I met him on a wet Thursday in Smithfield, the kind of Dublin evening where the sky gives up pretending and just pours. I had gone to The Cobblestone with two friends after work, promising myself I’d stay for one drink because I had an early shift in St. James’s the next morning. By half ten, my friends had left, the windows were fogged, and I was still standing near the back, listening to a fiddle tune that seemed to know something about loneliness.
He asked if the stool beside me was taken. That was all. No grand entrance, no rehearsed charm. He had rain in his hair and a careful way of smiling, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to. His name was Cian. He worked restoring old furniture in Inchicore, which I found oddly beautiful, the idea of someone spending their days bringing broken things back to life. I told him I worked in a hospital and that most days I felt like I was trying to hold the tide back with my hands.
We talked as if we had missed a train together years ago and were only now catching up. He told me about his father, who used to take him to Phoenix Park on Sundays and let him believe the deer belonged to him. I told him about my mother in Mayo, who still rang every Saturday to ask if I was eating properly, as if Dublin was a country with no food. Nothing about it felt dramatic. That was the danger of it. It felt easy.
When the music ended, neither of us moved. Outside, Smithfield was shining black under the streetlights. He walked me toward the Luas stop, holding his jacket over both of us for about ten seconds before the wind made a joke of it. We were laughing when we reached the corner. Then there was a silence, not awkward, not planned. He looked at me and said, “I’d ask to see you again, but I’m leaving on Saturday.”
“Where?” I asked, though my stomach already knew it was far enough to matter.
“Berlin. Six months. Maybe longer.”
I should have nodded politely. I should have said good luck and gone home. Instead, because I was tired and the rain had softened me, I kissed him. Or he kissed me. I still don’t know. It was one of those kisses that didn’t feel like a beginning or an ending, but like a door opening onto a room you had no business entering. His hand was warm at the side of my face. The Luas bell rang somewhere behind us. Dublin kept moving, but I didn’t.
We parted without swapping numbers. That sounds ridiculous now, almost theatrical, but at the time it felt noble. He said, “Maybe it’s better this way.” I said, “Maybe,” because I was trying to be the kind of woman who could survive a lovely thing without needing to own it. Then I got on the Luas and watched him become smaller through the rain-streaked glass.
For the next three weeks, I thought about him constantly. Not in the dramatic way I had thought about men before, checking my phone, replaying arguments, inventing futures. This was quieter and worse. He appeared in ordinary moments. When I passed a furniture shop. When I smelled rain on someone’s coat. When a trad session started up in a pub off Capel Street. I found myself walking through Smithfield after work, pretending I wasn’t hoping to see him, though he was in Berlin and I was old enough to know better.
What unsettled me most was not that I missed him. I barely knew him. It was that one kiss had reminded me I was not as numb as I’d claimed to be. After a bad breakup the year before, I had made a whole personality out of being grand. I worked extra shifts. I met friends. I said things like “I’m focusing on myself” with the confidence of someone reading from a leaflet. But after Cian, I had to admit that I hadn’t been focusing on myself at all. I had been avoiding the part of me that still wanted to be seen.
On the fourth Sunday, I went for a walk to the Poolbeg Lighthouse. It was cold and bright
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
