I used to think love was a room with one door. You walked in, closed it behind you, and whatever life you had before stayed outside. Then, at thirty-four, I found myself standing in the rain outside St Stephen’s Green, holding my phone in both hands, with one man waiting for me in a café on Dawson Street and another man’s name glowing on the screen.
I had been with Ciarán for nine years. We met when I was twenty-five and working in a bookshop near Grafton Street. He came in every Thursday after work, always asking for history books he never seemed to finish. He was gentle in a way that made the world feel less sharp. When my father died, Ciarán sat in the kitchen in Raheny and made tea for every aunt, cousin, and neighbour who came through the door. He knew how I took my coffee, which side of the bed I preferred, and that I went quiet when I was hurt. Loving him was like living beside a steady fire.
Then I met Tomás at an evening photography class in Temple Bar. He was not steady. He was laughter in the middle of a serious conversation, a last-minute walk to the Grand Canal, a man who noticed the colour of the sky and said it out loud. He made me feel seen in parts of myself I had almost packed away. Not the responsible daughter, not the reliable partner, not the woman who always remembered the electricity bill. Just me, with rain in my hair, laughing too loudly outside a pub on George’s Street.
Nothing happened at first. That is what I told myself, and it was true in the technical sense. We had coffee after class. We sent each other photographs. He would message me when the sunset looked dramatic over the Liffey, and I would message back. But somewhere between the harmless and the hidden, I began to change. I stopped mentioning him to Ciarán. I started wearing perfume to a class where people mostly smelled of wet coats and darkroom chemicals. I began to look forward to Tuesdays with the ache of a young girl waiting for a dance.
The terrible thing was that I did not love Ciarán less. That would have made me easier to judge, and maybe easier to forgive. I still loved the way he placed his hand on my back when crossing busy streets. I still loved his sleepy voice in the morning, his patience, his goodness. But I also loved the version of myself that appeared around Tomás. She was lighter. Braver. Hungry for life.
For months I carried both loves like two glasses filled to the brim, trying not to spill either. I became an expert at small lies. “Class ran late.” “My phone died.” “I’m just tired.” Every lie left a mark. I could feel myself becoming someone I would not have trusted.
The ending began on a Friday in November. Ciarán had booked dinner for us in a small Italian place near Merrion Row. He said we hadn’t been out properly in ages. I knew, from the careful way he said it, that he was trying to reach me across whatever distance I had built. On my way there, Tomás called. He had been offered work in Galway for six months, maybe longer. He said, “Come with me for the weekend before I go. Just one weekend. No decisions.”
I stopped walking. People moved around me with umbrellas, buses sighed along the kerb, and Dublin looked exactly as it always had, indifferent and beautiful. I could see Ciarán through the restaurant window, already at the table, checking the menu though he always ordered the same thing. His hair was damp from the rain. He had chosen the seat facing the door so he would see me when I arrived.
That was the moment I understood that loving two people did not make me expansive or tragic or special. It made me responsible. Not for the feelings arriving, perhaps, but for what I did with them. I could not keep standing between two lives and calling it romance. Someone would be wounded either way, but cowardice was wounding everyone slowly.
I answered Tomás. My voice shook so badly I barely recognised it. I told him I cared for him, that part of me had wanted to say yes from the first day we met, but I could not build happiness on someone else’s betrayal. He was quiet. Then he said, “I think I knew.” We both cried a little, not dramatically, just the tired kind of crying that comes when the truth finally sits down beside you. We said goodbye without promising friendship.
Then I went inside to Ciarán.
I wish I could say confession made me noble. It did not. It made me small, ashamed, and frightened. I told him
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
