I met him on a wet Thursday evening on Camden Street, the kind of rain that makes everyone look briefly honest. I had gone into a pub near Whelan’s with two girls from work, promising myself I’d only stay for one drink because my boyfriend, Conor, was cooking dinner in our flat in Drumcondra. Then this man smiled at me from the bar as if he’d been waiting all night for my face to appear.
His name was Fionn. He was older than me by nearly ten years, a photographer with silver beginning at his temples and a way of listening that felt like being lit by a candle. He asked questions Conor never asked anymore. Not because Conor didn’t care, but because we had become practical with each other. Rent. Bins. Whose turn it was to buy milk. Fionn asked what I wanted before I became sensible. I laughed too loudly and told him I used to want to sing.
That was the beginning of my undoing. I told myself nothing had happened. Then I told myself one kiss in a lane off South William Street wasn’t the end of the world. Then I told myself I deserved to feel alive. The worst lies are the ones that sound like self-care.
Conor and I had been together five years. We met as students, broke and hopeful, eating spice bags on the wall by the Grand Canal and talking about all the places we’d go when we had money. He was kind in a quiet way. He filled my car with petrol when I was too tired. He rang my mother on her birthday. He knew I hated the big light and always switched on the lamp instead.
But kindness can become invisible when you’re hungry for fire. With Fionn, every touch felt like proof that I was still young, still desired, still capable of being someone’s obsession. We met in corners of Dublin that felt borrowed from another life: coffee near Portobello, a walk through St Stephen’s Green, a late drink in Grogan’s where he traced circles on my wrist under the table. I mistook secrecy for depth. I mistook nervousness for romance. I mistook lust for love because lust was loud enough to drown out my conscience.
Conor knew before I told him. I think people always know. One night he was sitting at the kitchen table with my phone in front of him. He hadn’t gone through it, he said. A message had lit up the screen while I was in the shower. Just one line from Fionn: “I can still taste you.”
I remember the hum of the fridge. I remember the steam from my hair making my neck cold. I remember Conor’s face, not angry at first, just rearranged by pain. He asked, “Do you love him?”
I said yes because I thought honesty, even late honesty, might make me brave. But the truth was I didn’t know Fionn well enough to love him. I knew his hands. I knew the flattering version of myself reflected in his eyes. I knew how he made me feel when real life was held at a distance. I did not know how he behaved when bills came in, when someone was ill, when the romance had to survive a Tuesday.
Conor packed a bag that night. He didn’t shout. That made it worse. He took the blue scarf I’d bought him at Christmas and left his key on the table. The sound of the door closing was so small I wanted to run after him, but pride kept me still. Pride and the stupid belief that something grand was waiting for me on the other side of the damage.
Two weeks later, Fionn stopped answering as quickly. He said he was “not built for pressure” and that I had misunderstood what we were. We had never made promises, apparently. The future I had burned my home for had existed only in the heat between us. When I cried, he looked uncomfortable, almost offended, as if my heartbreak was a bill delivered to the wrong address.
I saw him once after that, outside a café near the Ha’penny Bridge, with another woman laughing into her scarf. He had his hand on
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
