The Weekend We Almost Changed Our Minds
On the Friday before our wedding, my fiancée took off her ring in the kitchen and placed it beside the toaster as carefully as if it were hot. We were living in…
The Weekend We Almost Changed Our Minds
We were meant to spend that weekend choosing table flowers. Instead, we spent it deciding whether we should get married at all. It sounds dramatic when I put it like that, but…
I Found Happiness After Losing Everything
For years, I thought happiness was a thing you protected by keeping everything in place. The house in Cabra. The same job in a hotel near St Stephen’s Green. Sunday dinner with…
He Never Knew I Loved Him
I met Ciarán on a wet Tuesday in Dublin, the kind of rain that makes everyone look down and hurry. I was twenty-six, working in a bookshop near Trinity, and he came…
The Smile I Still Think About Years Later
I met her on a wet Tuesday outside St Stephen’s Green, the kind of Dublin rain that doesn’t fall so much as sit on you. I was twenty-seven, newly single, and pretending…
We Fell Out of Love Without Realising It
For years, I thought love ended with a slammed door. I imagined shouting in a hallway, a suitcase half-zipped, somebody crying outside in the rain like a scene from a film. Ours…
The Love Letter Hidden Inside an Old Book
I found the letter on a wet Tuesday in November, the kind of Dublin afternoon when the buses sigh at the kerb and everyone looks personally betrayed by the sky. I had…
I Waited Every Autumn for Someone Who Never Returned
I met Cian in September, which was the worst possible month to meet someone you might love. Dublin was all gold leaves and wet pavements, the kind of weather that makes every…
The Person Who Broke My Heart Saved My Life
I met Aoife on a wet Thursday outside Connolly Station, both of us sheltering under the same broken awning as if Dublin had arranged the introduction. She laughed when a bus sprayed…
She Told Me the Truth Too Late
I met Aoife on a wet Tuesday evening outside Grogans, both of us sheltering under the same narrow strip of awning like two strangers pretending not to notice the rain. She had…