'𝐂𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐖' ᵍˡᵉᵉ

-𝒑𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒕

ROXANNE WOULD NEVER ADMIT IT OUT LOUD, especially not now because everyone's so political, but she never really had the desire to have a career. or a job.

she always took pride in being a realist- avoiding dreams she believed she couldn't achieve.

ever since she was young, she was told her desire to pursue the arts was foolish, that it wasn't a career path. so when she hit her teen years, she lost all interest in anything related. yet, roxanne never felt as if any other career fit her, and she kept it to herself.

despite her family's financial luxury, her home life was a mess. her father was a cheater, and ever since roxanne found out about his affairs when she was nine, she never saw him the same again. especially when he made her live with a guilty conscience for keeping the secret.

and because her father was both emotionally and physically unavailable, roxanne couldn't hold it against her mother for being shitty. her mom always seemed overwhelmed because of tony's more and more frequent "business trips" over the years.

however, carina kept her mouth shut and never complained about it to her husband. roxanne would remember sitting next to her on the floor, listening to her mother talk about her problems as she drank. the young girl always ended up carrying her mom to her room when the woman would finally calm down from her breakdown and/or pass out.

carina would wake up the next day, just to lavish with her luxurious items or host parties and left her kids to take care of themselves and each other. she did always keep the act of the "perfect upper east side mother" outside closed doors.

it was hard to fit in at first, as a hispanic family in an all-white neighborhood, but her parents mostly blended in by sucking up to their neighbors and inviting them over for brunch almost every sunday.

still though, living in the upper east side in manhattan had its advantages. sunday was the only day of the week when the perez family were forced to act like a family, and in roxanne's opinion, it felt nice, as fake as it might have been.

the young girl had always been more observant than her brother and figured out the lies that developed in her parents' marriage, even when her parents wouldn't recognize them themselves. dani and julian were too caught up in their own lives; they never seemed to notice the tension and the hostility between their parents whenever they were home together.

and when her family moved from manhattan to lima, roxanne tried everything to stay out of the house, not that her parents tried to act like a happy family in front of others as much anymore, and she focused on her own life; she became a cheerio, made new friends, joined new clubs, and worked harder for better grades.

she wanted to get through high school as easily as possible. because in high school, your social status is all that matters, and getting out of there to go to college was even more important.

and luckily for her, roxanne was at the top. for starters, she was co-captain of the cheerios, along with her best friend, quinn fabray, as well as the president of several other clubs and one of the top students in school.