I used to tell people that I met him in a very romantic way, because the truth felt too ordinary. I said there had been rain on Grafton Street, a busker singing something old and heartbreaking, and that he had offered me his umbrella like a man from a film. It was a harmless lie at first. People like a good beginning, especially when they are asking about love.
The real story is that I met Cian in the queue for the self-checkout in Tesco on Baggot Street, both of us holding reduced sandwiches at half eight on a Tuesday evening. Mine was egg mayo. His was chicken stuffing. The machine kept saying there was an unexpected item in the bagging area, and he leaned over and said, “That’s me, generally.” I laughed because I was tired, not because it was particularly funny. But he had kind eyes, and tired people are often saved by kind eyes.
We started meeting after work. Nothing dramatic. Coffee near Grand Canal Dock. Pints in Dublin pubs where we could hear each other if we leaned close. Walks through St Stephen’s Green when the evenings got longer. He was a nurse in St Vincent’s and had the strange calm of someone who had seen people at their worst and still believed in them. I worked in accounts and had built my life around being careful. I paid bills early. I never missed a dentist appointment. I kept spare batteries in a kitchen drawer. Cian said I made safety look elegant.
For nearly a year, I kept telling the umbrella story whenever friends asked. He would smile and let me. Once, outside The Cobblestone after his brother’s birthday, he said, “You know, I liked the sandwich version.” I told him the umbrella version sounded better. He shrugged and said, “Only if you think love has to arrive dressed up.”
That sentence stayed with me, though I pretended it didn’t.
The night everything changed was in January, after a freezing day when the footpaths shone like glass. We had arranged to meet at the Ha’penny Bridge and go for dinner, but I got delayed at work. By the time I arrived, he had been standing there for nearly forty minutes, his ears red, his hands deep in his pockets. I expected annoyance. Instead, he handed me a paper bag from a bakery and said, “I got you something because you always forget to eat when you’re stressed.”
Inside was a slightly crushed cinnamon bun.
I don’t know why that undid me. Not flowers. Not a grand speech. A bun in a brown paper bag, bought by a man who had waited in the cold and noticed the small ways I failed to look after myself. I started crying right there, while tourists stepped around us and the Liffey moved darkly underneath.
He panicked, of course. “Is it the bun? Did I get the wrong thing?”
I told him I was frightened. That was the truth, finally. I was frightened because he loved me in ways that reached the parts of me I had kept locked. I was frightened because my parents had spent thirty years wounding each other politely, and I had mistaken distance for peace. I was frightened because if I let someone see me properly, they might leave with a map of where to hurt me.
Cian listened without interrupting. Then he said, “I can’t promise I’ll never hurt you. I’m human. But I can promise I won’t use what I know about you as a weapon.”
We didn’t go for dinner. We walked instead, from the bridge towards Portobello, sharing the cinnamon bun
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
