Marley knows something is up when she returns home from school on an unusually sunny day in April to find her mother sitting at the kitchen table looking excitedly at a stark white envelope on the table in front of her.

Looking more closely at the offending envelope, she notices the large yellow "M" in the corner and her heart speeds up.

This was it. She'd already been accepted to the 2 in-state schools she'd applied to; this was the big one, the one she'd been holding out hope for, the school she'd fallen in love with the moment she stepped foot on the campus.

Suddenly she thought back to all of the moments that had led her here. Had it really been 2 years ago that she'd asked Blaine for piano lessons? It felt so long ago – and yet also as if it had only been last week.

It was only later that evening - after Mr. Schuester had turned her idea to do original songs down (again) – that she'd realized she'd only written the music for the lyrical parts, she didn't know enough piano to confidently write the music for any accompaniment.

So it was Blaine that she had on her radar the entire next day, constantly trying to catch him in the halls between classes, keeping her eyes peeled for his gel-covered head, hoping to be able to catch him alone for a moment, but it wasn't until lunch came that she finally got her chance.

Seeing her target at his locker down the hall, Marley practically ran towards him.

"Blaine!"

"Oh! Hey, Marley. What's up?" he answered, clearly a little startled.

"I need you to help me," she answered, then, realizing how serious she'd sounded, added, "with my music."

Looking a little taken-aback by the girl's sudden request he blinked a few times, but then smiled and nodded. "I'd love to help. What do you need?"

For the next week, Blaine and Marley met every evening in the choir room after glee rehearsal to flesh out the accompaniments to a few of her songs.

It was during one of these music-writing sessions that Marley asked the question that started everything.

Marley sat down nervously beside Blaine on the piano bench as he spread out a few sheets of staff paper on the stand in front of him. "Blaine, how many instruments can you play?"

"Two - well, three, actually: piano, violin and guitar – but mostly piano and guitar," he answered easily. "Why?"

"Have you ever taught anyone else to play an instrument before?"

"Well, I started teaching a kid on my street to play piano a year or so ago, but he quit, so…" he answered, trailing off and cringing.

"Would you maybe be willing to teach me to play piano? My grandpa taught me some when I was little but when he died – it must be almost 5 years ago, now – I stopped playing, and I really want – well, need, really - to get back into it."

"I'd love to. Music is such an amazing thing and I wish I had more opportunity to play, but with school and student council and glee, I have so little time to just play, ya know?" he rambled, then shook his head a little and laughed. "I'd love to teach you piano, Marley."

"You mean it?" Marley replied, a little surprised.

"Of course," Blaine said, smiling brightly and nudging her shoulder.

A month later, Marley'd memorized the accompaniments for all three of the songs that she and Blaine wrote together, had started working on learning a few unoriginal songs to suggest for glee, and had been staying in the choir room to practice so late into the evening that the janitors have had to kick her out on more than one occasion.

Marley's sophomore year ended with music coming at her from every direction. She got a job at Between The Sheets – the local sheet music and instrument store - where not only could she make money so she could finally start paying Blaine for his amazing efforts to help and teach her, but she could be around music and instruments all the time and practice on every piano in the place during her break.

New Directions didn't stay with original songs for Nationals but Marley was more than okay with that, happy to focus on her solo part in their group number and trying not to think about how Blaine would be leaving her when the summer ended.

Upon checking the mail box after her first day of her junior year, Marley was greeted with so many college brochures that she wasn't sure how half of them had even found their way to her - there were some from as far away as Connecticut. One did stand out to her, though. She'd heard about it before - that it had a reputation as a great school – and, looking through the brochure in her bedroom (with the rest of the brochures in a stack on her desk nearby), she saw noticed the friendly-looking campus, and the dorms, and the music school.

She instantly took the cell phone from her pocket and speed-dialed Blaine.

"Hey Marley! Long time no speak, huh? How long has it been, at least a few months? Anyway, how are you?" he greeted cheerfully.

"I'm great, actually! Um, listen, I know you're studying music education at NYU—," she began.

"Thanks to you, you know! I would never have ever thought seriously about teaching until you asked me to teach you piano. I really do have you to thank, Mar."

"Well, you're welcome," she replied, giggling at all of the praise.

"Anyway, you were saying?" Blaine said, leading her back to her original point.

"Right! Um, I just got like, a ton of college brochures in the mail but this one really stood out and I'm wondering if you've heard anything about it – good or bad," she explained, suddenly nervous.

"Sure thing! What's the school? You know NYU has a great music program, but New York isn't necessarily for everyone, and it is pretty expensive, and— Blaine, let the girl speak! For goodness sakes!" she heard Kurt chime in over Blaine's rambling. "Sorry. I got excited. You talk. Sorry."

Marley giggled at Blaine's springy enthusiasm and then continued. Consulting the in-depth brochure, she and Blaine discussed the best scholarship options for out-of-state students, details of different concentrations within the music department, and what the best way would be to break the idea to her mom who Marley knew would most likely not be excited about her only child moving so far away.

The rest of the first week back to school was extremely chaotic. Teachers were already warning students about the dangers of over-taxing themselves when there were good grades to get, ACTs and SATs to take, and extracurricular to involve themselves in. Needless to say, Marley was exhausted by lunchtime.

But with lunchtime came not only an extra brownie (slipped to her by her mother in the lunch line), but also an offer she couldn't resist.

An Asian girl that she recognized from the school jazz band – a guitarist - tapped her on the shoulder when she sat down to eat with her fellow ND members. The girl was about Marley's height, with pretty dip-dyed and curled black hair. She wore what Marley could only describe as being "rock star hipster" style clothes – black leggings with a bright band tee with cut-off sleeves and a jean jacket.

"Hey. I'm Audrey. We know each other from some of the glee club rehearsals last year," the girl said – but phrased the last part as a question, obviously doubting that Marley would remember her.

"Yeah, I know who you are," Marley answers, smiling brightly.

"Cool," Audrey replied, visibly relaxing. "Um, Blaine told me about you learning piano and I was wondering if maybe you'd want to mess around with me and some of the band kids some time. You know, just playing random music and hanging out. I mean, only if you want to."

And that was how Marley joined a band her junior year. She, Audrey, and two other band girls – Rena, a tomboyish percussionist, and Jessie, a stereotypically nerdy bass player – started spending long nights together just messing around with their instruments, playing bits of songs that they knew and throwing music suggestions at each other. By Christmas break, they'd decided that they should make something of their obvious chemistry, budding talent, and mutual interest in pop and rock music. And thus, The Band XX was born.

Marley still spent most of her musical energy on glee club, and most of her time with her glee club friends, but she couldn't deny that The Band was definitely broadening her horizons. She felt like she was finally on the path to what she wanted to do.

Blaine and Kurt came in from New York City to watch The Band XX's first gig – Unique's 17th birthday. Blaine was visibly thrilled to see Marley have learned so much in such a short span of time. Marley had to admit that she, herself, was a bit surprised at the ease with which she'd managed to become reasonably proficient at the complicated instrument.

During the week following their first gig, Marley started noticing herself side-eying the guitar section of Between The Sheets while at work. Eventually she gave in and asked Audrey if she knew anyone who could teach her to play. Unable to find anyone at school who felt confident enough to teach her – she'd asked Jake, Jessie (who played regular guitar as well as bass), Mr. Schue, and several people online, but no one could recommend anyone near enough to her to help – she decided to just teach herself.

It was at that point that Marley started to really feel like a musician. How much more musician-y could one get than to teach yourself to play a new instrument? So, armed with her current knowledge of piano and musical notation, some help from Jake (to make sure she was at least getting the general mechanics of playing alright), a few books from Between The Sheets, and the birthday gift from Jessie of a used acoustic guitar (one she'd replaced over the holiday break), Marley began teaching herself guitar.

After a few months of very late nights of practice, Marley finally felt ready to be the third guitar for XX. The first song she played lead guitar - along with singing lead vocals - for was a cover of Charlene Kaye's "Forever Is A Long Time" which she and the band learned to play at her request just before she decided to tearfully and apologetically break up with Jake.

With all of the time and energy Marley had been putting into learning guitar and making music with XX, many expected her involvement in New Directions and her GPA to decrease, but that wasn't the case.

During her junior year, not only did Marley try to step up and be more of a leader to New Directions, she also took a page out of Finn's book and tried (once again) to make Mr. Schuester see how much better New Directions was when everyone got a chance to show their talent. Under Marley and Unique's co-captaincy, Marley liked to think that that goal was finally achieved for good.

Overall, Marley felt that her junior was a success. She now felt very confident playing piano, was getting much better at guitar, sang almost all of the lead vocals for the band that she'd helped create, won Nationals with the New Directions for the second year in a row, had a decently-paying part-time job, and had maintained at least a 3.6 GPA the entire year.

Senior year started in a much calmer fashion than the previous year had. She met went to class, spent her lunch with New Directions, Rena, and Audrey (Jessie had graduated which meant that the Band would soon have to go looking for a new bassist), and made plans with people for later in the week (before glee rehearsals and band practices started up again).

Upon getting home, though, Marley was suddenly hit with the realization that she was graduating this year – not that she hadn't thought of it before, it was just that it had never felt so close before. She had mentioned schools to her mom before but had yet to receive any real approval for her idea to go to an out-of-state school.

Over a free weekend in October, however, after some serious persuading done by the university's extensive website, Blaine, and even Mr. Schuester, Mrs. Rose joined Marley on a plane headed for her new first-choice school. Marley brought a whole bag of folders and pens and paper to make notes on as she got every single one of her questions answered. By the end of the 3-day excursion, she'd finally convinced her mom to let her at least apply to the school she'd so madly fallen for.

The rest of her senior year went along about the same way as her junior year had. She single-handedly captained (since Unique had graduated the previous year) and performed with New Directions, continued working at Between The Sheets (saving money for a keyboard and college tuition), playing more covers with the Band (they had finally found a freshman girl to replace Jessie on bass), doing homework, taking tests, and trying really hard not to develop "senior-itis".

The only thing that really changed was the music. With the help of her fellow band members, Marley was quickly expanding her taste in music past anything she had ever expected – now listening to anything from country to techno – and trying to incorporate as much of it as possible into the material she was now writing herself. She still wasn't all that thrilled with her lyric-writing skills, but figured that that sort of thing came from more practice than had been required for the now-seemingly-simple mechanics of fingering piano keys and picking out chords on her guitar.

By April, all of the college-bound seniors were waiting anxiously for school decision letters to arrive. Marley ended up applying to four schools – 2 in Ohio and 2 out of state - but not too much attention could be paid to trivial things like college careers when there were still assignments to finish for nagging teachers, band rehearsals that lasted well into the night, annoying customers to deal with at work, and – of course – a glee club to help lead to Nationals for its fourth consecutive year.

Finally, on the first at-least-10-degrees-above-freezing day since Thanksgiving, Marley came home to find her mom sitting at the kitchen table with a stark white envelope sitting threateningly on the table in front of her. This was the moment Marley had been both dreading and anticipating for what felt like her whole life. She'd already been accepted to both Ohio schools and this letter would determine whether the fourth school would even matter.

Marley approaches the envelope slowly, as if it might bite her if she gets too close, her mom watching her with an excited expression.

"Oh my god. Is that-? Oh my god. What do I do, Mom, what do I do?" Marley rambles, growing increasingly more anxious.

"Open it, Mar," her mom answers calmly, handing her daughter the offending envelope.

"I can't. I- I can't. Crap. What if I didn't get in? What if I did?Mom, what do I do?"

"Just open it. You'll never know if you don't," Mrs. Rose replies simply.

Flipping the envelope over, Marley takes a deep breath. She wedges her thumb under the edge of the top flap and rips it, then, after a beat, continues along the top of the envelope, exposing the paper inside.

Taking another unsteady breath, she takes out the neatly-folded paper and carefully unfolds it, trying not to read any of the words on it.

"Marley, just read the darned thing!"

Hesitantly, and with her heart beating as if she'd just finished a marathon, Marley looks down at the paper in her hands.

Marley:

CONGRATULATIONS! – You're IN!

You've been admitted to the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance for Fall 2015.

She swallows hard, trying to stop the tears forming in her eyes, but it's no use.

"I got in," she mutters thickly just as the tears spill over.

Her mom practically squealed at the news, pulling her into a near-bone-crushing hug. After several minutes of freaking out, and crying, and freaking out some more, Marley realized that she had a lot of people she had to share this news with. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, wiped the tears from her face, and after a half-second of thinking, grinning, called Blaine first, her first real music teacher.