Page 2 of Ruck Me Harder

I don’t do it for the money. I do it for the thrill of the game.

“Hey, Cap!” Andi calls, gesturing me to the back room of the restaurant.

As I enter the room, I’m surprised most of the team is already assembled. There are about forty women on the team, plus all of our trainers and staff.

“Viv is here!” Kiana calls. “Now it’s a party!”

Laughing, I let them pull me into the swarm. It’s been a full six weeks since we last saw each other at the end of the sevens season.

After our last match wrapped up and we had the media postmortem, I packed up and went to visit my family in South Carolina. It’s where my parents moved a few years ago when my mom got the head coaching job for Clemson’s volleyball team.

Of my five siblings, only Frankie and Bradley, the two youngest, are still in college and were home for the summer break. Chuck was home for two weeks, enjoying the remnants of his summer before hockey training camp started up. Perry was in Raleigh, working his ass off in football pre-season, and Janine couldn’t get time away from training for a big meet in Paris next month.

There are six of us Gallagher siblings and five of us are professional athletes. Well, Frankie’s technically an amateur because she’s still in college and therefore eligible for an athletic scholarship, but she’s already been named to the U.S. National Volleyball team, so it’s just a matter of her graduation status than anything else holding her back. Only Bradley, my youngest sibling, is not involved in sports. I’m not really sure why. He always changes the subject whenever anyone brings it up.

As much as I love my family, I have to admit they are intense. It’s why I spend as little time as possible at home. It’s nice to be with them. It’s even nicer to be on my own home turf.

South Carolina isn’t my home. We’ve moved all over for my mom’s job. My dad is an executive for USA Tennis, so he does most of his work from home, interspersed with travel to competitions. My home is where my family is. And while sometimes we’re spread all across the country, it’s nice when we get to spend time together.

The Revolution is my home too. I’ve been part of this squad for five years and I’ve loved every minute of it. These women are my family. They’d do anything for me, and me for them.

Kiana wiggles her way through the crowd to me, pushing a drink in my hand. I raise an eyebrow and she nods.

It’s not a secret that I’m sober. I’ve never hidden it. Still, I don’t like to make a big deal out of it. People get defensive when they find out I don’t drink, like I’m pointing out their inability to moderate their alcohol intake and not like it’s because I can’t handle mine.

I didn’t think I had a problem with alcohol. Not until the last Olympics, when I hooked up with some random dude and felt gross and used after. I don’t know that I’d remember his face, I definitely don’t remember his name, and that freaks me out. If something had happened—not that it did, but if it had—I’d be shit out of luck trying to pull the pieces of my life back together.

But I came home from the Games, I got tested, and everything was negative. Thank goodness.

Taking a sip of the fruity mocktail, I force a smile. I don’t want to think about the worst day of my life.

“How was your break?” I ask Kiana.

“Good. Not long enough,” she laughs.

It’s hard. Yes, I get to play the sport I love. My job is to play rugby. But I also train all the fucking time, all year round. Six weeks at the end of the summer is not a real rest when I have to train the other 46.

Then again… I’m a peak athlete at the waning end of my career. I’ve been to two Olympics—hopefully three—and I’ve won the national championship twice. I’ve had a storybook career. I can rest when I retire. Maybe.

two

. . .

Viv

Now that I’m back in the grind of pre-season prep, I remember all the reasons I fell in love with rugby. Surrounded by my teammates, working day in and day out for a bigger purpose, a bright goal…

We’re going to win the national championship this year. I can feel it in my bones. I want it. I want it bad. I’ll stop at nothing to bring the trophy back home to Boston, where it should be.

Today has been the kind of dreary fall day where the weather has a mind of its own. It’s taunting me, teasing winter is on its way. Freezing cold rain. It hasn’t let up all day.

As captain, it’s my duty to attend all the social activities, so even though I’m not in the mood, after practice I pull myself together and show up at the pub where the team has gathered for drinks. Kiana waves at me from down the table, where she’s talking to Andi and Grace. I wave back but stay where I’m at on the periphery of the group.

Cari Gonzales, the new, fresh-faced phenom out of Harvard, bounds over to me.

“Hi, Viv,” she says, bubbling with enthusiasm.

“Hi.” I want to be welcoming to her. She’s surely going to be an asset for our team, but right now the exuberance… it’s too much.