Chapter 9
Robert
It’s a short drive around the corner to Bay Road. My house is one of the older, bigger ones toward the end, nearest to the water. It’s not the world’s biggest house, but being so close to the sea fuels a piece of my soul that hates being confined to one place.
I thought when I moved abroad, that’s where I’d stay.
If I wasn’t happy in one place, I’d pick up my notebook and laptop and simply move somewhere new. But, as it turns out, no amount of distance can help you outrun yourself because no matter how far you go, you’re always still right there.
As a foreign correspondent for a major media outlet, the world was my oyster because humans are our own worst enemies, with no lack of conflict and crisis for me to write about.
After my uni days, I thought that not getting too close would keep people safe, being an observer rather than a participant guaranteed I couldn’t fuck things up all over again.
Except… there I was.
Five years ago, one of my sources was compromised because of my ostentatious reporting. A local translator was abducted and killed after my publication exposed coordinates they thought were safe.
Everyone said it wasn’t my fault. My article had been run up the flagpole and deemed an excellent piece of journalism by the higher-ups, none of the editing team or publication team suggested any changes I didn’t incorporate.
But that doesn’t dull the ache of responsibility that nestled its way into a corner of my chest.
It doesn’t bring that translator back from the dead, either.
I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t live with the fact that every time I tell the truth, someone gets hurt.
The irony is, I ran home, took a substantial pay cut and a small-town sports journalism job to “play it safe,” telling myself I’m doing honest work that couldn’t possibly hurt anyone.
And yet, from the pained look on Rhiannon’s face at the bar, it seems I’ve only gone and done it again.
My silence cost a friend’s life in uni, so I vowed to find my voice. Yet finding it hasn’t redeemed me from that mistake—it’s cost another life.
It seems in my chosen line of work, proximity kills.
Even when it’s for the greater good, exposing people who push drugs on young athletes… it backfires. My eagerness to unearth the truth surrounding Rhiannon’s father has clearly left a mark on her.
I came home wanting peace, thinking I’d find it right here by the water.
On my darkest of days, I’d drag myself out to the sea and think about throwing myself at the mercy of the waves. And on my best days, I walk the coastal path, take in the salty sea air, feel the wind on my face, and listen to the crash of the water against the rocky shore.
“Do you need me to get crutches?” Emma gives me serious side-eye as she brings the car to a stop outside my house, drawing me out of my mental spiral.
“I’m not that bad.”
“I dunno, Rob. You fucked some girl in the toilet after walking to The Rusty Anchor. When was the last time you did that level of… exercise?”
Straight as a rod is my sister, and she sometimes seems to forget that other than the fact I’m short half a leg, I’m actually a pretty fit grown-ass man. I’m four years older than her, and yet she pecks at me like a mother hen.
“You know I box a couple of times a week in the club, right?” The staccato rhythm of my headache makes me pinch the bridge of my nose.
She waves a hand at me. “Yes, and you have a membership to the leisure center where you swim sometimes, and lift, and do Pilates every now and then too. But all of that is planned exertion, Rob. You’re sweaty and rubbing your leg.
I’m not an idiot. I’m fluent in my big brother’s a dumbass who doesn’t always listen to his limits. ”
I’ve been living with this disability for more than a decade.
I most definitely have a better idea of where my limits are than my sister ever could.
But, as much as “the non-disabled family member knows better than the disabled person” might rub some people the wrong way, it curls another warm vine around my heart and squeezes just enough to remind me that it’s still beating.
It’s a subtle reminder that I’m loved, and even if Emma doesn’t always go about it in the right way, her heart is in the right place.
I haul my ass out of the car and force myself to walk into the house without a limp to spite her. “That’s a really niche language. Is it on your language app?”
She snorts, swinging my front door closed behind her like she owns the place. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Well. I guess this is happening right now then.
She didn’t even let me get the kettle on before she started shrieking like a fucking banshee.
It’s only midafternoon, and I’m already exhausted.
I’m not sure I’ve got the fortitude for a confrontation with my sister, but I also can’t see a way around it.
Because when her nostrils flare like that, Emma means business.
“You nearly ended up in fucking prison last time you got tangled up with the Morrigan family, Rob. Or have you forgotten the small detail of the prohibitory injunction?” She labors over every word, slowly, like she’s trying to make sure her point gets across.
I shudder at her words. I remember every single syllable written on that legal document.
It covered harassment, defamation, and trespassing.
If I’d found any dirt on Michael Morrigan or Taranis, it would have prevented me from printing anything about them too.
If I’d broken it, I’d have been in contempt of court, which meant fines or jail.
I pull out a chair from the dining room table.
If I’m not getting out of this without being ripped a new arsehole, at least I’ll be off my throbbing leg while it happens.
“That’s what I thought. It’s burned into your memory, just like it is mine and Mum’s.
” She doesn’t add that it’s right there with the memory of me driving Dad’s old car off the edge of a cliff in a bid to end my life.
But it’s hanging between us like a permanent bad smell that refuses to leave no matter what you spray into the air.
“What the fuck were you thinking banging his daughter in The Rusty Anchor?” Her voice is so loud and screechy that I’m sure all the dogs of Larne can hear her and are howling their two pennies worth into the conversation.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I didn’t recognize Rhiannon in her wedding dress, but there’s no mistaking the Morrigan women. I could have picked her out of a lineup, even if she had a paper bag over her head.
“You weren’t thinking, were you?” Emma continues, her words all charged with frustration.
“All the blood rushed to your dick when you saw a pretty girl with a sob story running out on her wedding. Did you think she’d give you the scoop if you gave her the O?
” She smacks the button on the kettle like it’s said something stupid. “Tit for tat? Literally.”
I open my mouth to answer, but she doesn’t pause to let me.
“How could you be so stupid? Things had just started to settle after the court case. You’re getting your legs back under you at work.
” She swings open the cupboard above the toaster, reaching for two mugs.
She’s making me tea, so I’m not yet on her “to murder” list, but it doesn’t feel like I’m too far away from it either.
That, or she’s making tea for her accomplice who’s on their way to help her murder me.
Could go either way with our Emma to be fair.
“It’s not like you don’t know who she is. She’s kind of a big deal. So?” She gestures at me. “Go on. Tell me what the hell you were thinking? Or did you just trip over a step in the bar and your dick fell into a woman in a bridal gown?”
She glares, folding her arms in a move supposed to intimidate me, but all it does is remind me of how small she is.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s tempting to reach for it, but I might lose a hand if I ignore my sister.
One of her eyebrows bounces. “Well?”
“Oh, you’re really asking?” I guess she actually wants an answer. Another buzz of my phone, followed quickly by another.
Her frown deepens as the kettle clicks, the water bubbling in the kettle to tell us it’s finished.
“Not that I have to justify who I put my dick in, but she came on to me. She wanted to clear her mind after telling the world that piece of shit cheated on her with her best friend. And I wasn’t going to reject her after what she’d been through.
” I’m most definitely not admitting to fantasizing about her a time or two over the years, either.
Emma’s mouth falls open. “You weren’t… going to…
reject her?” Her voice climbs an octave as she repeats my words.
“It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact there was a juicy story to go with getting railed in the loo? Or sticking it to her father?” She sighs, clearly at her wit’s end with me.
“Did you have someone waiting there to take a picture of you playing tonsil tennis with her?”
At my indignant scowl, she continues. “You’re not a dumb university student anymore, Robert. You’re a grown-ass man in his thirties. You should really start acting like it.”
Emma really has the mum disappointment tone and stare down pat. She makes us tea, places the mugs on the table, then sits. “I really don’t know what you thought you were doing.” She shakes her head.
“I really don’t know how it’s your business.” It was a throwaway comment, but it was absolutely the wrong thing to say because she squawks like a fucking parrot.
“Because it’s all over the goddamn internet, Robert. And we’re your family. You think I wanted to know where you stuck your dick today? Because while I might love you, I have precisely zero interest in knowing that information. Ever.”
She grinds the heels of her hands into her eye sockets as though trying to erase the memories of what she read online. “You’re so fucking confrontational. Always need to be the person standing up for everyone else or calling out injustice. Act first, think later. Same old Robert.”
She says some of those things like they’re bad, but surely calling out injustices is a good thing… right?
My therapist says Emma hasn’t processed the trauma of my trying to kill myself. She never went to therapy; my parents didn’t either. The harrowing incident does lend itself to the occasional jibe about how selfish I am, or how reckless I am, or something else from the leg-long list of flaws I have.
Emma sips on her tea while she holds eye contact over the rim of her mug.
My phone buzzes again, and she tosses a puzzled glance at my jeans. “Who the hell is up your ass?”
Pete the Prick: Get it, boyo! Banging rugby royalty, how the fuck did you bed that one?
Pete the Prick: I’d be jealous if it didn’t work in our favor.
Pete the Prick: Told you the story should be rugby. Fuckin’ football, don’t be a pussy just cause you’re afraid of her aul da.
Pete the Prick: Morrigan’s almost-wedding scandal perfectly fits into the angle that women athletes are held to different standards than men. You can’t deny it. She’s not the only rugby player in the hot seat, either.
He’s right, I can’t deny it. And I can’t think of a single other woman in a single other sport who is currently in any way problematic, visible, or out of step and worthy of writing a story about ethics and image in women’s sports to counter his suggestion.
He also knows I’ll bite at the suggestion that something else has gone on.
Robert: What happened?
Pete the Prick: So glad you asked.
He sends a link to a story about one of the Swords Serpents down south.
The story is new, but the incident is from right at the end of the last season.
I have no idea how this hasn’t gone bigger, how we’ve just heard about it.
The player in question has a reputation for being brutal off the pitch but almost a shrinking violet when she leaves the game.
Turns out, she’s gone viral for a post-match fight that ended with her punching a sexist commentator on TV.
Scrolling the article, it tells me it wasn’t live, but the B-roll footage has just been leaked.
Pete the Prick: That covers the section on gender norms about aggression and femininity. And this, as well as your girlfriend’s scandal, works for consent and boundaries, and who controls your story.
Another link appears: there’s a Scottish women’s rugby player who was outed by the press as being queer before she was ready.
Fucking hell. Why is Pete actually being half decent at his job right when I need him to forget all about Rhiannon Morrigan and move on to someone else?
Pete the Prick: Practically writes itself, lad.
He’s not going to let it go. And since I can’t think of anything better to write about, and it’s not just a Rhiannon-centric story based on me fucking her in the bathroom, I relent.
Robert: Fine.
Pete the Prick: I’ll keep digging for more.
I heave out a sigh. Emma’s still staring at me. She knows me well enough to know that I’m avoiding answering her, doing what I do best when things are hard, and dipping into my work, except that’s what caused this godawful mess today.
Don’t they say to never mix business with pleasure?
After a long, weighted pause, Emma takes another drink from her mug. “Did you even consider that Mum would know where your dick was today, either?”
I hate being chastised like a child, handled with kid gloves, especially by my younger sister, but no matter how old we get, she channels Mum like a pro.
There’s no point in arguing, though; it’ll just make it worse, but there’s a myriad of retorts bubbling on my tongue.
It’s a matter of time before one slips out and we end up yelling at each other.
Speaking of Mum, my phone lights up between us on the table.
Mum calling.
“You think she’s seen it?” There’s hope in my voice, but I have no idea why, we both already know the answer.
Emma slow nods like I’m a friggin’ idiot. “I’d say that’s highly likely. If not, a tenner says one of her friends has…”
“And I’m about to get torn a new arsehole.”
She nods again, taking another sip. “And you’re about to get torn a new arsehole.”