With the meeting wraps, I close Zoom, relieved I’ve bought myself another couple of hours to finish the project. But that also means I’m going to be late to the theater, with Kelly, Daniel, and my mum.
I grab my phone and quickly fire off a message to the family group chat.
Crisis at work. I’m gonna have to skip dinner.
I’ll meet you at the theater.x
Two messages appear almost simultaneously, contrasting in both tone and understanding.
Kelly
Hope it’s nothing too crazy. We’ll leave your ticket at the box office. x
Mum
Can you not prioritize your family at least once, Christopher Foster!
Water off a duck’s back. Water off a duck’s back.
I shake my head at my mum’s response, repeating the mantra to myself out loud. I won’t let her words impact me. And of course I’m going to prioritize work over her—especially if it affords me the ability to stay out in Los Angeles and far away from her.
I look at the time on my phone: 5 p.m. If I can power through the presentation now, I’ll have it done by seven and will still make it to the theater before curtain call. And even better, that timing means I will see mum, complete my duty as a son, and won’t have to listen to her moaning. One of the many reasons I love going to the theater.
Just as I put my phone down, Alexander comes to mind, and I lift it back up. Throwing caution to the wind, I try once more to call him, but his phone rings through to voicemail again.
I know he’s okay. I’m certain he’s okay. I heard him on the radio. But I just want to see him to make sure. To settle the discomfort in my chest that’s stayed with me since this morning.
I fire up TikTok, type in his name, and scroll down through several posts. One of them stops me in my tracks:
Alexander Morgan Found Unconscious in Hotel Suite.
My heart jumps into my throat as I click on the video. An American woman under the handle Hollywood Exposed starts to discuss details of what happened.Rumors are circulating that paramedics were called to the Landmark Hotel in London this morning, when pop star Alexander Morgan was found unresponsive in the bathroom of his hotel suite.
I instantly close the app, my whole body stiffening.
A nauseous feeling forms in my stomach.
That can’t be true. It can’t be.
Can it?
17.Alexander
Tuesday
Everything is too loud, too bright, too overwhelming.
I dial down the brightness and sound on my laptop. I’m being forced to engage via Zoom with Amelia, aka my sober coach, aka Captain-no-fun, back in the US. I’ve known her since the last time I relapsed and left rehab. Today, Paul insisted that it was speak with Amelia or rehab—no third option of a day off, much to my frustration—but now I’m thinking rehab would have been a better option.
I might take Amelia more seriously if it weren’t for her electric blue hair and the garish multicolored dress that screamsNotice me. She’s been lecturing me for the last fifteen minutes, telling me I’m crying out for attention, when everything about her is doing the same. Like she is the famous person, not me. She is trying, in her condescending, holier-than-thou way, to get me to acknowledge the seriousness of what happened.
Sure, Rob found me in a semi-state of unconsciousness. Sure, my phone was smashed on the floor with two empty bottles of vodka on either side of me. And yeah, there was vomit all over the bathroom. But tell me, what pop star or rock starhasn’t gone too hard on the liquor one night, only to regret it the next day?
The last thing I need right now is more judgment from other people.
“What caused you to relapse?” Amelia asks, finally coming up for air. I try and fail to get a read on her emotional state.
My inability to read her expression is not because of my stinging eyes or the poor Wi-Fi connection backstage in my dressing room, but from the copious amounts of Botox preventing her eyebrows moving an inch. I know this because shelovestalking aboutallher appointments.
