DISCLAIMER: Glee shall never be mine. Therefore I should probably stop doing these.

A few weeks after prom, Marley was sitting on her bed, brushing through her smooth hair as the music on her iPod blasted through the room. The songs were different to the image she had made others think of her - she despised chart music. She felt as if every dubbed track was as nauseating as the next, and she believed that it didn't even sound like music at all. For Marley Rose, music had to touch you to make you believe in the true lyrics; it had to have a meaning and the lyrics had to be... poetic. Of course, Marley didn't want every track on her playlist to be philosophical and she loved pop too, but she believed that music should touch you at least. Make you feel some sort of adrenaline.

These songs she listened to would never make it past her bedroom walls, though. She wanted to keep it to herself; it was one thing that she could keep from the world. Sighing in contentment as she was surrounded by her music, she brushed her hair so it was down and crawled into her attire for the day - it was the weekend at last. Jake was due to come over, but Marley could care less - he was slowly scratching away the charm he first had and it became a routine to have to rip him off her body for just a few seconds. Marley had to mask her feelings, of course, but it was aching her when Jake showed her off to his friends... she was tired of being nothing more than a trophy or a toy for him to play with.

Marley slid her laptop onto the bed as she logged onto Facebook. As usual, the storm of requests and mentions flooded through to her, but as she was scrolling through her feed, she felt an idea painfully gnawing and teasing at her head. Without thinking, she began hurriedly typing Ryder's name into the search box as if it were a spy mission and found herself scanning his profile. Something there stunned her.

'In a relationship with Katie Fitzgerald.'

As she scrolled further and further down, she saw posts that they had written to each other, about each other... all starting from 2 weeks ago and continuing from there. Katie was very pretty and had eyes that reminded the brunette of her own and Marley slammed her laptop down in defeat. He had gotten over her? She thought that maybe her prank and her talking to him may have left him still devastated, but apparently not. The fact that stung her a lot wasn't this, though; it was that she, contrary to what she had told herself she believed, admired their relationship. They seemed cute, and their relationship seemed healthy. A lot healthier than any relationship she had ever had - her and Jake included.

An hour later, the brunette found herself snuggling up to her boyfriend of 1 month on her bed, watching a movie. It was around a third of the way through when Jake played his usual cards and began to drop subtle hints. He began slow, kissing down Marley's face, but soon, the girl had to keep pushing him away. After three attempts of Jake trying to woo Marley, she finally did more to stop the boy. Marley quickly untangled herself from Jake's grasp in a nanosecond and crossed her arms. "Jake... stop, please, babe..."

Jake looked at her in disbelief. "Um... why?"

"Because I," Marley began, trying to grasp her trail of thought. "I don't want to have sex with you, okay?"

Jake chuckled and shook his head, seeing his girlfriend's plead as a hilarious joke. "And what's your reason this time?"

"I..." Marley's eyes darted around the room until she caught sight of a box of tampons peeking behind her bathroom door. "I have my period."

Jake looked at her with a furrowed brow. "You said that last week." he snarled at her, obviously irritated.

"Okay, fine." Marley groaned. "I shouldn't have to have a reason, okay? No means no-"

"What the hell happened to you?" Jake yelled at her, chuckling humourlessly. "Something after that stupid prom changed you. You used to be this sexy thing that would hop onto my lap whenever I felt down and-"

"And what? Now I have feelings? Like now I'm an actual person?! You're a jerk, did you know that?" Marley stormed off, accidentally kicking her school bag over in the process. Because of this, a piece of paper came out that she didn't want anyone to see, and she froze in her footsteps.

"What's this?" Jake spat at her as he picked up the piece of paper.

"M-My algebra test." Marley found herself stuttering. No one was supposed to find that.

Jake scanned the paper before smirking at the brunette before him. "Wow, you got an A. You're a stuck-up bitch and a dork."

Marley froze once again, this time in shock and fury, trying her best to hold back the tears threatening to spill from her now-glossy eyes. She bit her lip to conceal its quivering before muttering. "Out."

"What?"

"Out! Get out of my damn house right now. I've had enough of your antics!" Marley yelled as he smirked, pulling his hands up in surrender.

"Woah, the nerd has attitude-"

"Shut up and get the hell out of my house, okay?!"

"Woah, Mona-"

"It's Marley!" The girl yelled so loudly a sharp pain shook through her throat. After a while, Jake obliged on exiting the house.

'What have I done? Why the hell did I have to do that?' Marley wiped her eyes and winced as she curled up into a ball on her bed and cried out all of the pain she had felt with Jake. She cried out all of their difficulties as if she could forget them; as if she could forget the graphic terms he used and how he showed her off like a trophy. People would never see how their perfect relationship was anything but perfect - part of her seemed to think that at the prom those weeks ago, as Ryder sang to her and later spoke to her, he might've seen the true them. Not the way others saw them - he saw through their smiles and noticed that the couple's relationship was drenched with imperfections.

Hey, I updated a bit sooner! Sorry, this chapter kind of sucks - it even makes me cringe. It's a bit of a filler chapter and it's very short but I have quite a lot going on in the next week or so, therefore I thought I'd update sooner rather than later. Plus, the next chapter is Nationals, I think!

Jarley is on the rocks, huh? But Ryder's now in a relationship… for the record, Katie is real in this fanfiction and is a real person whom Ryder actually met in person etc.

Also, sorry for any grammar/punctuation mistakes – I'm listening to Panic! At the Disco's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out album while I edit this. Gosh, I love them so much – and I got tickets to see them in May! So excited :D

Until next time,

-Beth :P