Monica Gallegos remembers how at the start of the school year, in August, her daughter Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez came home from her first day of fourth grade at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and told her about a special person.

The boy’s name was Xavier James Lopez and Rodriguez told her mother that he dressed and smelled “really nice.”

As time went on, the two fourth-graders got their parents to agree to set up play dates. The families regularly gathered for barbeques on the weekends, where the kids would enjoy playing.

In an interview with ABC News, Gallegos said she and Lopez’s mother Felicha Martinez found out that their kids would text each other “I love you” before going to bed at night.

“Me and Felicha would laugh, like, ‘How do y’all know about love?'” Rodriguez’s mother told the outlet.

Martinez eventually gave Rodriguez a necklace with Lopez’s photo on it. She would wear it to all of his little league games. Any time it wasn’t being worn, her family shared that it was safely tucked away in her backpack.

Sources say on the day of the deadly shooting, an end-of-the-year award show happened that morning. Lopez, proud to have made the honor roll, happily took photos with Rodriguez. After Martinez snapped a picture of the two, the kids went back to class.

About an hour later, a gunman entered the Uvalde school armed with two assault rifles and killed 21 people, including the two fourth-graders. Of the victims, there were 19 kids and two teachers.

A third teacher was wounded in the attack but survived. He stated that his students were watching a movie after the award ceremony when the shooting happened.

Lopez’s funeral was yesterday (June 7). Rodriguez was laid to rest today (June 8). Their families will have the 10-year-olds buried next to each other.