4 Seasons Dublin -

“I don’t know how to be sad with you,” he admitted. “You’ve earned your sadness. Mine just feels like ingratitude.”

They swam at the Forty Foot at dawn, the water shockingly cold despite the season. She screamed when she dove in. He laughed—a full, unguarded sound. Treading water, facing the open Irish Sea, she felt the last shards of the knot dissolve. She was not healed. She was just… here. And for one long, golden evening that lasted weeks, that was enough.

She met him at a gig in Whelan’s. His name was Lorcan. He played guitar with his eyes closed, as if the music was a secret he was only borrowing. They talked until the barman swept the floor around their feet. He walked her home across the Ha’penny Bridge, the river below black and glittering with reflected streetlights. 4 seasons dublin

But spring, in Dublin, is a liar at first. It whispers of warmth, then slaps you with a hailstorm. She walked down Clanbrassil Street, hands shoved in the pockets of her worn coat, not looking for anything. The cherry blossoms on the council-planted trees were tentative, pale pink buds clenched tight against the wind.

She pulled out her phone. She looked at Lorcan’s number, then at the old man’s—she had never saved it. She put the phone away. “I don’t know how to be sad with you,” he admitted

The first sign was a single brown leaf on her windowsill. Then the light began to lie. Four o’clock felt like midnight. The city pulled its coat tighter. Lorcan grew quiet, then quieter. He stopped closing his eyes when he played.

Autumn is the season of harvest, but also of rot. She learned that some loves are not meant to survive the frost. They are annuals, not perennials. Beautiful. Brief. True, for their time. She screamed when she dove in

Spring would come again. It always did. But first, she had to honour the winter. And that, she decided, was its own kind of courage.