Chapter 366: The Humiliation and the Oath
The chill that had emanated from Ana Lucía in the library lingered around Ethan for the rest of the day, a fog he couldn't dispel. Her abrupt departure, the refusal to meet his eyes—it felt like a door he thought was open had been gently but firmly closed. He replayed their last interaction, searching for a misstep, a careless word, but found nothing. The success of their study group, the easy camaraderie they’d built, felt suddenly fragile. He had seen the way she looked at him before she left: not with her usual quiet warmth, but with a confused, almost wounded expression.
The solution, for now, was to give her space. He remembered her initial skittishness, how long it had taken for her to trust him enough to share a simple literary analysis. He would not push. He would be patient. He clung to the hope that whatever this was, it would pass.
The opportunity for a distraction came in their Political Science class the next morning. The topic was the ethical implications of corporate lobbying, and the professor, a fervent believer in dialectical learning, had organized a formal debate. By chance, or perhaps by the professor’s design, the teams were divided along clear lines: Ethan found himself leading the affirmative, while Andrés was the anchor for the negative.
Andrés, still seething from his previous humiliations and buoyed by his perceived social victory over Julia, saw this as his chance for a public reconquest. He swaggered to the podium, flashing a confident smile at his friends.
—The argument is simple, —Andrés began, his voice projecting across the room. —Corporations are the engines of our economy. Lobbying is merely their way of ensuring their voice, the voice of progress and job creation, is heard in the halls of power. It’s a fundamental right in a free-market democracy. To restrict it is to restrict economic freedom itself.
It was a populist, emotionally charged argument, light on substance but heavy on rhetoric. His supporters nodded along.
Then it was Ethan’s turn. He walked to the podium with a calm that contrasted sharply with Andrés’s theatrics. He didn’t smile. He simply placed his notes down and looked at the audience.
—My opponent confuses voice with volume, —Ethan began, his voice quiet but cutting through the room with its clarity. —He speaks of the ‘voice of progress.’ But is it progress when a single corporate voice, amplified by millions of dollars, can drown out the voices of millions of citizens? That isn't a conversation; it's a monopoly on influence.
Andrés’s smirk tightened.
Ethan continued, dismantling Andrés’s argument piece by piece with surgical precision. He cited specific cases where lobbying had led to environmental deregulation and consumer harm. He drew a stark analogy. —If in a town hall, one person has a megaphone and everyone else can only whisper, is that a free and fair debate? Or is it the tyranny of the loudest? Lobbying, in its current form, isn't about ensuring a voice; it's about purchasing a megaphone to ensure no other voices are heard. It doesn't promote freedom; it creates an oligarchy.
He wasn’t just arguing; he was educating, his intellect a sharp blade against Andrés’s blunt force. When Andrés tried to counter, sputtering about "job killers" and "government overreach," Ethan calmly responded with data on market stability and long-term economic health, making Andrés’s points sound simplistic and juvenile.
The coup de grâce came during the rebuttal. Flustered and angry, Andrés misquoted a statistic. It was a small error, but Ethan pounced on it with the reflexes of a predator.
—I believe my opponent is referring to the 2018 study from the Brookings Institution, —Ethan interjected smoothly, not waiting for his turn. —But if he’d read beyond the abstract, he’d know that study specifically cautions against the interpretation he’s suggesting. In fact, on page forty-seven, it concludes that the correlation he’s citing is spurious at best. It’s a common mistake when one relies on summaries rather than primary sources.
The room fell utterly silent. Ethan hadn’t just corrected him; he had publicly exposed him as lazy, unprepared, and intellectually dishonest. The humiliation was complete and utter. Andrés stood there, his face flushing a deep, mottled red, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. He had been not just beaten, but intellectually eviscerated in front of the entire class, and most importantly, in front of Julia, who was watching with wide, surprised eyes.
The professor, hiding a smile, declared Ethan’s team the winner.
As the class dismissed, a storm of fury raged behind Andrés’s eyes. The slights—the ignored taunts, the stolen spotlight in economics, the quiet confidence that seemed to judge him—all coalesced into a white-hot core of hatred. Ethan Blackwell, the quiet, unassuming nobody, had made him a laughingstock. Again.
He caught up with Ethan just outside the door, grabbing his arm roughly. —You think you’re so smart, don’t you? —he hissed, his voice trembling with rage. —You think you can just embarrass me and walk away?
Ethan calmly removed his arm from Andrés’s grip, his expression one of cold disdain. —I didn’t embarrass you, Andrés. You did that yourself by being unprepared. Now, if you’ll excuse me.
The dismissal was more infuriating than any insult. As Ethan walked away, Andrés stood seething, his breath coming in short gasps. He saw Daniela approaching, her expression unreadable.
—He’s going to pay for that, —Andrés spat, his voice a low, venomous promise. —I don’t care how. I don’t care what it takes. That smug, self-righteous son of a bitch is going to regret ever crossing me. This isn’t over. This is just the beginning.
He swore it to himself, a sacred oath of vengeance. The problem of Ethan’s growing confidence and his bond with Ana Lucía had just been escalated to a personal war. And Andrés, humiliated and furious, was now a declared enemy with a single, burning purpose: to make Ethan Blackwell fall.