Fault Line
Angie Sarhan Salvatore
You are at your best friend’s rehearsal dinner. It’s been uneventful, but as things wrap up, you sense a shift in the air. That’s when you notice. The bride-to-be’s sister and aunt are heading your way, their faces serious, somber even.
Her aunt discreetly nudges you to a dark corner, darts her eyes around the room, and then speaks in a loud whisper. “You have to talk to her. She can’t marry him.”
Her sister tilts her head to the side and that’s her quiet plea, her way of telling you please.
You are thrown off guard, not at the request, but to hear what you’ve been thinking voiced aloud. You hadn’t known anyone else felt the same, that anyone else was apprehensive about this union. Up until that moment, yours had been a silent worry, one you hadn’t planned on bringing to the surface. Though it’s never been written in any handbook or manual, you know that telling your best friend not to marry her fiancé is taboo, especially when nothing is overtly wrong.
When you’ve been friends with someone for almost the entirety of your lives though, there are unsaid communications—a sensory perception that time and closeness create. Hidden undercurrents forecast something brewing long before it makes itself known. Its arrival is subtle, but it’s there: a slight change in the atmosphere or a buzzing in your bones. And this marriage? It feels like two tectonic plates slowly bumping up against each other, not enough to create a seismic shift yet, but a fault line that promises to splinter at some point.
You wonder why it has to be you that takes this on, why they can’t be the ones to speak up and voice their concerns. They are family, after all, whereas you are only like family. As if reading your mind, her aunt adds, “You’re the only one she’ll listen to.”
You sigh. You know this to be true. Your best friend is the quintessential rebel teen movies showcase. She flirts with boundaries and pushes rules aside as if she was trained to do it. Sometimes you think she’s taunting fate, wanting to see how far she can take her wild ideas. Consequences are inconsequential. She rarely listens to anyone’s concerns, but for some reason what you say typically sinks in, even if it’s not immediate. This has been the tenor of your friendship—a tug of war between personalities. At times it’s her fiery side pushing you to have more fun, let loose and abandon your controlled nature and at others, it’s your rule-following-voice-of-reason-side, pulling her off the ledge when she’s gone too far.
The script is the same, but this time the stakes are the highest they’ve ever been.
You know what to do:
1. Offer your friend a ride home where you will be alone for roughly thirty minutes.
2. Listen and wait for a lull.
3. Build up the courage to ask this hard and ill-timed question. Are you sure?
4. Do not mention her aunt or her sister.
5. Offer an escape plan, even if it’s right before the “I dos.”
She knows what to do:
1. Assure you that this feels right with an enthusiasm that vibrates off her body.
2. Flash a smile so wide and euphoric that the conversation has nowhere else to go.
You’ve seen that smile before. The memories come flashing in: her fifth birthday celebration; teenage, impromptu dance parties; a New Year’s Eve spent in Miami right after college. In this montage, you are there, smiling too.
It’s her smile that sways you. This is what she wants.
Years later, when you are no longer friends—not because of that night but because of a dozen more just like it where your personalities clashed, pushing each of you past your limits, fracturing the friendship a little more each time—you run into her mom. She asks if you’ve heard the news. Their marriage is over. The divorce recently finalized.
You take this in. For a few seconds you imagine what might have happened, whose fault it is, or if they are both to blame. You find it’s what people do when they hear of divorce. They want a diagnosis, a way to avoid a similar fate. Then you wonder if maybe all relationships have a fault line, and it’s unclear what decides if or when they ever crack open. Some withhold the friction, never shifting enough to lead to catastrophic results. Others stretch and snap under the seismic pressure. You wonder why you could sense their demise years before it occurred, but your own break, loud and decisive like a lightning strike, was not on your radar.
Memories resurface: Her first heartbreak; her grandmother’s wake; the day she found out her parents were separating. You were there for it all—to shoulder the pain, offer support, say the things she needed to hear most, and to promise things would get better. You look at her mom, someone you’ve always loved. Words rise to the surface and tingle on your tongue.
You know what to do.
You tilt your head in commiseration, giving a slight nod, expression somber. This time you stay quiet.
Angie Sarhan Salvatore
Angie Sarhan Salvatore is a writing professor with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Her writing has been featured in The Huffington Post, Chicago Story Press, The Bluebird Word, Tiny Buddha, Positively Positive, Elephant Journal, as well as other publications, and her blog. She enjoys leading meditation, journaling and writing workshops. You can find her on social media @universeletters