I told everyone I was going to Galway for a cousin’s birthday. That was a lie. There was no cousin, no party, no plan beyond getting on the train at Heuston with one overnight bag and a heart that had been making a show of me for months.
Her name was Clara. We worked together in a café off George’s Street, the kind of place where people came in carrying wet umbrellas and left smelling of coffee. She had a laugh that made the whole counter look brighter. I had been in love with her for nearly a year and had done the very Dublin thing of disguising it as slagging, tea runs, and walking her to the Luas when it rained. She was moving to Berlin on the Monday. On the Friday evening, after our last shift together, she asked if I wanted to come to Galway for the weekend. “No big goodbye,” she said. “Just one last bit of Ireland before I go.”
I should have said no. Instead, I met her under the clock in Heuston, both of us pretending it was casual. She wore a green scarf and had a paperback sticking out of her coat pocket. I remember checking Dublin news on my phone just to have something to look at, because looking at her felt too honest. On the train she fell asleep before Kildare, her head almost touching my shoulder but not quite. That tiny distance nearly killed me.
Galway was all wind and silver rain when we arrived. We checked into a small guesthouse near Eyre Square, two separate rooms, two keys placed on the counter like proof that we were sensible people. We went for dinner on Quay Street, then to Tigh Neachtain, where the windows were fogged and everyone seemed to be either singing, confessing, or getting over someone. Clara talked about Berlin, about starting over, about how Dublin had begun to feel too small for the size of the life she wanted. I nodded like I was happy for her. I was happy for her. That was the worst part.
Later, we walked down to the Spanish Arch. The rain had stopped, and the stones shone under the lamps. She asked me why I had gone quiet. I said I was tired. She said, “You’re never tired. You’re either hungry or dramatic.” I laughed, but it came out wrong. She looked at me then, properly, and I knew the weekend had reached the place I had been avoiding.
I told her. Not beautifully. Not like in films. I stumbled through it with my hands in my pockets, saying I knew the timing was awful, that I did not expect anything, that I just couldn’t let her leave thinking she had only been a friend to me. She listened without interrupting. A group of lads passed behind us singing something terrible and cheerful, and I remember feeling furious that the world could be so normal while I was ruining my own life.
When I finished, Clara cried. That frightened me more than rejection would have. She said she had known, or half-known, and that sometimes she had wanted me to say it sooner. Then she said the sentence I still carry around: “I can love you and still need to go.”
We stood there for a long time. She took my hand, and it was the first time we had touched without pretending it was accidental. We didn’t kiss then. We just held hands beside the Corrib like two people at the edge of something too deep to name.
The next day we went to Salthill. The sky had cleared, and the sea looked almost kind. We walked the prom and kicked the wall at the end because she said you weren’t allowed to leave Galway without doing it. We bought chips and ate
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
