It happened on a wet Thursday in November, the kind of rain that makes Dublin shine and look disappointed in you. I was in Whelan’s on Wexford Street with people from work, standing too close to a woman I liked more than I should have. Her name was Sarah, and she had that easy warmth that feels like forgiveness when your own life has gone cold. My girlfriend, Niamh, was across town in Grogan’s with an old college friend. We had not said we were on a break. We had not said we were finished. We had said very little for months, which can be worse than both.
Niamh and I had been together seven years then. We had a small flat in Rathmines, two mismatched mugs we never threw away, and a habit of buying basil plants that died on the windowsill. We were not a dramatic couple. We were the kind who split the electricity bill exactly, who knew each other’s coffee order, who could walk from St Stephen’s Green to the canal without needing to fill every silence. But that year her father got sick, and my mother needed money, and our tenderness became admin. We spoke in reminders. Bins. Rent. Hospital parking. We still slept in the same bed, but some nights I could feel the distance between our backs like another person lying there.
That evening in Whelan’s, Sarah touched my sleeve while laughing at something I had said, and I felt a shameful little sunrise inside me. I had forgotten I could make someone laugh without trying too hard. I had forgotten the version of myself who was not tired, defensive, and always calculating what was left in the account. At about half eleven, the others moved downstairs, and Sarah asked if I wanted to get air. We stood under the awning on Camden Street, watching taxis hiss by. She was close enough that I could smell her perfume over the rain. She said, “You don’t seem happy.”
I wanted to say, “I’m not.” I wanted to say it in a way that invited her to rescue me. Instead, I said nothing, which invited something else. My phone buzzed then. It was Niamh. Just three words: “Are you awake?”
I stared at the message for a long time. Sarah saw my face change and stepped back. I told her I had to make a call. I walked a few doors down, past the smokers and the bright windows, and rang Niamh. When she answered, I could hear traffic and wind. She said, “Where are you?” I said, “Outside Whelan’s. Where are you?” She said, “Near Dame Street.” Then there was a pause, and in that pause I knew. Not the details, but the shape of it. She had been standing close to someone too. She had also reached the edge of something.
We met on the Ha’penny Bridge because it was halfway and because Dublin, even when it is breaking your heart, likes to give you a stage. She came from the north side of the river with her coat pulled tight and her hair wet around her face. I remember thinking she looked very young and very exhausted. We stood in the middle of the bridge while people squeezed past us, annoyed, laughing, drunk, alive. Neither of us hugged.
She said his name was Mark. An old friend from college. He had walked her from Grogan’s, told her he had always wondered about them, and for ten minutes she let herself wonder too. She said they had stopped outside a hotel near Temple Bar and she had felt her whole life split into two roads. Then she texted me. I told her about Sarah.
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
