From the start, Marlene Halliwell's middle name was trouble with a capitol T.
With an angelic smile and her father's ability to schmooze, she bounced between being the perfect little girl her mother always wanted and a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Dance, piano lessons, and playing dress up took a backseat as she entered her teens and began to rebel, something compounded by her mother's suicide when she was just 15.
The fact that she managed to graduate high school was nothing short of a miracle and while most parents would have been happy their child pursued higher education after a rebellious start, Grayson Halliwell was verbally disappointed his daughter chose to flex her creativity by way of a career in design rather than a future taking over the family medical practice.
Leaving trips to the police station requiring her father's connections to skip out on punishment behind her, Marly switched slumming around with the wrong crowd for parties and new adventures throughout college. Wracking
up stamps in her passport and thousands of frequent flyer miles, she took in each new city she visited as potential inspiration for projects to come. After meeting Doug in 2008, the pair joined together to create a contracting and design business that took off with a running start. Aside from her business venture with Doug, Marly coupled with Interior Motives doing freelance work that kept her busy enough to (mostly) stay out of trouble.
Her thriving public life covered up a private life spiraling out of control. Underneath her aspirations of being successful (a loaded word she still isn't sure she's managed to embody fully) late nights of drinking until she blacked out, experimenting with illicit substances, and hooking up with males and females alike caught up with her in the spring of 2013.
Still dealing with the death of her mother and grandfather, a rocky relationship with her father, and feeling unfulfilled in almost every area of her life left her at rock bottom staring up for a speck of light.
The results of a single test smacked her in the face with reality, pushing her to make a choice between being destructive or the talented young woman she could potentially be. Clawing her way back out with the help of a group of saviors and a handle on her drinking, Marly's closing 2013 on the highest note of her life.
2014 brings an exciting career change, a love life filled with potential adventures, a peapod coming in the fall, strengthening relationships, and question marks she's not eager to unravel just yet.