One of my closest friends got married a year ago. Mark had been dating Kate for three years and he always spoke about her so clumsily, you could see how happy he was to have found her.
Two nights before the wedding, I was out with work friends at a private party. When I walked out into the backyard, there among the hedges were two people with their hands all over each other. I had a bit of a laugh at this hormone-fuelled romantic sight until I realised the man, a guy I’d seen in the office, was with my best friend’s fiancée, Kate.
I didn’t know what to make of it. I had no idea. I felt sick, angry, frustrated, worried. Both Mark and Kate come from devout Christian families and all of a sudden I’m seeing this other guy literally all over her. I wondered if she saw me before I quickly moved away.
The day before the wedding I went to pick up my groomsman’s suit and was thinking about it so much I felt like I was physically speaking my thoughts to myself. As I spun around, deep in thought, I nearly choked when Kate was standing right in front of me. We stood there looking at each other for a prolonged moment as other customers took note of the tense moment. She quietly asked, “Can we please talk?”
We sat down for a coffee at a nearby café. She looked worried and I felt sick. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “I know about you and Tim. I’ve seen the way you act around each other for a long time and after Friday night it all makes sense.”
The more I spoke, the more Kate’s hand began to shudder as she swirled the spoon in her coffee. I just wanted to ask one thing of her, “Do you love Mark enough to be with him alone for your whole life?” Kate kept looking down at her coffee and said, “I don’t know. I’ve been through a lot with him. I want it to work so much, I do.”
We spoke for about an hour. I’d never had such intense thoughts as I did that day. I tried my best to make the right decision. All I said was, “Before the wedding tomorrow, I want you to think. I want you to think until you feel as sick as I do right now. If you can’t devote yourself to my best friend, then tell him the truth. I’m not going to get in the way. I’m not going to talk. If anything goes wrong down the line, I’m risking my best friend. For the sake of both of us, make the right bloody decision.”
As we drove to the wedding on the Sunday, Mark pulled me aside and asked, “Look, before this goes through, is everything alright?” To which I replied, “Yeah mate, why do you ask?” Mark said, “I saw you sitting with Kate yesterday and she kinda looked like she was crying.”
Bloody hell, what do you do? Tell him what I found out? Take a chance on the sincerity of a woman who my best mate would be trusting for the rest of his life?
I looked up at Mark, put my hand on his shoulder and said, “I think when you look into her eyes in the church you’ll feel the right way about things.”
I still worry every day if I made the right decision and I’m so angry that I’m still not able to talk to Mark the same way I used to. Whenever I see Mark and Kate, I know that Mark still thinks significantly about what he saw the day before his wedding.
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