A Lifetime With You

“In English they say, I am blessed to have found you,

But in poetry we say, out of all the soul this world houses,

With all the roads life could have pointed me to,

And all the versions of me I could have played,

For some impossible reason, timing allowed my life to cross paths with yours,

No words can ever explain how lucky I am to be allowed to have met you.”

Luis read the above passage on Instagram as he sat on the sofa in their two-bedroom apartment in the petty crime capital of the country, Crumlin, Ireland. He had doomscrolled all morning and had followed seven hundred new accounts whose content was about love, breakups, heartache, manipulation and attachment styles. This year, he had learned that, thanks to his parents, or rather no thanks to his parents, he leaned towards the anxious-preoccupied type. Well, there were no surprises there at how confrontational he became when George decided to withdraw every chance he got. George. His soulmate, with whom he had made a soul contract in a lifetime before this one. George, Luis had learned, had a disorganised attachment style, and together, they formed the unbreakable cycle of arguments—also known as trauma bonding.

For two and a half years, he had fought to keep the relationship he dreamed of. He had become addicted to social media and pop-culture psychology, zodiac-sign compatibility and anything that would explain the roller-coaster ride of emotions he had endured while inside it.

He tossed his phone aside and crossed the kitchen and filled a glass with water. He turned on the electric kettle. He stared blankly while it came to a boil, and as the water bubbled and steam erupted from the kettle, he opened one of the cupboards and found that his coffee tin was empty. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He took the glass of water and opened the fridge instead. His eyes were leveled to the fridge’s top layer. At five foot ten, and a fairer complexion than many Filipinos, he stood taller than most of his Asian friends. His eyes settled on the top shelf of the fridge. At five foot ten, with a fairer complexion than many Filipinos, he stood taller than most of his Asian friends. He looked at his options for a second too long before deciding to grab the orange concentrate and pour it into the water.

He sat back down and turned up the volume on the telly. A reporter in a blazer sat at a desk with papers arranged in front of her.

“— a fantastic Irish summer. The heatwave is unprecedented, and health advocates remind the public: please use sun protection. And in today’s science news, Mary McDonnell visits the NASA conference in Dublin. Mary?”

The feed cut to a stout Irish woman who was clearly a geek for this kind of story, staring straight into the camera with a gleam in her eyes. “Thank you, Siobhan. NASA has successfully caught up with the interstellar asteroid ’Oumuamua. We can remember that ’Oumuamua passed by Earth’s orbit back in 2017. A space station is now situated roughly fifteen thousand miles from the object. The team is attempting to land an experimental kinetic impactor and propulsion device in a bid to redirect the asteroid’s trajectory. The work forms part of a planetary-defence study examining the risks of an asteroid impact on Earth. Scientists had previously planned to trial the same device against Dimorphos, striking it at twenty-two thousand kilometres per hour to generate a substantial ejecta cloud and significantly alter its momentum. This is a big step that NASA is taking to protect Earth, which begs the question, are we expecting visitors from space anytime soon? Back to—”

Luis did not pay attention to the noise from the telly. He looked at his phone, which lay beside him, while sipping his orange juice, hoping to hear back from George before he left the apartment. His phone rang, but it wasn’t George’s name that flashed on the screen.

“I will be there in an hour. Are you all packed?” Israel phoned him while driving down from Portlaoise. Israel, one of the very few friends who tolerated Luis’ stupidity in men, had decided it was time to help a friend in need. He offered Luis a place to stay in his newly bought apartment just so Luis could finally have the push, or the courage—one would have to decide which—to start fresh.

“Ye, I’m packed. The boxes are a lot though. Will they fit in the car?” Luis looked around at the scattered clutter, boxes, bags, luggage, tape and scissors spread out across the living room. He had spent the last two days packing most of what he owned. He decided to leave everything that was considered a joint memory, like the two big paintings they bought from T.K. Maxx, one of a bull and one of a lion. He didn’t like these paintings as the lion’s mane was a constant reminder of how big George’s ego was.

“Well, if it doesn’t fit, we will just have to do it in two rounds. Is he there?”

“Does the bear shit in the woods? Of course he is not. Thank you though, let’s plan how we will do it if it doesn’t fit your car. You should have bought a C-HR instead of a Yaris.” Luis found the audacity to tease Israel after his own C-HR had been towed back by Toyota for not paying his monthly car repayment.

“Fuck off! You can take the Irish Rail if my car doesn’t suit your needs, ye eejit.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Don’t turn around. I’ll see you in thirty.”

Israel arrived and gave Luis a high five and a hug. He added a smack to the back of the head and a grin. Luis did not object and took the gesture as one he fully deserved.

“Where are the boxes?”

“They are all upstairs.” They went upstairs, and Israel was greeted by the mess. The mess did not overwhelm him. The boxes did.

“Dude, you have more things than me.”

“I am gay. You are straight. I have more taste and a higher luxury-spending quota than you do.”

“I’m not being a homophobe, but thank the fuck God, I am not gay,” he said as he picked up the boxes and began loading them into the car. It only took Luis and Israel three turns before the car was fully loaded.

“We definitely need a second round of travel.”

“And a third,” Israel added. “Do you want to be left here and let me drop this off at home, or do you want to go back for the others tomorrow?”

“Don’t be a lazy ass, we are doing it today. God knows, I am not staying in this God-forsaken apartment for another day.”

Israel rolled his eyes. “Sure, Jan. I’ve heard that seven times already. This month. And we are just in the third week.”

“Fuck off now, ye bastard. I’ll wait for you to come back.”

Israel jumped into the driver’s seat and glanced at Luis in the rear-view mirror before honking the car as he sped off towards the road back to Portlaoise.

“First batch done.” Luis walked to the door, stopped with his fingers on the handle, and stood there long enough for the moment to become awkward even to himself. He opened the front door and stood at the threshold for a moment longer than necessary.

The apartment sat directly above a Domino’s Pizza in Crumlin. From the entrance, two straight flights of stairs led up to the flat itself. There was nothing grand about the building. It was ordinary Dublin—practical, slightly cramped, lived-in. The kind of place people walked past every day without wondering who lived above the shop.

Luis knew every inch of it.

The first flight of stairs brought George home from work in his mind before he had even climbed it. There had been nights when Luis heard the key turn downstairs before George reached the first step. On a few occasions, he had waited on the stairs completely naked, on all fours, just to hear the door open and catch the exact second George understood what was waiting for him. It had always made George laugh. Luis remembered the sequence of his face more clearly than anything else: the brief surprise, then the smile that followed. It had been stupid. Immature. Funny. He had loved being the reason for that laugh.

On the landing beside the stairs sat the shelf they had filled with the small objects that made the apartment feel like theirs. The Gundam robots were still there. Luis had chosen them, assembled them, and decided where each one should stand. He knew which ones he built alone and which ones George had watched him finish. Beside them sat the glass skull with the fairy light inside. It had looked ridiculous when they first brought it home. Luis had loved it anyway. When the light was switched on, the soft glow turned something designed to look morbid into something almost warm. He thought that was probably why he kept it.

The staircase continued upward. Along the wall ran the Lady Gaga installation—individual letters arranged so that the titles of her songs connected as you climbed. Born This Way ran horizontally. Another song joined through a shared letter, then another, then another, until the whole thing became a ridiculous chain that only made sense when you stood at the bottom and followed it up. Luis had spent far too long working it out. He remembered being proud of it. He remembered explaining the entire system to anyone who came over. He remembered George pretending not to care while knowing perfectly well that Luis had done it for him because Lady Gaga was his favourite diva.

At the top of the stairs, the apartment opened into the hallway. The first thing Luis saw was the bookshelf—or rather, the empty space where the bookshelf used to look alive. It was massive. Normally it would have been filled with his books: novels, non-fiction, things he had bought because the cover looked interesting, things he had sworn he would read and never did, books he had returned to more than once, books George had never touched. Now almost nothing remained. He had packed them all. The shelves looked wrong without them. Bare. He had spent years filling that space without thinking about it. Only now could he see how much of the room had belonged to him simply because his things were in it.

His PS5 was packed. His Nintendo Switch was packed. The controllers, cables and games were somewhere inside one of the boxes waiting downstairs. He was leaving the television here, otherwise George would be bored out of his life. For the first time, the apartment looked less like a home and more like a place someone had already left.

To the right was the toilet. Further along the hallway was the main bedroom. This was where they actually slept. There was another bedroom in the apartment, but Luis had never really thought of it as theirs. Over time, it became George’s unofficial room—a sofa bed, some of his things, a space neither of them truly lived in. The main bedroom was theirs. Their bed. Their clothes. Their arguments. Their apologies. Their nights.

Above the bed, covering part of the ceiling, were sixteen twelve-by-twelve IKEA mirrors arranged into one large square. Luis remembered the day they put them up. He remembered looking at them from the bed. He remembered laughing. He remembered sex—a lot of sex. The mirrors had not been bought out of any particular interest in interior design. They had bought them because they were kinky as hell. He looked at them now and found something deeply uncomfortable in the sight of his own reflection repeated across sixteen separate squares. For a moment, he could almost recall the version of himself who lived here without ever considering that one day he would have to leave.

He kept walking.

At the end of the hallway, the space opened into the combined kitchen, dining and living area—the largest part of the apartment. Two enormous glass windows looked out over the streets of Crumlin. Luis could see ordinary life continuing below: cars, people, the same stretch of road they had looked at countless times from inside these walls. The world had kept moving every day while the relationship was falling apart up here.

The kitchen still held traces of their routines. The dining area still looked like a place where two people lived together. George loved to cook. His ADHD allowed him to cook anything with whatever ingredients were left in the cupboard, and it still tasted like a Michelin-star chef had made it. The living room still contained the sofa they had sat on, argued on, watched television on and had sex on. Everything was familiar. He had spent two days packing his life into boxes, yet the apartment still knew exactly how to make him remember why he stayed.

He sat back down on the sofa and looked at his phone for the hundredth time. George had not replied. He sent a text message anyway.

*I am out of here in an hour’s time.* Sent. There.

Luis sat on the sofa again.

The envelope was still in his hand. He had been carrying it around the apartment for most of the morning without opening it, as if the contents might change if he left them alone long enough. They would not.

He slid a thumb under the flap and pulled out the folded document. The paper was stiff, official, and already slightly creased from being held too tightly. At the top was the crest of the family court. Beneath it, in clean black type, was his own name.

A barring order. Issued against him.

The language was precise and impersonal. He was prohibited from entering or remaining in the apartment. The address was printed in full, as if there could be any confusion about which two-bedroom flat above a Domino’s in Crumlin was being taken from him. The order was temporary for now, pending a full hearing in two months, but the effect was immediate. He was to leave.

George had filed it.

Luis read the name again, even though he already knew. George had wanted the apartment. Both of their names were on the rental contract, which made a clean break impossible without paperwork. So George had gone to the court instead. The same man who had lived here with him, argued with him, fucked him, and laughed at the stupid things Luis did to make him smile had signed a statement that resulted in this document.

Luis looked around the room while the paper rested open on his knee. He had found the place. He had handled most of the deposit and the bulk of the rent for long stretches when George’s money was tight or simply unavailable. He had painted the walls, chosen the furniture, hung the mirrors, built the ridiculous Lady Gaga letter chain, and filled the shelves until the apartment finally felt like it belonged to someone. Every object still carried the residue of the life he had tried to make here.

None of that appeared in the order.

The document did not care who paid for the sofa he was sitting on, or who assembled the Gundam robots on the landing, or who lay under the sixteen mirrors and thought, for a while, that this might last. It only recorded that George had applied, that the court had granted the temporary order, and that Luis was no longer entitled to be inside the home he had built.

He folded the paper once, then again, and held it in both hands. The apartment was very quiet. Outside, the ordinary noise of Crumlin continued as if nothing had changed. He could not let his friends know. Especially his mother.

Luis’ family was not in Ireland. Luis had arrived in Ireland on his own on his birthday ten years ago to work as a nurse. He was now an Irish citizen and, despite having a stronger passport than back when he held a Philippine passport, he had not toured outside Ireland. He loved the comfort of the couch. A Taurus through and through.

He decided to call his mother.

The phone was already in his hand. He opened FaceTime before he could talk himself out of it. The screen rang twice before her face appeared, slightly too close to the camera, the familiar kitchen light behind her.

“Hi, kuya.”

“Hi, Ma.”

There was a short pause while both of them adjusted to the sight of the other. She could see he was still in the apartment. He could see she was already reading his expression.

“I’m leaving today,” he said. “Israel’s coming to help me move the rest of the boxes.”

She nodded once, slowly. She already knew the engagement was over. He had told her that much weeks ago. What she did not know were the exact reasons, and he had never offered them. The silence that followed was the same one they had been practising since the relationship began to fail: she did not push, and he did not volunteer.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

It was a simple question. He almost answered it with the truth, then stopped. The barring order was still folded on the sofa beside him. The apartment was already half-empty. Outside, Crumlin continued as usual.

“Ah sure, I’ll be grand,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you I’m going.” She looked at him for a moment longer than was comfortable. Then she nodded again.

“Call me when you’re at Israel’s.”

“I will.”

Neither of them said anything else for a few seconds. The call ended the way most of their recent conversations had ended—carefully, with more left unsaid than spoken. Luis lowered the phone and sat in the quiet that followed. The comfort he had wanted did not arrive. He had known it wouldn’t. He had called her anyway.

Two and a half years he had fought to keep the relationship alive. George was the one who wanted the relationship to end first. He had said they were hurting each other, that the arguments had become too much, and that he no longer knew if they were good for each other. Luis fought it every time. He believed they could fix it. They always did. Until one day, after too many arguments, too many apologies and too many promises that things would be different, Luis finally realised he was tired too. The decision eventually became mutual, even if accepting it was not. He still loved George. That was the problem.

Tears ran down his face as he faced the truth of the separation. This was now an irreversible moment he had taken. Once he left the apartment, he was gone forever.

“Stop crying, you eejit.” He had to call himself out otherwise Israel would arrive to find his friend crumpled on the floor, limp from the heaviness of the breakup.

“It is not the end of the world,” he told himself.

How very wrong he was.