I moved into a small red-brick flat in Rathmines during the winter I was meant to be planning my wedding. The flat was damp, the radiators clanked like old bones, and my fiancé, Mark, was always working late in Sandyford. We loved each other, but we had become practical with one another. Bills, guest lists, mortgage talk, whose mother would be offended by which table. Love had turned into admin, and I was too proud to admit I missed being looked at like I was still a surprise.
My neighbour, Cian, lived across the hall. He was a primary school teacher with paint on his jumpers and a habit of leaving books on the landing windowsill for anyone to take. The first time we properly spoke, my shopping bag split outside the front door and oranges rolled everywhere. He helped me gather them, then made a joke about it being the most dramatic thing to happen in the building since the bins went missing. It was small, but I laughed harder than I had in weeks.
After that, our lives began to overlap. We met at the post boxes, on the steps, outside the Centra in the rain. He would ask about my day and actually wait for the answer. Sometimes we walked the same stretch toward the Luas, and once, when the sky opened suddenly near Ranelagh, we stood under the awning of a closed café sharing his umbrella and talking about childhood Christmases, bad first dates, and the strange loneliness of being surrounded by people in Dublin.
I told myself it was harmless. I told myself everyone was allowed a friend. But I started noticing when he was home. I started wearing lipstick to take out the recycling. I began saving funny things from my day to tell him instead of Mark. The worst part was that Cian never pushed anything. He was kind, careful, and that made it easier for me to pretend I was not doing anything wrong.
One Friday in March, Mark cancelled our dinner plans for the third time that month. I was sitting on the stairs outside my flat, too annoyed to go in, when Cian came home carrying a paper bag of chips from the village. He looked at my face and said, “Bad night?” I nodded, and he sat one step below me. We ate chips from the bag and watched rain slide down the glass panel of the front door.
He asked me if I was happy. Not in an accusing way. Just gently, like he was opening a window. I should have said yes, or no, or gone inside. Instead I cried. I told him I felt invisible in my own life. He listened without trying to fix me. When he touched my hand, it felt like a match being struck in a dark room.
For a second, I let myself imagine it. Leaving everything difficult behind. Knocking on his door instead of mine. Becoming someone lighter, someone chosen. He leaned closer, or maybe I did. I can still remember the smell of vinegar from the chips, the cold stone step under me, the terrible quiet before a decision.
Then his phone rang. It was his sister. The spell broke. I stood up too quickly and said I had to go. Inside my flat, I sat on the kitchen floor and shook, not because anything had happened, but because something nearly had. I realised temptation does not always arrive dressed as danger. Sometimes it arrives as warmth when you are cold, as attention when you feel forgotten, as a version of yourself you are desperate to meet again.
The next morning, I told Mark everything that mattered. Not the dramatic version, not the cruel version, but the honest one. I told him I had become lonely enough to want another life. He went very quiet. For a while I thought that was the end of us. But after a long walk around St Stephen’s Green, he admitted he had been hiding in work because the wedding, the money, the future, all of it frightened him too.
We postponed
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
