I met him on a wet Thursday outside Whelan’s, when the queue was pressed tight under the awning and everyone was pretending the rain was romantic. He had no umbrella, only a denim jacket darkened at the shoulders, and he asked if I knew whether the band had started. I said I didn’t, though I’d been checking the time every two minutes. He laughed like he had nowhere else to be, and I remember envying that before I even knew his name.
His name was Cian. He was from Clontarf, but he spoke about places as if they were temporary agreements. He had lived in Galway, Berlin, Lisbon, and in a van for three months in France. I had lived in the same small flat near Portobello for six years and still got anxious when the landlord sent an email. He said he liked that I had roots. I said I liked that he had wings. At the time, it sounded like poetry. Later, it became the whole problem.
We fell in love quickly, the way you do when you mistake intensity for certainty. He’d meet me after work by the Grand Canal with coffee gone lukewarm in paper cups. We’d sit with our knees touching, watching swans bully each other near the lock. On Sundays, we walked out to Poolbeg Lighthouse, the wind turning our faces raw, and he’d talk about sailing to Spain or getting a job in Canada or spending a winter somewhere with mountains. I would listen, smiling, while quietly placing myself into each dream like furniture in a room he had not invited me to live in.
For almost a year, he made Dublin feel larger. He took me to pubs I had passed a hundred times and never entered. He knew which corner of Stoneybatter caught the evening sun, where to get chips after midnight, which buskers on Grafton Street were worth stopping for. With him, ordinary streets looked briefly enchanted. But there was always a bag half-packed in his room. Always a tab open on his laptop for flights. Always a sentence beginning with, “If I go…”
The incident that ended us happened in Heuston Station. It was February, cold enough that everyone looked personally offended by the weather. Cian had told me two days earlier that he was going to Barcelona for “a while.” He didn’t call it moving. He never used words that could be held against him. He said he needed air. He said Dublin was beautiful but tight around the ribs. He said he loved me, and I believe he did, in the way he was able to love: sincerely, but with one eye on the departure board.
I went with him to the station because I thought that was what loyal people did. His backpack was at his feet, and he kept checking his ticket, though there was no danger of losing it. I had imagined I would be dignified. Instead, I asked him not to go. The words came out small and plain. No grand speech. Just, “Please don’t.” He looked at me then with such tenderness that for one foolish second I thought tenderness might be the same as staying.
He touched my cheek and said, “If I stay because you asked me, I’ll hate myself. And someday I might hate you too.”
It was the most honest thing he ever gave me. I hated him for it immediately. Then, slowly, I understood it was a kind of mercy. Not a gentle mercy, but a clean one. The train was called, and he hugged me so tightly I could feel his breath shaking. Then he picked up his bag and walked away. He turned once, near the gate, lifted his hand, and smiled like someone trying to leave a good last image. I did not wave back. I couldn’t. My hand stayed closed around the sleeve of my coat.
After he left, I walked all the way home along the quays. Dublin looked the same, which felt insulting. People were buying coffee, buses were sighing at stops, the Liffey was doing its dull silver thing under the bridges. I wanted the city to acknowledge that something had
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
