Facade

00 || intro

song : Romantic Homicide- d4vd
tw: mentions of gun violence & abuse
 
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She was always the little girl who dreamed of being something amazing. Something her parents could be proud of. And of course, she had the parents who told her that she could.

For a while, she had the most ideal childhood.

Alejandra Martinez, born to Mariana Martinez and her adoptive father, Manuel Rivera. Her parents called her Ally which, in their accents, sounded like Alé for short. You could pluck her life right out of an American Dream catalogue.

That is of course, if that existed.

She was close with both of her parents, who treated her as if she was their world. I guess you could say that she was. Their world I mean.

They did everything for her and worked hard to give her everything she ever wanted, even if she didn't want much.

Mariana was a psychiatrist and Manuel was a middle school teacher. While he was a first generation Puerto Rican, Mariana had moved from Colombia to New York when she was eighteen years old after finding out she was pregnant with her beloved daughter.

You can imagine upon her arrival that she developed that whole "immigrant American dream'' for her baby.

The two met two years after her coming to America and the birth of her little girl- their junior year of college to be precise.

There was nothing too special about their crappy, New York City community college until they met each other.

It was a typical, cliche, love story.

He first laid eyes on her when they were seated on the first day of their intro to philosophy class. He told Alé that when he saw her mom take her seat, right then and there, he was hooked.

She sat two seats in front of him to the left. He never really did well in school, and you could guess staring at her during class didn't help.

Then one day, during the beginning of the second semester, their professor recommended that he look into the peer tutoring program for him to get his grade up.

Could you guess who was there?

Of course you can.

So, she tutored him every Monday after classes. He told Alé that Mondays became his new favorite day of the week.

You can guess how that spiraled.

They spent more and more time together and eventually, fell in love.

Even upon finding out about Mariana's young daughter, Manuel never strayed and raised Alé with her as if she was his own.

They never even told their daughter about her real father. Blood meant nothing. Love meant everything. And they raised her with every bit of love they had for each other.

Now, you're probably thinking, "Where's the downfall?" "Where's the tragic twist in this plot?"

You're about to find out.

On Alé's tenth birthday, her mom took off work for them to celebrate her reaching double digits. Since it was her special day, she even let Alé skip school since it was also on a Friday.

Her dad wanted to take the day to celebrate with them, but he only had one day left to take off. He was already planning to use that day for his and Mariana's anniversary.

So that day, it was just Alé and her mom.

Since her birthday is in early December, they did something as cliche as they were; they went to Rockefeller Center to ice skate.