I met Cian outside The Cobblestone on a wet Thursday in Smithfield, both of us pretending we were not waiting for the same late friend. He offered me a cigarette even though I didn’t smoke, and when I said no, he laughed and said, “Good. I’m trying to quit anyway.” That was the first thing I liked about him, the way he made small failures sound charming. By the time our friend arrived, Cian and I had already covered where we grew up, why neither of us could afford our own place, and how Dublin felt too small when you were heartbroken and too big when you were lonely.
For a while, he made me feel chosen. We walked along the Grand Canal after work, sharing chips from paper bags and stories we had probably polished for other people before. He kissed me for the first time near Portobello, under a streetlamp that kept flickering like it was unsure of us. He said he wasn’t ready for anything serious because his last relationship had “done a number” on him. I said I understood, because I wanted to be the kind of woman who understood things. I told myself patience was romantic. I told myself timing was just another obstacle love had to climb over.
But slowly, I learned the shape of my place in his life. I was the person he rang when a plan fell through. I was the “you around?” text at 10.43 on a Friday night. I was coffee in St Stephen’s Green when he felt fragile, and silence when he felt better. He told me I was easy to talk to, which started to feel less like a compliment and more like a job description. When I asked where I stood, he would look wounded, as if my need for an answer was an attack on his healing.
The worst part was that he wasn’t cruel in an obvious way. He remembered how I took my tea. He bought me a second-hand copy of a book I’d mentioned once. He knew my mother’s dog had arthritis and asked after him. Those tiny kindnesses kept me there longer than any grand promise could have. I built a whole relationship out of half gestures. I filled in the blanks with hope and called it faith.
Then one Saturday in February, we were meant to go to a gig in Whelan’s. I had bought the tickets weeks before. I wore a black dress I’d been saving and boots that hurt by the time I reached Camden Street. He texted fifteen minutes before doors opened. “I’m really sorry. Aoife’s having a rough night. I think I need to go over.” Aoife was the ex. The one he wasn’t over, though he never said it plainly. I stood outside the venue with rain in my hair, reading that message again and again, as if a different meaning might appear if I stared hard enough.
I went inside anyway. I ordered a pint I barely drank and stood at the back while the band played songs about leaving towns and losing people. At first I felt ridiculous, like everyone could see I had been abandoned. Then something strange happened. Halfway through the second song, I realised nobody was looking at me. Nobody knew. My heartbreak was not public unless I made it so. I could still have a night. I could still be a person in a room, listening to music, without waiting for someone to decide I was worth showing up for.
After the gig, he rang three times. I didn’t answer until I was walking past Camden Street, the buses hissing at the kerb and the city shining with rain. He sounded tired and guilty. He said Aoife had needed him, that it was complicated, that he hoped I wasn’t angry. I surprised myself by saying, “I’m not angry. I’m done.” There was a long silence, and in it I heard all the things I had been avoiding. He cared for me, maybe. He wanted me, sometimes. But he did not choose me. And wanting to be chosen had made me abandon myself in small, daily ways.
He asked if we could talk properly another time. I said no, because if we talked properly he would be gentle, and if he was gentle I might mistake it for love again. I told him I hoped he found whatever he was looking for, and then I hung up. My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone into a puddle. I cried on the Luas home, quietly, facing the window. A woman across from me handed me a tissue without a word, and that tiny Dublin kindness nearly broke me open.
For weeks afterwards, I missed him like a habit. I missed the possibility of him more than the reality. I had to stop myself from walking down streets
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
