18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBNAwFtLxKE
Years had passed.
Not enough to erase, but enough to rebuild.
Ruthie Villanueva sat onstage before a modest crowd in a dim-lit book café. Shelves curled around them like safe arms. The spotlight caught her softened features—no longer sharp with rage, but calm with clarity.
Beside her sat Jay. Greying a little, smile still boyish. He held her hand like a quiet promise.
A sign behind them read:
BOOK LAUNCH: “The Girl They Called A Villain” by RUTH VILLANUEVA
“I wrote this book,” she began, “not to make you like me.”
Soft chuckles rippled through the crowd.
“I wrote it because… silence nearly killed me. And I know it’s killing others.”
Someone in the audience—a teacher, maybe—raised a hand. “Ms. Villanueva… what changed you? From angry to—well—this?”
She thought for a second.
“I realized I didn’t want to burn the world down anymore. I just wanted to stop bleeding.”
The first chapter was titled: The First Time I Was Called a Liar.
The last was: When I Stopped Asking for Permission to Speak.
Her speeches now reached university halls, underground shelters, even prisons. She was no longer a secret. She was a survivor with a spine.
“Do you forgive the people who wronged you?” another reader asked.
Ruthie smiled. “Some of them, yes. But not all apologies are meant to be accepted. And not all forgiveness requires a reunion.”
Jay, beside her, squeezed her hand gently.
“Hindi ko gusto maging simbolo,” she told one crowd during a school forum. “Ginusto ko lang mabuhay. Magsabi ng totoo. ‘Yun lang.”
And somehow, that made her everything she never set out to be—an example.
A truth-teller.
A voice that wouldn’t die.
They’d moved to a quieter city. Bought a house with a garden. Jay taught literature at a nearby college. Ruthie spent her mornings in a small office filled with post-it notes and journals, writing things that no longer asked for revenge—only recognition.
“Hindi lahat ng villains ay masama,” she wrote once. “Minsan sila lang ‘yung unang nagsabi ng totoo.”
One evening, while signing books in a high school auditorium, a teenage girl approached with trembling hands.
“Miss Ruth… ikaw ang dahilan kung bakit ako naglakas loob.”
“Para saan?”
“Para umalis. Para magsumbong. Para mabuhay.”
Ruthie didn’t answer. She just held the girl, long and quiet, like someone who understood every word left unsaid.
That night, as Jay poured her tea, he asked:
“Do you ever miss who you were before all of this?”
She smiled. “No. Because I finally like who I’ve become.”
The last page of her book wasn’t a conclusion. It was a question:
“If the villain tells the truth… who do you believe?”
In that same café where her book was launched, her photo now hung beside other writers.
Below her framed portrait, someone had scribbled in permanent ink:
We didn’t believe her then.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVPJBhLgJov
But we do now.
Ruthie sometimes still woke up from dreams where she was drowning in rumors.
But when she’d open her eyes, Jay would be there, already making coffee. The world didn’t need to be perfect. It just needed to be real.
“Wala ka nang gustong patunayan?” he asked her once while watching the sunset from their garden.
“Wala na. Lahat ng kailangan kong sabihin… nasabi ko na.”
He looked at her, eyes tender. “You’re not a villain, Ruth.”
“I know,” she whispered, and this time, she didn’t cry.
Because believing herself had always been the hardest part.
But she did now.
And that made all the difference.
END
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