Prologue
Prologue
Before the Burning
There is a photograph somewhere in my father’s study of a little girl in a yellow dress
She is laughing
Her hands are sticky from eating mangoes.
Her father is laughing too
The little girl has no idea that the man holding her built his success on the pain of other families.
She does not know that the gold around her wrist was paid for in silence
That the sampaguita in her hair grew in soil soaked with someone else’s grief
She still believes the world is soft
She still believes love is something you are born into and not something you have to bleed for
I am writing this so you understand
Before the fall
Before the boy with the loud voice and the gentle hands
Before the bus ride that smelled of diesel and rain and goodbye
Before I learned that the truth is a kind of knife you have to be willing to hold by the blade
I was that little girl in the yellow dress
And then one night I was not
One night I walked past my father’s office and I heard the rustle of money and the soft cruel laugh of a man I thought I knew
And the world tilted
And it never tilted back
What follows is not a confession
It is not a love story although there is love in it
It is not a political thriller although there is a country bleeding in the background of every page
It is the quiet record of a girl who learned how to breathe again
Who learned that some last names are cages
And some boys are not saviors but mirrors
And some truths are heavy enough to break a dynasty
If you are reading this
Then I survived
That is the only spoiler I will give you
Everything else
You will have to feel for yourself
— Ellie
