I moved into the house in Phibsborough on a wet Tuesday in February, carrying two suitcases, a box of books, and the private certainty that I was too tired for any new beginnings. The rent was more than I could afford, the room was smaller than it looked in the photos, and the kitchen window had a view of a wall painted the colour of old porridge. But it was close to the Luas, close to town, and after three months of sleeping on a friend’s sofa in Rathmines, it felt like landing somewhere.
There were four of us in the house. A teacher from Mayo who was never in, a quiet lad doing a PhD in Trinity, and Niamh. She was the one who opened the door when I arrived, barefoot, wearing a jumper with a hole in the sleeve, holding a mug of tea like it was keeping her alive. She had flour on her cheek because she was making brown bread, and she laughed when I pointed it out, then wiped the wrong side of her face.
At first, I loved her in the way you love a good housemate. She left little notes on the fridge saying things like, “Soup in pot, help yourself,” and “Bin night, don’t betray me.” She always bought the decent washing-up liquid instead of the watery one from the corner shop. On Sunday mornings she played music softly while making coffee, and the whole house seemed less grey because of it.
I told myself it was comfort, not love. I had recently come out of a long relationship, one of those endings that happens slowly, like a leak you ignore until the ceiling caves in. I was determined to become practical. Work, rent, exercise, sleep. No drama. No grand feelings. But Dublin has a way of making plans for you when you are only trying to get through the week.
The first time I noticed something had shifted was during a storm in March. The rain was hammering the skylight, and the electricity went out just as we were both in the kitchen. I was making toast under the grill, and she was trying to finish an online work call on her laptop. The whole room went black. From upstairs, someone shouted, “Not again.” Niamh lit two candles and put them between us on the table. We ate half-burnt toast with butter and marmalade, sitting in our coats because the heating had gone too. She told me about growing up in Clondalkin, about her father teaching her how to cycle in the car park of a school on Sundays, about how she still missed him five years after he died.
I remember the candlelight moving across her face as she spoke. I remember wanting to say something useful and finding nothing. So I just listened. When the electricity came back, neither of us moved for a minute. The fridge hummed. The boiler clicked. The ordinary world returned, but something in me did not.
After that, the house became dangerous in tiny ways. Her coat hanging beside mine in the hall. Her toothbrush in the bathroom cup. The sound of her key in the door. I began timing my tea around when she got home, which is a ridiculous thing to admit. If she was going for a walk to the Blessington Street Basin, I suddenly needed air too. If she mentioned she was meeting friends near George’s Street Arcade, I would imagine her laughing in some warm bar without me and feel foolishly lonely.
I tried to stop it. I went on two dates arranged through an app. One was in a pub off Camden Street, and the woman was kind, funny, and completely innocent of the fact that I spent half the evening thinking about whether Niamh had remembered her umbrella. The second date ended with me walking home along the canal, admitting to myself that I had become the exact kind of person I used to make fun of, hopeless over someone who borrowed my charger and left socks drying on radiators.
What frightened me was not just that I loved her. It was that loving her could ruin the first place in Dublin where I had felt safe in years. A house share is a fragile country. One awkward confession and the kitchen becomes a border crossing. The sofa becomes disputed territory. Even the milk in the fridge looks political.
So I said nothing. For months, I carried it around like a hot cup. Then one evening in June, Niamh came home upset. She had been passed over for a promotion
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
