Alya Nazir was left stunned by Ryan Connor's love confession on Coronation Street tonight - but it won't end well for the pair.
As Ryan recovers from his injuries after the harrowing acid attack on him, he has been struggling with his feelings of being unloved and alone. He has struggled without his mum around, and is worried about his future and chances of following his dream career.
Tonight, Ryan said the three words - I love you - to Alya but she turned him down, insisting it wasn't the right thing for them at the moment and privately expressed her fear that he was just saying that because of his own fear of being alone.
Now actors Ryan Prescott and Sair Khan have opened up about how their storyline will end.
She said: "It’s been incredibly difficult for Alya to see Ryan this way and the shock of the event has really hit her. She saw him earlier in the day, before the acid attack, and everything was fine and then so quickly, his life changed.
"A lot of the residents on Coronation Street have been through life-changing events but Ryan’s is one that is so physical and so painful and Alya has never seen or experienced something like this before."
She added: "She is trying to be sensitive but she’s in shock, seeing someone she cares about so deeply in so much pain. It’s been really difficult for her and it’s been quite hard for her to hide her reaction."
Ryan explained how his character is struggling with an "overwhelming fear" of being unloved.
"Ryan has an overwhelming fear that he will never be loved or be intimate with someone again, so he reached out and tried to grasp at everything around him – one of those things being the relationship with Alya. He is in this whirlwind of emotions and the loneliness he is feeling is one of the things that pushed him to take his chance again with Alya," he explained.
Sair says this means the end for the former couple - at least for now.
"For now, it is the end for Ryan and Alya because as soon as Ryan tells Alya that he loves her, Alya has to put up a boundary to protect herself from getting hurt again and from hurting him by giving him mixed signals. She feels she has to protect any thread of friendship that they could possibly have by taking a step back from his healing and letting other people take the lead on it," she said.
