I used to think betrayal arrived with thunder. A slammed door, a confession, rain lashing against the window like it had been hired for the scene. Mine arrived softly, on a Thursday night outside Whelan’s, with the smell of chips from Camden Street and my phone buzzing in my coat pocket with a message from the woman who loved me.
Her name was Aoife. We had been together nearly six years, long enough that our friends had stopped asking when we would move in together because we already had, and had started asking when I’d propose. We lived in a small flat near Portobello, the kind where you could hear the neighbour’s kettle click on in the morning. Aoife loved ordinary things with a faith I never understood: Sunday walks along the canal, fresh bread from the bakery, sitting upstairs on the 16 bus and pointing out dogs as if each one had been sent personally to improve the day.
I loved her. That is the part that makes the story harder to tell. I loved her laugh, the way she held her tea with both hands, the way she remembered the names of people I mentioned once. But I was thirty-two and restless in a way I did not know how to admit. I mistook comfort for a cage. I mistook being known for being trapped.
That night, I had gone for a “quick pint” with people from work. The quick pint became three. We moved from a bar off George’s Street towards Camden Street, following the warm current of music and voices. There was a woman from another department, Niamh, who had recently joined the company. She was quick, sharp, and looked at me as if I was still unfinished in an interesting way. With Aoife, I felt seen. With Niamh, I felt desired. I wish I had known then that those are not the same thing.
Aoife texted at half ten: “Don’t forget we’re viewing the flat in Harold’s Cross tomorrow. Try not to be wrecked x.” I stared at it, thumb hovering over the screen. I could have written, “On my way home.” I could have walked to the Luas. I could have stepped back into the life I had built with a woman who trusted me so completely she never thought to ask where I really was.
Instead, I put the phone away.
Niamh and I ended up in a late bar, one of those places where everyone looks temporarily beautiful because the light is low and the music forgives you. We talked about nothing important with the intensity of people avoiding the important thing. She touched my arm when she laughed. I let my knee rest against hers beneath the table. It was not an accident after the first time.
Outside, Dublin had that after-midnight shine, all taxi lights and wet pavement. We walked towards her apartment near Rathmines. I remember passing a closed café, seeing our reflection in the dark glass, and feeling two things at once: the electric pull of wanting, and a quiet, sickening knowledge that I was walking away from someone good.
I will not dress it up. I went home with her. I chose the thrill, the stranger version of myself, the lie that for one night I could step out of consequence. It was not romance. It was not some grand passion. It was hunger, vanity, fear of becoming ordinary, all wearing the mask of desire.
At 6:40 the next morning, I left Niamh’s place before she woke. The city looked innocent. Buses sighed at the stops. A man in a high-vis jacket was eating a breakfast roll outside a shop. My phone had nine messages and three missed calls from Aoife. The last one said, “I’m scared. Please just tell me you’re okay.”
That message broke something in me. Not enough to make me brave, not immediately. I went home and lied. I said my phone died, that I’d slept on a colleague’s couch, that I was sorry for worrying her. Aoife stood in the kitchen wearing my old Trinity hoodie, her face pale from a sleepless night, and she believed me because love often believes before it protects
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
