He Loved Me Only When I Started Letting Go
I used to think love was proved by waiting. Waiting for a text back, waiting outside a pub in the rain, waiting for someone to become the person they were on the…
Our Love Was Real but Our Timing Never Was
I met him on a wet Thursday evening outside Grogan’s, the kind of rain that does not fall so much as hang in the air and slowly claim you. I was twenty-six,…
The Woman I Met Every Thursday Never Told Me Her Name
For nearly four months, every Thursday evening after work, I met the same woman on the number 46A just outside Dublin city centre. I was working in an office near Leeson Street…
She Left Me With One Letter and No Goodbye
I found the letter on a Tuesday morning, beside the kettle, held down by the sugar bowl we bought in a charity shop on Camden Street. It was raining in that soft…
The Kiss That Ended a Ten-Year Friendship
I met Ciarán when we were both nineteen and pretending to be harder than we were. It was outside a house party in Phibsborough, raining sideways, and he gave me the dry…
I Married My Best Friend but Never Loved Him
I met Ciarán outside Whelan’s on a wet Thursday when we were both twenty-two and pretending we had somewhere better to be. I had lost my friends in the crowd, he had…
The Girl Who Loved Me Without Ever Saying It
I met Niamh in the queue outside a tiny café near Dublin Castle, both of us pretending the rain was only a passing thing when it had clearly settled in for the…
The Night I Gave Back His Key
I kept his key on my ring for eleven months after he left. It was a small brass thing, warmer in colour than the others, cut for a red door in Stoneybatter…
Give Me 100
He said it outside The Long Hall on a wet Thursday evening, with rain shining on the red paint of the pub and the buses hissing past like tired animals. “Give me…
The Night I Learned Love Could Wait at Connolly Station
I used to think love announced itself with certainty. A look across a room, a hand reached out at exactly the right moment, music rising somewhere in the background. By thirty-nine, I…