Chapter 51
Rhiannon
Ithink it’s important to start by saying that the previous article published about Rhiannon Morrigan in the Stormont Tribune was not written by me.
They are refusing to print a retraction and apologize to the subject of the article, and the only recourse I have is to apologize for them and write the truth.
My stomach drops, my pulse spikes. He didn’t. He bloody well did. It’s not the same paper that gutted me in print, but the same byline that tore holes in my life now sits beside an apology I didn’t ask for.
If Robert sees Pete, or the editor for the paper in Belfast, I imagine there’ll be a broken face in it for both of them, so they won’t be able to speak. Depending on his mood, he might break a few fingers while he’s at it.
My game has ended, the locker room hums with the buzz of phone screens, my name lighting up notifications like a fire alarm.
My face burns.
Robert is outside. I saw him in the stands during the game, and I gave him a quick peck on the cheek before coming inside to get changed. He’s here. And he’s gone and published something about me on the internet without consulting me first.
Maybe that’s progress—wanting to fight him and kiss him in the same breath.
Part of me wants to level him with a rugby ball to the skull, but another part, thinks this “defending my honor on the internet” thing, might be the single most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.
I also think it’s important for you all to read what I had originally intended to write before the skeleton of an article was taken from the shared drive of the Larne Chronicle.
My words were bastardized until they were no longer recognizable by someone who used my connections to Rhiannon to get a promotion at a bigger publication.
Until a few short months ago, what I knew about Rhiannon Morrigan was the same as what all of you knew.
She’s a driven, quick-thinking leader with the physical and technical skills on the pitch to place her in the hall of fame of all-time great fly-halves.
Everything I’d learned about the championship-winning Raven came from interviews, articles on the internet, and puff pieces written by publications around the country.
What you can’t tell from those pieces, not even from the interviews with the woman herself or anyone who knows her, is anything about the person behind the persona. And I’ve recently had the absolute pleasure and honor of getting to know the woman behind the warrior.
Tears are already trickling down my face when an arm appears around my shoulders and squeezes. “We’re right here, Rhi.” Aoife gives me a smile, having clearly already read the words blurring in front of my face. She sits on my left, Clíodhna is on my right, and they sandwich against me tightly.
In early June, I was having a pint in The Rusty Anchor in Larne when my phone lit up. After clicking a link to a social media video, the bravest, most beautiful woman in the world appeared on my screen.
My lungs forget how to work. I don’t want to cry in a locker room, but here we are.
She stood in front of every single person she knows and loves most in the world and laid her deepest embarrassment bare.
Dressed in a stunning wedding gown outshone only by her inner beauty, Rhiannon Morrigan was supposed to walk down the aisle and marry her childhood sweetheart. Instead, she stood at the altar and shared how her fiancé, and best friend, betrayed her in the most despicable way.
My stomach twists. That fateful day feels like both a lifetime ago and just yesterday.
The bitterness of betrayal in my gut is short lived because, as it turned out, I didn’t need either of them.
I haven’t missed them. If I’m truly honest with myself, they were holding me back from discovering who I really want to be in life.
Many people around the world who watched along with me might have felt sorry for her, but all I could think about was how epically strong she was, how courageous she must be to do something that must have been scary, daunting, and humiliating for her.
For the eldest daughter of rugby royalty, with the weight of the world on her shoulders, to speak out in a way that was new for all of us to see from a Morrigan.
There it is again. The weight of my name. But it doesn’t crush me this time.
I don’t feel guilt. Or shame. Just air. Finally, air. I stood out from under my father’s shadow and lived to tell the tale. It might have been the first time, but it hasn’t and won’t be the last. Maybe it’s okay to have a different opinion to my father, maybe it’s okay not to toe the family line.
When I first met her, Rhiannon was like a peony bud, guarded, private, beautiful but inaccessible, all her fire locked behind fragile layers of control and not only because of who I am and the fact I have written stories about her family before.
But, unlike what many of you may have assumed after having seen a woman show such vulnerability to the world, she wasn’t broken. Even if she may have initially thought she was.
Over the past few months, I’ve watched her change, grow, tentatively explore the boundaries of who she thought she was while trying to figure out the next stage without two people she thought were cornerstones of her life.
While I’m finishing up this article, she’s getting ready to head out to play her first preseason game against Leinster.
And she’s preparing for this game like she would if she was stepping out to play in the Six Nations final, or the Rugby World Cup.
Every single game comes with the same burden of responsibility for our beloved number ten.
My chest tightens, a fear that he’s about to tell the world I’m a fraud, that I’m not as strong or as capable as they all think I am, rippling through my body. I flinch.
Why do I still not trust him?
I should trust him; I love him, for fuck’s sake. But clearly the echoes of my ex and ex best friend are louder than they should be. I try to ground myself with the reminder that Robert isn’t George, and he’s given me no reason to think he’s about to do me dirty.
Not only that, but every single practice does as well.
For every decision she makes during the game, you don’t see the countless pages of scribbled notes, or the late nights studying the opposition.
For every bad pass, you don’t see the twitch in her fingers like every mistake is a debt she’ll never be able to repay, or the hours of rewatching gameplay to scold herself for not doing better.
For every perfectly ironed game-day kit you see on the pitch, you don’t see her lucky socks with a hole in the heel, or the packet of purple hair ties she replaces before it’s empty.
For every game you see her conducting the team with a pulse of steel, you don’t wonder who catches her when she stops running.
Full body, no fear. And still, she won’t let herself be soft. Not even for a second. Because softness, in her world, is weakness.
On the pitch, she plays like she’s always one step ahead of the breakdown.
And maybe she is. But sometimes I wonder what would happen if she let the play fall apart—and let someone stay to rebuild it with her.
Instead of taking the weight of the world, the team, her family’s name on her shoulders and feeling like she needs to do it alone.
From peony to fuchsia, our guarded, full of potential bud has grown over the summer, morphing into a bold, dramatic, and unapologetically vibrant beauty. She’s a riot of color in a world that wants her to be beige.
Fuchsia. Bold, unapologetic, impossible to hide.
She’s stepped into the sunshine and is impossible to ignore.
My heart’s racing so fast it surely isn’t healthy, tears are dripping from my chin onto my shirt. I have never felt so fucking seen.
Most athletes play for the logo on their shirt, their team, but the Morrigans, they have an additional layer of expectation. And the weight of the Morrigan name isn’t a light burden to carry.
If I could have any wish for Rhiannon this season, it would be that she plays for herself.
Not the name across her shoulders, not the Raven over her heart, but for the goddess she is inside.
If she trusts her instincts as she has done all summer, the Ravens will be an unstoppable force in the rugby world.
I’d love her to see what happens if she lets things get messy and to know that I’ll be there to catch her when she stops running.
Go Ravens, give ’em hell!
I can’t help but smile at the last line. We got our arses handed to us thirty-two to seven on the pitch against Leinster, but I love his enthusiasm and optimism all the same.
Clíodhna bumps my shoulder with hers. “You good?”
I bite my bottom lip in case a sob should slip out and nod. “I want to know the woman in this article. To be her. I want to have the faith in me that he does, to see the strength in me, the potential that he does.” Maybe it’s time I stop waiting to become her and start acting like I already am.
Aoife snorts. “We must suck at telling you if you don’t know that you already are that woman, Rhi.”
“And we all have endless faith in you. Even Dad.” Clíodhna gives a name to the reluctant voice in my mind. “He wouldn’t push us so hard if he didn’t think we could handle it.”
I’m not sure I’m picking up what she’s putting down there, but I stay quiet.
Aoife rolls her eyes. “Or if he didn’t want to relive his glory days through us. Same, same.”
Isn’t that what Robert said, too?
We get showered and changed, and a couple of the girls squeeze my arm or smile at me as I make my way out of the building and into the car park.
Where my over six-foot-tall boyfriend is leaning against my car with what looks like leaflets in his hands.
When I get close enough to him, he offers me the fanned-out pieces of card.
“What’s this?”
“Hot Girl Healing, item number five. These are paint sample cards. We’re going to redecorate. At least your bedroom. And your living room, I saw you mean-mugging your walls during the interview, but I didn’t know what color you wanted, so I kind of got them all.”
My heart swells. I don’t know what I did to deserve someone who sees me in color.
“But we’re hiring professional painters, Rhiannon. I love you, but I will get paint on your ceiling, your radiators, and your carpet. I can help you pick the paint. I can go with you to buy the paint. But I cannot help you apply. I will end up wearing more of it than the walls do.”
The image of him paint-splattered in overalls in my bedroom makes me laugh as we get into the car.
“Do you have a color you’re thinking about?” he asks, while I pull the car out and point it in the direction of home.
Maybe this is what loving him means—being brave enough to be seen too. Throwing him a grin, I nod. “Fuchsia.”