 1994. Hi. I’m Charles Lincoln Neal the third. Kind of a mouth full, so I just go by Link for short,” I smiled. Link never really knew how not to blabber.
“This notebook was supposed to be for math, Mama said, but I got bored with that. Now I’m gonna make this my journal. My secret journal. Definitely not a diary though. Just a super secretive manly journal.”
I got lost in my best friend’s words. His entries were trivial and boring for the most part, not that Link could ever bore me, but it wasn’t anything to get my blood pumping. I thought maybe he had overreacted and I have over-hoped about what he was writing about. That all changed when I got to a page dated January 19th.
“You can fall in love with someone subconsciously, though. With the way they talk. With the way they smile. With the way they move. With the way they laugh at their own jokes before they even get the whole thing out,” I winced at the thought of Link being in love with someone who wasn’t me. I wanted to be the one his heart belonged to. It took all of me not to just throw the stupid pages out of my window one by one or light them on fire or shove them down the garbage disposal. Up until I read the next line, at least.
“With the way they reach for your hand to help you up on the roof of the Omega to watch the stars together.”
Although I’d never actually been on fire before, I’m one hundred percent sure that’s exactly how I felt in that moment. Those were the words I needed to read; the whole reason I opened the damned notebook in the first place. I hoped to every God that this wasn’t some sick joke. I had wanted it for as long as I could remember. I had needed it for as long as I could remember.
I had to get to Link.
***
“Rhett… I don’t even know what to say. All of these things have just been building up inside of me for a while now and I guess I thought that writing them down would help. You weren’t ever supposed ta see that.”
I sighed as I rested my head against my mirror. It was useless, no matter how many times I rehearsed I knew the real thing would be killer. Don’t get me wrong, I had always wanted Rhett to find out. Just not like that. I imagined it to slip out after a few beers during our second year in college together, when the pastor said: “speak now or forever hold your peace” at his wedding, or on his or my death bed when the emotions were high and I knew it was the end.
My mom startled me back to reality by yelling from the bottom of the stairs, “Link, hunny? Rhett’s on his way up!”
Who. Is. WHAT?
My blood ran cold and I immediately broke out in a sweat. He hadn’t disowned me? He hadn’t told his dad to load up the shotgun? He hadn’t fed my notebook to a shark? I looked in the mirror to check myself out.
Bloodshot eyes? Check. Bags? Check Flushed cheeks? Check.
I looked great!
“Hey,” I heard a familiar voice say. He sounded calm.
“H-hi,” I, however, didn’t.
“Found this.”
Rhett took an arm from behind his back and there it was, my yellow composition notebook full of secrets, sitting there perfectly in his shaking hand. The weather outside was cool and crisp but the air in my room seemed hot and thick.
“You read it.”
He furrowed his brows and gulped, “No?”
“I know you. For 10 years I’ve known you. You read my journal.”
“Yeah, alright, Link. I did.”
At those words, I broke down and cried. I couldn’t help myself. None of it was fair. I never had to lose that damned notebook and I never had to write my secrets down in it and I never had to feel those stupid feelings about Rhett in the first place. Loving someone you couldn’t have was hard enough but the thought of losing him altogether was something I couldn’t bear the thought of.
“Oh, Link. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I… I just had to know what the big deal of losing it was. I know you don’t take school that seriously,” he chuckled. I sniffled.
“We don’t have secrets with each other. When I found it I wasn’t going ta read it, swear. It was just eatin’ me up inside thinking ‘bout how scared you were that the thing was missin’,” he looked at my journal, still in his hand.
The thing was, we did have secrets with one another. One huge secret that was boiling up inside of me and bound to come out when I least expected. It hurt me that it hurt him so much, but what was I supposed to do?
“At first I didn’t get it. It was just stuff like ‘I passed my U.S. history test’ and ‘Mama Sue made the best casserole for dinner the other night.’ Then it completely changed. Ya called me beautiful, Link. You said you love me. Like, in love. ”
I had everything to say and no courage to say it. There Rhett was, in my room, knowing all these things I never thought he would know. Saying all these things I never thought he would say. Every bone in my body wanted to just wake up from that nightmare. To snap out of it and realize it was morning and nothing had gone wrong and it was all my imagination. But it was all real. It was the most real moment I had ever experienced and I didn’t know what to say or what to do or how to feel.
I couldn’t stop wondering what Rhett was thinking.
***
I couldn’t stop wondering what Link was thinking.
How could he just stand there after everything I had said? How had our lives changed so much in less than 24 hours that the two of us were walking on eggshells just getting our thoughts out? It had never been that hard with us.
“I don’t know what to say,” he finally spoke.
Tell me you love me, Link. Say it out loud right in front of me so I can run over to you and kiss you as I had never kissed anyone before.
“I don’t either,” I’m such a coward.
“I’m actually lying. I know exactly what to say. I’ve known for weeks. I just… dunno how.”
“Weeks?” I shrugged.
“Lots of ‘em.”
“Me too.”
There they were. Two little words that said everything I needed to say and everything Link needed to hear. Maybe I wasn’t a coward after all.
“What?” his eyes shot up from his twiddling thumbs and in them, I saw something I hadn’t seen him sport in ages: hope.
“I’ve known what ta say to you for lots of weeks. Months if we’re gettin’ technical. You’re not the only one in this room with secrets, Link.”
“So what are you..?”
“What I’m sayin’ is that I love you, too. In lots of words that don’t really make sense cause they’re kinda vague and have less of a meaning than the three words I shoulda told you a long time ago. I love you so damn much it hurts. I love you. There. I said it. I’m in love with you.”
Link was silent for a while. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart.
Say something.
“I’m trying to wait this out to see if I’m dreaming. If I get to the good part and wake up I’ll be pissed.”
I smiled and so did he, “The good part?”
“Yanno. The music gets loud and you smile and a tear rolls down my cheek and we run into each other’s arms to live happily ever after.”
“This isn’t a movie,” I laughed.
“It totally feels like one. My life never has plot lines this good.”
“So do you want this back? What are you gonna write about now?”
We both looked at the raggedy, yellow journal in my hand. I kept thinking about that 50¢ stack of paper bound together by glue and cardboard. It somehow changed my life in ways I had only daydreamt about when my teachers rambled on about things that didn’t strike much interest in me. I was finally getting the love story I had always wanted with the boy who had been right under my nose all along, pining and waiting for me like I had been doing with him. I wanted to suggest to him that he could write about what it felt like to hold my hand, what it felt like to have my arm around his shoulders when we were alone in a movie theatre together, what it felt like to kiss me. My nerves were getting the best of me.
***
That scene had always gone differently in my head. It never ended well. I was usually crying and getting my heart broken; it was almost as if I wouldn’t let myself think of a happy ending between Rhett and I. If you have low expectations, can you ever really be disappointed?
As my mind raced, I glanced up at Rhett. He stood there in my room, notebook still in hand, looking as sweet and as innocent as ever. I wondered if he was as scared as I was. That’s when he walked over to me. The room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. He placed himself next to me on the edge of my bed gently like everything was so fragile it would fall apart. One wrong move and everything would be ruined. Rhett tossed my journal in the floor and turned to look me in the eyes.
“What are we going to do?” I interrupted our silence.
“There are so many things I want to do with you,” Rhett said in a low, raspy whisper.
“How is this going to work?” my eyes filled with tears.
I had never thought about the logistics. It was 1994 in the rural south and a boy being in love with a boy was unheard of. What would our parents do? What would our friends think? It hurt my heart to think that there was an invisible barrier between us, but it was there, it always had been, I was just too infatuated to face the facts.
“It’s supposed ta be us,” he put his hand on my cheek and ran his thumb across the tear that had begun to fall, “Ever since that day we were cussing on our desks, ever since we became best friends. This was supposed ta happen, Link. If it wasn’t I wouldn’ta found your notebook and I wouldn’t be sittin’ here thinking about kissin’ you senseless.”
My heart melted. It just made sense. I had never really believed in the idea of soulmates or one true love until that moment. Right then and there I realized that Rhett was right; we were perfect for each other. And wait- did he say something about kissing me? My cheeks grew hot after the thought. He smiled back at me with genuine happiness and before I could say anything else the space between us was closing faster than I could think. Rhett was going to KISS ME!
There it happened. In my room, on my bed, next to my notebook, lip-locked with my best friend and favorite person in the world. It was so simple and pure yet so Earth-moving and mind-numbing. No one before us had had a kiss more perfect than that one.
“You kissed me,” I smiled.
“Finally,” he grinned and kissed me again.
I will always thank my mom for buying me that cheap, yellow composition notebook. We never knew how much it would change my life for the better. As I looked into Rhett’s eyes I could only think about how lost I had been. With him, though, I was found.