She Was the Right Person at the Wrong Time
I met Aoife on a wet Thursday in Dublin, the kind of evening when the city seems to lean in close under umbrellas and bus shelters. I was standing outside the Abbey…
The Secret I Kept Destroyed Our Marriage
I used to think betrayal had to look dramatic. A suitcase by the door. A lipstick mark. A phone lighting up at midnight. Mine came in plain white envelopes from the bank,…
I Fell in Love With Someone Who Was Already Healing
I met Aoife on a wet Tuesday evening outside Hodges Figgis, both of us pretending the rain wasn’t soaking through our coats. She was standing under the narrow shelter by the door,…
The Weekend We Pretended to Be Strangers
By the time we decided to pretend we had never met, we had been together eight years and had become very good at silence. Not the peaceful kind. The kind that sits…
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…