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He hasn’t seen her in ten years.
No. That’s a lie. He’s seen her every single day. On magazine covers, movie posters, tv interviews. He couldn’t avoid her even if he wanted to.
He hasn’t seen her in person in ten years.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice raw, betraying the fact that she’s been crying. “I don’t really know why I’m here. I was just sort of driving around and I recognised your place.”
She looks younger than she does in red carpet photos, no makeup, hair unstyled, wearing leggings and an oversized sweater rather than couture. Her eyes are red and her face ashen. She’s clearly exhausted.
“Quite the gamble,” he says, stepping aside to let her in. “I could have moved since you last saw me.”
She shakes her head as she enters.
“Genya would have mentioned it,” she says.
“You talk about me?” he asks, trailing after her as she heads into his living room.
“Gen talks,” she says. “She said you’re doing really well since your last stint in rehab.”
“Is that why you’re here?” he asks, wondering perhaps if she’s been drinking, or if she’s taken something. “You want advice about rehab?”
She shakes her head again, wandering slowly around the room, keeping her attention on the pictures on his walls; middling modern art he over paid for 20 years ago and photos of him with castmates from old projects. He watches her run a hand over a photo of the pair of them.
“My manager says there’s about eighty photographers outside my house right now,” she says.
“Ah,” he says. “Do you want coffee?”
“I want to go to sleep for a thousand years,” she says.
Ten years ago he could have rummaged through his nightstand and found a pill for that. Ten months ago he could have given her the bottle of cheap vodka that usually ended up under his bed. Now he’s four months sober for the third time, so he says “Cammomile tea then. Go wash your face, I’ll make you a cup.”
While she’s in the bathroom he snatches the new copy of People off the coffee table and rams it into his kitchen trash can with prejudice. He’d purposefully gone to the self-checkout at the store when he picked it up with his groceries this morning in case the clerk had recognised him buying it. The main cover picture is the man who up until very recently had been Alina’s footballer boyfriend, locked in an embrace with a woman who isn’t Alina.
“What must you have thought of me,” she laughs weakly, “Turning up on your doorstep in tears.”
“That the last time I saw you, you were crying too.” he says.
She looks genuinely surprised.
“I didn’t think you would remember that,” she says.
He understands better than most how she feels having her dirty laundry splashed all over the press. A National Enquirer cover photo of Aleksander being put into an ambulance at a wrap party had been responsible for the SitCom they’d starred in together getting cancelled. It had been the end of Aleksander’s career, but the making of Alina’s. Freed from her TV network contractual obligations she’d made the tricky leap to film and reached a level of stardom that makes this moment of deeply personal distress impossible to suffer privately. It also means that she had many potential boltholes to run to ground in, and yet here she is, in his house.
“Why are you here Alina?” he asks. “Genya’s place is much closer than yours. There’s any number of hotels or rentals your people could have sorted for you. You don’t need to come to the house of your washed up ex-castmate for privacy.”
“They won’t let me,” she says. “It’s not part of the plan.”
“Plan?” he frowns. “What plan?”
“Nikolai and I are in a PR relationship,” she says. “Or we were in a PR relationship. I guess this has finished it.”
“You were pretending to date?” Aleksander asks.
“We have the same PR agency,” she shrugs. “They do it a lot these days.”
“And now he’s pretending to cheat on you?”
“No,” she sighs. “This was all an accident. But now my team wants to lean into the whole ‘Poor Alina’ narrative. Apparently it will make me more popular with my female audience. They don’t like me so much at the moment. They think I’m smug and aloof.”
“That was always my favourite thing about you,” he teases gently. To his surprise, she laughs.
“Can I ask you something?” Alina asks, “Without you making fun of me?”
“I make no promises,” he says.
“Aleksander,”
“Alright!” he says, holding up his hands. “I promise.”
“Do you remember,” she asks, “when we were doing press right before the last season? And you and I-”
“Alina-” he warns.
“You told me it was okay, that it wasn’t real. It didn’t count,” she continues.
“I was high,” he warns. “It was stupid and I was high.”
“It was a good night though,” she says, shifting closer to him on the sofa.
“What I can remember of it,” he says, reaching out to her.
She accepts the invitation readily, and is quickly in his lap.
“We’re no good for each other, you and I,” he says, running his hands through her hair.
“I know,” she says.
“Maybe you should go back to your fake cheating boyfriend?” he offers.
“Maybe you should shut up and kiss me,” she goads.
For once in his life he does as he’s told.
As they break the kiss he forces his eyes open to watch her; lashes fluttering, lips parted,cheeks flushed.
It’s never been the right time for them. Mostly through his fault, he’s willing to admit. He’s spent his whole life gripped by various passions; pills, work, booze. He wonders if perhaps she might finally allow him to be consumed by her.
“Alina,” he sighs.
“Mhm?” she hums, cupping his cheek.
“This time,” he says. “It’s real.”