I still think about that night in Dublin whenever someone says love is only proven by what you do. Sometimes love is proven by what you refuse to do.
It happened six years ago, after a charity dinner near St Stephen’s Green. I was working for a small events company then, the sort where everyone knew who had cried in the bathroom, who was late with rent, and who was pretending not to fancy whom. Her name was Ciara. She handled sponsorships, I handled logistics, and for almost a year we had been orbiting each other without saying the obvious thing.
There was nothing dramatic about it at first. She would leave coffee on my desk if she knew I had been in the office since seven. I would save her a seat in meetings because she hated sitting near the projector fan. We had our jokes, our little routines, the dangerous closeness that can grow between two people who see each other tired more often than dressed up.
The problem was that she had someone. A decent man, as far as I knew. They had been together since college, living in Drumcondra, trying to buy a place, arguing about small things that were probably standing in for larger things. I had come out of a breakup the year before and was still carrying that lonely arrogance where you think your pain makes you more deserving of happiness than other people.
After the dinner, a few of us went for one drink near Camden Street, which became two, which became everyone pretending they were not checking the time. It was lashing rain outside, the kind that makes Dublin shine and look slightly heartbroken. Ciara had booked a room for herself in a hotel because she had an early supplier meeting the next morning. I was meant to get the last train home, but the event ran late, my phone died, and by the time I reached the station, I had missed it.
I rang around, borrowed chargers, checked apps, cursed myself. Every hotel seemed either full or charging a price that felt like a personal insult. Ciara found me standing under an awning, soaked through, trying to laugh it off.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You can take the floor in mine.”
I said no three times, because I knew the shape of the mistake before it happened. She rolled her eyes and said, “You’re not that irresistible.” That made me laugh, which made it easier to say yes.
The room was smaller than either of us expected. One double bed, one chair, no heroic couch appearing like in films. I offered to sleep in the bath, but the bath was about the length of a shopping basket. Ciara took off her heels and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the red marks on her feet. I stood by the window looking down at the wet street, feeling suddenly very aware of the walls, the silence, the warmth of the room.
Nothing happened at first because we tried very hard to be normal. We watched a bit of bad television with the volume low. She made tea from the little tray. I built a miserable sleeping arrangement on the floor with two towels and a decorative runner that smelled faintly of bleach. She laughed so much she had to cover her mouth.
Then the conversation changed, the way conversations do after midnight. She told me she was tired of being the version of herself everyone expected. I told her I still spoke to my ex in my head when something good or awful happened. She said she loved her boyfriend, but sometimes felt she had stepped onto a conveyor belt at twenty-two and never got off. I said I liked her more than I should.
There it
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