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1
“What would you say to those people who call you a hypocrite?”
A smile flickers across my lips as I stand at the window with my hands behind my back, looking over the camp’s main compound. I ponder the question silently for a few long moments. Behind me, Pia Miller, a reporter for The Evergreen, a national publication based here in Seattle, shifts in her seat. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t give a reporter the time of day. Especially one I have as much history with as I do with Pia. She made my life a living hell when I was younger. Well, she was one of the throngs of jackals who did.
But my PR team foisted this upon me, telling me that I needed to soften my image as the new head of the Ballard Media Group, one of the country’s largest media conglomerates. They thought hooking me up with Pia, a woman who seemed to revel in writing about my every fault, flaw, and misstep would give me a sort of redemption. She made her journalistic bones standing on my back and has gone on to become a well-respected, Pulitzer winner. She's garnered the power to make and break people.
Honestly, it makes me sick. My father’s body is barely even cold, but everybody is already scrambling to polish my image—which is admittedly, a bit rough. But my father only passed away six months ago, and I feel like I haven’t had time to breathe. I certainly haven’t had time to properly grieve. Not with everybody in my face, telling me what I need to do as I take the reins of power and control of the company and everything that comes along with it.
It's why I escaped the city and came out here to Forward Path for a while. It's a foundation my father set up some thirty years ago after his sister died of a drug overdose. He and my aunt Hannah were close and although I was young, but I remember how hard her death hit him. Forward Path is a tribute to her. It’s a camp that helps treat people with drug and alcohol problems. It focuses on younger people but is open to anybody who’s struggling with addiction.
“Mr. Ballard?”
I turn from the window and give my head a shake. “Sorry. What was the question again?”
“I asked what you would say to the people who would call you a hypocrite for taking over Forward Path given your… past?”
“Personally, if they were to say that to my face, I’d tell them to fuck off,” I reply honestly. “It’s easy to judge when you don’t know somebody’s story.”
“And what is your story, Mr. Ballard?”
“First, it’s Micah. I don’t like being called Mr. Ballard,” I say. “And you should know my story. After all, you wrote quite a few pieces about it back in the day when you were still stuck on the local gossip beat.”
A small smile touches her lips, no doubt hearing the brittleness in my voice. My team warned me about that. I spent a week and a half prepping for this interview, and they kept stressing over and over to me that I needed to keep my temper in check… something obviously easier said than done. I turn back to the window, close my eyes, take a deep breath, and silently count to ten. I know this interview is important. I just resent the fact that I have to do it.
But the investors and advertisers, the lifeblood of my company, need to be reassured that Ballard Media is in good hands and that we aren’t going to skip a beat now that my father has passed away. They need to know I can handle this job. They need to know I will continue building and moving the company forward. It’s the only reason I agreed to talk to her for this profile on me she’s writing.
“All right… Micah,” Pia says. “Tell me a bit of your story if you would. The parts I don’t know, obviously.”
Feeling calmer, I turn back. “As you know, I spent most of my twenties drinking and whoring around. I was absolutely the party boy you enjoyed writing about.”
“Well, to be fair, you did give me plenty of material.”
I shrug. “That’s true. I don’t deny it.”
“So? What changed?” she asked.
“Are you sure they have?”
She quirks a grin at me. “I haven’t seen any articles about your wild nightlife in quite some time. So yeah, I think things have changed.”
I walk over and grab a couple of bottles of water out of the refrigerator tucked into the corner of my office. I hand her one then drop into the plush captain’s chair behind my father’s desk—my desk now, I suppose—and twist the top off my bottle. I lean back and take a drink. She does the same and we sit in silence for a couple of beats.
“When I was twenty-eight, my father gave me an ultimatum. He told me that I needed to get serious about my life and start walking the straight and narrow or he was going to cut me out,” I tell her. “It was a wake up call and made me really examine my life. And so, I had him enroll me here.”
“Wait,” she says, a look of surprise on her face. “You went through Forward Path yourself?”
I nod. “I did. I got clean, sober, and the counselors here helped me get my head right. It helped me find my… focus,” I tell her. “I’ve spent the last ten years learning the company my family built from the ground up. I’m about to turn forty now and I’m very proud of my time here—of what it helped me become and what that has allowed me to do. So, if somebody wanted to call me a hypocrite over my assuming the directorship of Forward Path, I'd invite them to do a little research and to kiss my ass."
Pia laughs softly. “I’ll go ahead and strike that last bit,” she says. “I didn’t know you went through the program.”
“Did you want to see my records?”
“No, that’s not necessary. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just… it’s surprising. You don’t seem like the self-help camp type.”
I shrug. “Not everybody who comes through our gates does. But the thing we all have in common is that we need help. And Forward Path is happy to help provide that help.”
There’s a soft knock at the door a moment before it opens. Maggie Spaulding, one of my senior counselors, sticks her head in.
