The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 303

Winning 

ANDREW’S POV: 

We waited in the hall with our respective teams while the judges discussed. 

Oliver was talking about something and I was listening with a portion of my attention while the larger portion was thinking about the debate and what had happened in it and what the strongest counter to Amelia’s closing would have been. 

I had not had one. 

This was not a comfortable feeling. I was not used to being in a debate and knowing that the other side had made a point I could not immediately answer. I had prepared for Amelia’s strongest arguments and I had thought I had covered them. But the promise versus instruction formulation was not something she had in her preparation that I had anticipated. She had made it in the moment. Which meant she had thought it on her feet in real time. 

I had not known she could do that at this level. 

I should have known and I was constructing one now, too late to use. If I had thought faster I could have said that a promise without rules to enforce it is just an intention, and intentions are not reliable enough to build a society on. I could have said that Rosa Parks’s feeling of injustice changed a rule because she operated within a legal framework that eventually required the rule to change, and that without that framework her feeling would have remained just a feeling. 

These were good rebuttals. They were too late. 

Amelia appeared at my elbow. 

AMELIA’S POV: 

The judges came back after twenty minutes. 

We went back to our seats. Mum and Dad were still in the fourth row and I found Mum’s eyes before I sat down and she gave me the small nod that meant she had seen everything and I had nothing to worry about, which was the nod I needed. 

The head judge stood and spoke about the quality of both teams. He said the standard had been genuinely exceptional for this age group. He said both teams had made arguments that demonstrated real intellectual maturity and that the decision had been close in more categories than was typical. 

I sat very still. 

“In the category of best individual speaker,” the judge said, “both the affirmative and the negative team produced exceptional contributions. The panel has awarded this category to the negative team’s closing speaker for a final argument that combined logical rigour with genuine persuasive force. Best individual speaker: Amelia Martinez.” 

I breathed. 

“In the category of best team argument, the affirmative team demonstrated exceptional structural coherence and the panel wishes to particularly commend the third speaker’s engagement with the opposing side’s strongest points. Best team argument: the affirmative.” 

So we had each won something. 

“However,” the judge said, “the overall debate result is determined by the team that most effectively advanced the motion or its negation taken as a whole. After careful deliberation, the panel awards the debate to the negative team.” 

My team won the debate. 

I sat there for a moment. 

+16 B 

Then I looked across the aisle. 

Andrew was looking at his table again. And then he looked up and he found me and he lifted one hand, just a small lift and it was not a wave or defeat. Just: I see you. 

I lifted mine back. 

“Power wearing a formal jacket,” I said. 

“Was that too much?” she said. 

“No,” I said. “It was very good. I did not have an answer to it in the moment.” 

She nodded. “Your third speaker argument,” she said. “The part about bad rules being reformed into good rules rather than replaced by chaos. I almost did not have an answer to that either.” 

“But you found one,” I said. 

“I thought about Grandma Mirada,” she said. “She did not follow the rules either. She just held onto the truth because she felt it deserved to exist.” 

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