Love Happens: The Story of Stella and Jose

Jose's Backstory

As a child Jose had both parents. They had a wonderful marriage, and it seemed to be going well. They rarely fought or had arguments, and when Jose came into their lives they were over the moon. It was their first child and for Mr. Velazquez it was a son to teach how to be a boxer and play sports with.

As Jose grew older his parents marriage grew apart. His mother Annabelle would cry in fear of his father, as he started to abuse her because he lost his job at the nearby factory. He would go get drunk at the local bar, and following it, he took his anger and frustration out on his wife.

He would beat and leave horrible bruises on her body. And didn't care one bit that he was doing this. He even burned her skin with his lighter. The only time that he wasn't like that was when he was sober. But once he got a sip of any kind of alcohol he was a different person. He let out all the bottled up anger that he had welled deep inside of him.

Jose, of course, couldn'tt do anything since he was just a little boy. He had to watch his mother get beaten and burned. And as a result, he'd have horrible nightmares of his father abusing his mother until she screamed out for help. He couldn't handle the dreams and would cry himslelf to sleep, at times.

As the years passed, the abuse became worse for his mother, who was now in filled with fear. She would now only clean and cook and pick Jose up from school. She would only go to the supermarket if needed. But other then that she would stay home, and mostly cower in fear.

Jose couldn't bare to see his mother this way, one bit. He could see the fear in her eyes and also hear the internal and external cries for help. He could tell that she wasn't the same anymore at all and that it was killing her inside. She couldn't smile anymore or laugh, and she didn't. All she did was stay quite and cook and clean the whole day. There wasn't any emotion but fear in her now, as all of the happiness was drained out of her. He could tell that the man, he called his father, was the cause of all of the fear, pain and despair that his mother was now living every day. That the abuse that he would do to her was like a game to him, that he didn't care that he was hurting her and breaking her slowly inside, that he didn't care if she was in pain or suffering or that he was hurting her at all.

So, Jose made a promise to stop him and his abuse to her, one day.

Years past, and Jose was now a teen and he was now very different. He had changed a lot from being that innocent little boy that he was. At the start of his freshmen year of high school he learned not to trust so many people. The reasons being that he had, recently, lost two people that were very important to him.

The first, was a childhood friend named Jason Diaz that Jose had known basically known all of his life. They met in kindergarten and clicked instantly ever since that day. They were very close and they told each other everything. They were the two J-Brothers at school since they had a brotherly connection, since they went through thick and thin together and were always there for one another.

Jose would tell Jason about the abuse that his father would do his mother, and how he could tell she wasn't the same person anymore. Jason would always tell Jose that things would get better. That one day Jose's dad would need to open his eyes and see that what he was doing was wrong. Also, that his mother would get better and that she would be back to being her same as before.

Jose would always thank Jason for his kind words.

The freshmen year went on, but what Jose didn't know was that Jason was toying with him. He would go and tell people Jose's family situation. That Jose wasn't as tough as he seemed, which resulted in people laughing. People that really couldn't believe it.

Jose never found out about any of it, until one day after school, right after football practice. He was just leaving the locker room when he heard Jason talking, and he hearing his name. He decied to ease drop and see what he was taking about.