He was right. Jeff had seen and said it long before Joel had, and I’d bristled then, too. It was one thing to hear it from Jeff, the guy who’d seemingly been using me for his own gain, but it was another thing entirely to hear it from Joel, who’d always stood behind me and had my best interests at heart.
“And what if I don’t?” I asked. “What the hell does that leave me with? I’m nothing if I’m not this.”
“That’s horse shit and you know it. You’re a lot of things that all add up to one pretty fucking awesome package. But all of that talent’s going to waste here doing this. You’re better than this, you always have been. Maybe what you’re going through now is what you needed to make you realize it,” he said and I stared at him, finding it hard to believe that these words were coming out of Joel.
“Where’s all of this coming from? If you’ve always known this about me, you’ve certainly never told me, and you never hesitate to tell me what you think,” I said. He shrugged.
“I don’t know. I never had the courage to say it until now. I mean, I don’t want to kick you while you’re down or anything like that, but it’s just so obvious, now more than ever. This used to give you life and make you happy when you had that fire in you, that passion to spread your message, but you’ve been different for a while now and it only got worse when you started dating Taylor,” he said.
“So what should I do then, oh wise one?” I asked and he smirked.
“Go to Jeff. At least give him the chance to explain himself. I think you might be surprised what he has to say. Believe it or not, Kile, the entire world isn’t out to get you,” he said and chills ran across my body, every inch of it, before reaching my toes and bouncing back up. My scalp crawled.
The last thing I wanted was to see Jeff, not now, and hopefully not ever, but what Joel was saying made too much sense. Maybe I had overreacted—I had a habit of doing that, it came with being dramatic, which I’d also always had a habit of being.
“Worst case scenario, he proves you right and then at least you’ll know, you’ll have that closure. It won’t be an open wound dragging you down while you’re trying to build the next chapter of whatever it is you go on to do. Because this isn’t the end for you. You know it as well as I do,” he said.
“What am I supposed to do? Just call him up and tell him to explain himself?”
“I don’t know the answer to that. I’m sure the opportunity will present itself if you pay attention,” he said.
“And what am I going to say? I think you’re a lying, scheming piece of shit but I want you to confirm that you are?”
“That’s up to you, I guess, though I wouldn’t recommend using those words, exactly,” he said and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Look, Kile, have I ever steered you wrong?”
“No, but you certainly tried to pooh-pooh this thing with NewSpin. In retrospect, I should’ve listened.”
“But you didn’t then. Now I’m telling you again what I think you should do. Have you learned your lesson about not listening to me?” he asked, wearing a wide smirk.
“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” I asked through my own laughter. I couldn’t believe he was convincing me to do this, but I’d be lying if I said that there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t want to know, didn’t want the certainty that only talking to Jeff could bring. I only hoped it wouldn’t come back to haunt me like everything else about working with Jeff had.
“I’m sure that’s not the last time I’ll be hearing that from you,” he said. I picked my phone up off of the table where it’d been sitting powered off in front of me since I’d gotten here.
“Go on, turn it on, make the call,” he said, nodding at my phone. I stared at it for a minute, not feeling fully prepared to face whatever waited for me in my notifications. After taking a deep, deep breath, I pressed the power button and kept my eyes closed until the phone vibrated in my palm to alert me that it was ready to be used. I punched in my passcode and immediately was overwhelmed by notifications. I set the phone down on the table and waited for all of the vibrating and chiming to stop so I wouldn’t have to read any of the thousands of negative emails and tweets I was sure to have gotten.
When the torrent passed, I picked my phone up again. Joel watched me as I did so. I tapped on the phone icon and started to dial when I was interrupted by a call from an unknown number.
“What is it?” Joel asked, his brow furrowed.
“I dunno, it’s not a number I recognize.”
“Answer it,” he said. “Maybe it’s Jeff trying to trick you by using a different number.” I laughed at that, thinking Jeff would never be that clever, but slid to accept the call anyway.
“This is Kile Avery,” I answered.
“Hi, Kile. This is Wade Barrett, President of NewsAmp. How’s your Sunday afternoon going?” a deep voice asked. I nearly dropped the phone.
“Who is it?” Joel hissed but I waved at him to shut up.
“It’s been better, to say the least,” I said. Wade laughed.
“Understandable. Listen, I don’t want to keep you, I just wanted to call and tell you about a strategic management reshuffle at NewSpin,” he said. I repeated the words in my head, not quite comprehending, not quite believing that I was talking to the President of NewSpin’s parent company.
“Oh?” I asked meekly.
“Yes. I’ve been filled in on what happened between you and Lee Noble and while it’s a shame to say, I thought you’d like to know that Lee is no longer with the company,” he said and my heart stopped.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked and he chuckled on the other end of the line.
“Jeff Taylor called me earlier this morning. He told me everything that happened with Lee, about how he tried to blackmail you. Many people try to assert that NewSpin is a less than scrupulous organization, but even we have our boundaries for acceptable behavior,” he said, and I had to blink, really squint down on my eyelids, to concentrate and make sure I was hearing him correctly.
“Wait, are you saying that Jeff didn’t have anything to do with all of that?”
“It’s early in our investigation into what happened and what Lee was up to, but so far it doesn’t look like Jeff was tied to it in any way and based on the conversation I had with him earlier, I can’t imagine he’d turn himself in by talking to me and asking me to investigate Lee,” he said.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“Kile? Are you OK?”
“I’m fine, I’m just stunned, I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, how about this? I’ll give you a few days to think on it and, when you’re ready, you can come into the studio and we’ll record a statement. We’ll lay everything out, or you can in your own words, with or without Taylor. I can’t have this sort of thing lingering over NewSpin, not when we’re in this critical period of growth,” he said.
“Yeah, I’d like that. I’d like that a lot,” I said, my tongue heavy and thick in my mouth. This all felt so surreal. Jeff really didn’t have anything to do with the situation, and he’d gone out of his way to talk to Wade to right things.
“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” Wade said. “Though, bear in mind, the sooner we can get this out there, the better.”
“Right, yeah, of course. I can come in tomorrow morning if that works for you,” I said.
“That’s perfect. I’ll have everything in place. We’ll probably record in the same studio as last night.”
“Alright, perfect. I’ll be there and I’ll be ready,” I said, though I wasn’t sure how true that was. I didn’t think there was any amount of preparation I could do that would prime me enough for this.
“Great. And Kile?”
“Yeah?”
“On behalf of NewsAmp and NewSpin, I’d like to apologize to you personally for all of this. I want you to know that Lee Noble is not representative of either of our companies, and that this kind of behavior is never acceptable,” he said. “I can only imagine the kind of damage
this has done to your reputation and to your career, but I promise you, we’ll work together to fix that.”
“Thank you, Wade. Thank you so much,” I said, fighting back the tears that were forming at the corners of my eyes and the burning in the back of my throat.
“No need to thank me. I should be thanking you, you don’t owe us this chance to fix things, but I’m glad you’re giving it anyway. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
“See you then,” I agreed and hung up.
“Holy shit,” Joel said, his eyes as wide and his face as white as mine must’ve been.
“Yeah, seriously,” I said, my head reeling. I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it all.
“I guess I was right after all, huh?” he laughed.
“Maybe so,” I said, though it pained me to admit it.
“I wonder if Taylor will be there?”
“I don’t know. I’d assume so, if NewSpin is really trying to fix all of this,” I said.
“Are you going to be OK to see him?”
“I will,” I said, and I meant it. Though NewSpin owed the world an apology on my behalf, I owed Jeff one that was much more important. How could I have ever really believed that he’d do something like that to me? After all we’d shared and been through together? I felt stupid and out of control.
“This is your chance, Kile. So, what’s it going to be? Money or happiness?” Joel asked and my stomach swam with warm fuzzies.
“Happiness,” I said.
27
Kile
I stepped into the NewSpin offices the following morning feeling hesitant at best, and a nervous wreck at worst. Joel had reassured me over and over again that things were going to be just fine, that all I had to do was get up there and say my piece on camera, the same way I’d done hundreds of times before, and it would all be over. Then everything would go back to normal, or I’d find a new normal, whatever that might end up looking like.
There were still balloons hanging in the entryway of the office, though they’d deflated and some of them had been popped, no doubt after I’d stormed out of the office last night. There wasn’t much for anyone to celebrate after the show had aired—except for Lee, who was almost certainly celebrating his record-setting number of views on the site. I’d seen that on the news this morning while I got ready to go to the office, during a segment announcing the statement I was set to give. It was still odd to me that I was the subject of a morning news segment.
I laughed at that as I stepped through the office, heading toward the elevator, when someone called to me from the other side, their voice echoing throughout the empty space. It struck me then how strange it was that there wasn’t anyone there working on a Monday morning. Maybe they’d all been given the day off so that the company had time to recover from the bombshells of the night before.
“Hey! Kile! Over here!” the voice shouted, and I spotted a young kid with spiky hair making his way over to me. When he reached me, he stuck his hand out for me to shake.
“I’m Dylan. Dylan Morris. I’m a friend of Jeff Taylor’s. Er, I mean, we worked together. Wade’s waiting for us upstairs but he wanted me to accompany you,” the kid said.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, eyeing him carefully.
“Likewise. I’ve heard so many good things about you from Jeff. Honestly, you’re all he talks about anymore,” he said, still shaking my hand. I pulled it from his grip.
“Is he here?”
“No. He, well, he resigned. Last night,” Dylan said and despite myself, my heart sank a bit. I’d hoped to see Jeff, hoped to make things right in the place that had brought us together in the first place.
“Oh,” I said.
“But he knows about today and wanted me to tell you he wishes he could be here,” Dylan said.
“Then why isn’t he?”
“He thought it might be awkward for everyone if he was.”
“Good point.”
“Anyway, I’m not here to talk your ear off. Let’s head upstairs,” Dylan said and without another word he set off toward the elevator at a fast clip. I had to move to keep up with him. In the elevator, he pressed the button for the fifth floor, and it whirred to life as it started moving up.
“So, uh, sorry about all of this,” Dylan said. “I mean, not that it’s my place to apologize for it or anything, but it’s been tough for everyone. Especially Jeff.”
“Yeah, it hasn’t been easy for me, either,” I said, though what he said caught my ear. “How’s he doing?”
“Jeff, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Eh, he’s been better. Things are looking up now though thanks to Wade getting involved, so hopefully he’ll bounce back. I haven’t seen him since yesterday, and yesterday he was in a bit of a state,” Dylan said, shaking his head. “It’ll be OK in the end, though. He’s tough. So are you.”
“Thanks,” I said and the elevator dinged, its doors opening. The recording room looked much the same as it had last night, only this time there were only two chairs. To my surprise, Cameron was there.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked, sounding more put off than I’d meant to.
“He’s here to kind of smooth things over on our end. Cameron’s our most well-known guy, so it only makes sense that he appear with you,” Dylan said. Another tall man with dark brown hair stood with his back to us, chatting to someone I didn’t recognize.
As we approached, he turned around and I found myself face to face with a man with deep, soul-searching hazel eyes. He lit up at the sight of me and offered me a hand to shake.
“Kile Avery. So good to meet you. I only wish it were under different circumstances,” he said. “I’m Wade Barrett.”
“Nice to meet you too, and I agree about the circumstances,” I said, putting my hand in his and giving it a firm shake. He smiled at me.
“About that. Before we get started or do anything else, I’d like to apologize to you for all of this. What Lee did was absolutely unacceptable and not at all reflective of the culture we’re trying to establish here,” he said, releasing my hand.
“Thank you, though it’s really not necessary,” I said. He’d already apologized once before. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said.
“Maybe not, but as the President of NewsAmp, it doesn’t exactly make me look very good,” he said.
“Fair enough. So, what’s this all about?” I asked, gesturing around the room. “I thought I was just going to be making a short little statement. What’s with all of the pomp and circumstance?”
“You’re not the only one who needs to right things. We want to set the record straight about all of this, make sure that there’s no blood on any hands here at NewSpin,” he said. “Cameron’s here to help with that.” Cameron waved at me from his chair. I waved back tepidly.
“What exactly are you expecting me to say?”
“The truth. Whatever that means to you. We don’t know what happened between you and Jeff and what role Lee played in all of this, not really, so it’s up to you to tell us and the rest of the world,” he said. “We’d also like to open things up for a Q&A session from social media, if that’s OK with you. People have a lot of questions they want answered,” he continued, and my heart fluttered in my chest. I rarely got nervous, but I didn’t really like the sound of baring my heart to the entire world. The only way out is through, I told myself. It’d always been one of my favorite sayings. I took a deep breath.
“Is that too much?” Wade asked. “It’s totally up to you, I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do.”
“I can handle it. It won’t be easy, but I can do it,” I said, as much to assure him as myself.
“Alright. We’re all ready to go, but if you need a few minutes to prepare, take however much time you need,” he said.
“Thanks again, Wade. Really, I appreciate it,” I said and he smiled warmly at me before leaving me with Dylan and Cameron.
&nb
sp; “I’m good to go,” I told Dylan and he nodded before stepping away to stand next to Wade off-camera. Cameron and I took our seats and he shook my hand.
“Thanks for being here, Kile. We all owe you a lot for agreeing to do this. I know it’s not going to be easy, but I’ll give you whatever space you need to say what you need to say. The floor is pretty much all yours,” Cameron said. I still didn’t quite understand why everyone here was thanking me; I stood to gain much more from this than they did.
“Yeah, I’m glad to be here. It’s going to be fine.”
“Good. You ready?” he asked.
“As ready as I can be,” I sighed and he smirked.
“Alright. We’re good to go,” Cameron called to Wade, giving him a thumbs up. Wade signaled to the rest of the crew to get into position and they did so quickly. Before I knew it, Cameron and I both were wired with a microphone; a camera wheeled up close to Cameron and me and I felt the heat coming off of the lights that burst to life overhead. Wade counted down before pointing to Cameron to signal we were live.
“Good morning, everyone, and thank you again for joining us. I’m Cameron Edwards, NewSpin correspondent, and I’m here with Kile Avery to talk about and clarify some of the things you saw last night during our premiere event introducing For the Record. Kile, thanks for being here,” Cameron said, turning to me.
“Thanks for having me again,” I said and he smiled at me.
“So, last night was a bit of a doozy for all of us, huh?” he asked and I laughed.
“Yeah, I think that’s putting it lightly.”
“So, let’s not waste any time. Talk us through things. I think the audience at home has a lot of questions about what exactly happened,” he said. I took a deep breath and searched for the right words.
“It’s tangled, to say the least. I guess I should start at the beginning. The confrontation that Jeff Taylor and I had on his show on GNN was very much real. I’m sure there’s been speculation about that since last night,” I said and Cameron nodded, encouraging me on.
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