The Conversation That Ended Our Relationship Forever
We had been together for six years, long enough that people stopped asking when we would move in together and started asking when we would get married. I used to laugh and…
I Chose Stability Instead of Passion and Regretted It
I used to think love should feel safe. Not boring, exactly, but steady. Like the 46A arriving when the rain starts, like the lighted windows along Rathmines on a winter evening, like…
The Weekend We Pretended to Be a Couple
It began with a lie told in a queue outside Grogan’s, of all places, with rain tapping on the awning and both of us too tired to correct it. Conor and I…
He Loved Me Only When I Was Leaving
I used to think love would arrive loudly, with certainty, like the first bus pulling into Dublin on a wet morning. With him, it arrived in pieces. A hand on my back…
The Engagement Ring Stayed Hidden in My Drawer for Three Years
I bought the ring on a wet Thursday in October, the kind of Dublin rain that doesn’t fall so much as hover around your face. It was a small vintage ring from…
She Read My Journal and Changed Both Our Lives
I used to write in a small black journal on the number 16 bus, mostly because it was the only place in Dublin where nobody expected anything from me. I’d sit upstairs,…
I Fell for Someone Who Was Emotionally Unavailable
I met him on a wet Thursday evening outside Whelan’s, when the rain had turned Camden Street silver and everyone was pretending they didn’t mind being soaked. I was there for a…
The Kiss We Never Talked About Again
I met Aoife in a queue outside a café near Grafton Street, both of us pretending we were patient people while rain slipped down the back of our coats. She was reading…
I Thought It Was Love Until We Lived Together
I used to think love was the way he looked for my hand in crowded places. On Camden Street after a gig in Whelan’s, in the rain outside the Luas stop, in…
He Came Back After Ten Years, but I Had Already Moved On
I was twenty-three when Ciarán left Dublin, which is a terrible age to be noble about anything. He got a job in Toronto, and we stood outside Connolly Station with two coffees…