We rented a one-bedroom apartment in Rialto because it was the only place we could afford that didn’t smell of damp. The kitchen was barely big enough for two people to stand in, but at the viewing he squeezed past me, put his hand on my waist, and whispered, “We’ll be grand here.” I believed him. I was twenty-seven, in love, and still thought sharing an address meant sharing a life.
At the start, it felt romantic. We had second-hand plates from a charity shop near Thomas Street, a couch with one broken spring, and a view of the Luas line that made the whole room tremble every few minutes. I worked early shifts in a café near Grafton Street. He worked nights in a hotel bar near Temple Bar. I’d leave in the dark with wet hair and a keep cup, and he’d come home at three in the morning smelling of beer, lemons, and cold air. Sometimes I’d wake when he slipped into bed, and for a few seconds, half asleep, I’d feel happy just knowing he’d made it home.
Then the seconds became the relationship. We started communicating through things left behind. A note beside the kettle. A takeaway container in the fridge. His black socks drying over the radiator. My lipstick on a mug. We loved each other in evidence, not in presence. Friends thought we were settled because we lived together, but most weeks we only had one proper conversation, usually on a Sunday evening when both of us were too tired to be honest.
I don’t think there was one big betrayal. That would have been easier to explain. It was smaller than that. He stopped asking how my day was because he already knew the answer would be “busy.” I stopped waiting up for him because I hated the person I became at midnight, listening for keys and imagining every laugh he might be sharing with someone else. He wasn’t cruel. I wasn’t innocent. We were just living parallel lives in a place too small to hide the distance.
The night it finally broke was in November, during one of those Dublin rains that feels personal. I had been promoted to assistant manager that day. It wasn’t a dream job, but it mattered to me. I texted him in the morning and asked if we could have dinner together, just us, no phones, no rushing. He sent back, “Absolutely. Proud of you.” I bought pasta from the little shop down the road, a cheap bottle of red, and a tiramisu because he loved it. I even lit the candle we had been saving for “a proper occasion,” though by then I couldn’t remember what we’d been waiting for.
He was meant to be home at eight. At half eight, I told myself the Luas was delayed. At nine, I blew out the candle because it had burned into a sad little crater. At ten, I ate my portion standing at the counter, still in the dress I’d changed into after work. At eleven, he texted: “So sorry. Staff drinks. Leaving soon.”
He came in after one. Not drunk exactly, but bright in that way people are after a night you weren’t part of. He started apologising before he’d taken off his coat. I remember looking at him under the yellow kitchen light, rain still on his hair, and feeling something gentle and terrible settle in me. I wasn’t angry anymore. I was lonely, and I had been lonely for months.
I said, “I don’t want to be your flatmate.”
He looked confused first, then wounded, which almost made me take it back. He said, “You’re not.” But we both looked around the room as if the apartment itself might disagree. There were two lives everywhere. His work shoes by the door. My rota pinned to the fridge. His unopened letters. My half-read book. A bed we shared mostly in sleep. A home that had become a hallway between obligations.
We sat on the floor because the couch was covered in laundry, and we talked until the first Luas shook the windows. For once, neither of us performed. He admitted he had been taking extra shifts because he was terrified of
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
