She Didn’t Fix Her Reputation. She Threw It Away. Chapter 31

She Didn’t Fix Her Reputation. She Threw It Away. Chapter 31

In the first semester of my senior year, I led the Reed debate team to victory at the National Collegiate Policy Debate Championship, broadcast live on C-SPAN.

I also won the award for Best Speaker.

It was the first major honor of my life that had absolutely nothing to do with the name Daphne Wells.

Julian was even more ecstatic than I was.

As the confetti rained down, he vaulted from the audience onto the stage and wrapped me in a huge hug.

“I knew it!” he shouted over the roar of the crowd. “Claire, I knew you could do it!”

Later that year, he and I both applied to doctoral programs at Oxford.

We were both awarded Rhodes Scholarships.

“When we get to Oxford, will I still get to hear you debate?” he asked me one evening, his voice soft.

“Of course,” I said, smiling. “Aren’t my brilliant arguments what you fell for in the first place?”

“Yes,” he said, his expression completely serious. “Always.”

We had been together for nearly two years.

He respected me. He protected me.

He loved my mind, my soul—the whole person that was Claire Novak, the woman who had been born in Portland.

He never felt the need to diminish me to feel bigger himself.

When I was up all night, wrestling with my thesis, he would quietly bring me a fresh pot of coffee.

He would argue with me about environmental policy until the early hours of the morning, and the next day, a neatly organized folder of counterarguments would appear on my desk.

He learned the funny little habits I had when I was deep in thought. When I grew quiet and distant, he didn’t get angry or demanding. He just gave me space, and waited.

Beckett had never bothered to learn any of those things.

Julian cherished them.

I was finally learning that real love wasn’t an exchange of assets.

It was two whole people, walking forward, side by side.