Memoirs of betrayal.

Whenever you are tempted to be silent, ask yourself whether that silence is the silence of fear.

Kyrii was as exotic and beautiful as her name. Head bent down in silence, people would glance as she passed. Pale-complexioned, raven-haired and blue-eyed, her Russo-Filipino ethnicity served to give her such striking looks.

No one really knew much about her. Whenever any of our teachers were late to class, my classmates and I could be counted on to gather into noisy groups while Kyrii seemed content to remain seated firmly in her place. Wordlessly, she would pass the time writing in a brown Cattleya notebook.

My boyfriend, Yordyn, had a crush on her during our freshman year. When he finally worked up the guts to sit next to her, he once tried to strike up a conversation.

“Hi, Kyrii! What are you doing?” He flashed his look-at-me-I’m-cute smile.

Kyrii took a moment to frown at him before she got back to her scribbling.

Chuckling nervously, Yordyn tried again. “You look really busy there, huh?”

In response, Kyrii raised her head and stared him straight in the eye. “You, whatever your name is, I don’t like you. Please go away,” she said in a tone so blunt that Yordyn made his leave and never got it into his head to bother her again.

But that was a long time ago. Now, everyone is caught up in excitement as graduation approaches. We were required to attend rehearsals, and it was during one of these rehearsals that I broke away from my group of friends to make an urgent trip to the ladies’ room.

Inside one of the cubicles, there was a familiar notebook lying on the floor. Thinking it might have been dropped accidentally by one of my classmates, I picked it up and placed it in my handbag as my best friend rushed in.

“Ashlen,” she said, “it’s almost time for your valedictorian’s speech!”

With those words, I forgot about the notebook for the rest of the afternoon.

Come late evening, I remembered about the notebook and unwittingly opened the first page. In bold black ink, the name “Kyrii Ivanovich” had me intrigued. Curiosity won over my sense of propriety and, in a few moments, I found myself flipping through her sheets to read her first entry…

February 28, 2000
Volgograd will always be home to me. If Papa was still alive I’m sure he would have wanted me to feel that way. Mama doesn’t want to go back to Russia. It is all because of that ugly Rico! I see the way they look at each other and it makes me sick.

Then a paragraph of indecipherable words followed and I scanned the pages for something else written in English. It was not long before I found what I was looking for – and more.

As time wore on, I became oblivious to the passage of time as revelations unfolded with every turn of a page. Kyrii’s father was almost 30 years older than her mother. Early in the year 2000, he died in his sleep. Kyrii’s mother then decided to return to her native Philippines.

Told that the relocation was only a temporary arrangement, Kyrii left reluctantly. Eventually, she realized that her mother had no intention of returning to Russia. Her mother ended up remarrying.

Rico, Kyrii’s stepfather, turned out to be a pervert of the worst kind. She hated him for the things he made her do, but hated herself all the more for being helpless to fight back. She grew to fear and resent other people, never finding in herself the strength to trust anyone else.

The first rays of sunshine were peeking through the clouds by the time I came to her tear-streaked final entry.

April 26, 2004
This had to end. I can’t take it anymore!

I didn’t tell anyone that I had Kyrii’s diary because I wanted to get the chance to talk to her first. Sadly, I never got that chance.

I assumed that we would see each other in our graduation ceremony but she never made an appearance. The day after graduation, there was an article in the local news. A Russo-Filipino teenager murdered her stepfather and then hanged herself.

Oh Kyrii, I am so sorry…