I moved into a small flat in Stoneybatter the winter after my engagement ended. I told everyone I wanted quiet, but really I wanted to disappear. The place was above a bakery, with windows that fogged every morning and stairs that smelled of coffee, raincoats, and old wood. I had planned to become someone sensible there, someone who paid bills on time, cooked for one, and stopped mistaking intensity for love.
Then Daniel moved into the flat across the landing. He was a teacher, newly separated, with a five-year-old daughter who visited every second weekend. The first thing he ever said to me was, “I think your washing machine is trying to escape.” It was shaking so violently he had heard it through the wall. He fixed the leg with a folded beer mat, refused the tenner I offered, and left with a smile that stayed in my kitchen long after he had gone.
At first, it was neighbourly. We took in each other’s parcels. We shared milk when the shops had closed. If I cooked too much stew, I brought him a bowl. If his daughter drew pictures, she slipped them under my door and called me “the nice lady.” On Friday evenings, I would hear him playing old soul records, and I would sit on my own side of the wall pretending not to listen.
The trouble started in the softest way. One rainy evening, the power went out on the whole street. Daniel knocked with two candles and a bottle of red wine he said had been “waiting for an emergency.” We sat on the floor between our two doors because neither of us wanted to admit we were inviting the other in. We talked for three hours. About our parents. About the lives we thought we would have by thirty-five. About how lonely Dublin could feel even when buses were packed and pubs were spilling over. When the lights came back, neither of us moved straight away.
After that, the landing became a kind of border neither of us respected. We would meet there by accident too often for it to be accidental. Once, after a hard day, I found him sitting on the stairs with his head in his hands. His ex had called about money, he said, and he felt like he was failing at every version of himself. I sat beside him. I put my hand over his. He looked at me then, properly, and I knew we had stepped into danger.
We tried to be careful. We walked in Phoenix Park on a Sunday and called it fresh air. We had one drink in The Cobblestone and called it music. We told ourselves that because nothing had happened, we were still good people. But wanting can become its own kind of betrayal before anyone touches anyone. I began choosing clothes based on whether I might see him. He began texting me about tiny things that did not need texting. The whole building seemed to hold its breath.
The night it nearly happened, Dublin was shining after rain. I came home late from town, upset after seeing my ex with someone new near Temple Bar. Daniel was on the landing, taking rubbish out, and he knew from my face not to make a joke. He brought me into his kitchen and made tea. I cried more than I meant to. He held me. Not dramatically, not like in films, just with a tired tenderness that felt like somewhere to rest. When I looked up, his face was close enough that the decision was no longer abstract.
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted it with a force that frightened me. Not because he was forbidden in some grand way, but because he was wounded, and I was wounded, and we were both confusing comfort with rescue. His daughter’s drawing was on the fridge behind him, a purple house with three stick figures outside it. I saw it over his shoulder and stepped back.
He closed his eyes and said, “You’re right.” I had not said anything. That was the worst part. He knew.
We sat at the table until the tea went cold. We spoke honestly for the first time. He admitted he was not ready for anything real, and I admitted that if we crossed that line, I would turn him into proof that I
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
