Lie to me

"Do you love her?"

Pause. Silence. "Who?"

He sighed wearily, the ghosts of a thousand traumas sitting on his shoulder, "You know who I'm talking about."

"No, Zach, I don't," She tried to maintain an air of confusion but her voice was tinged with anger. Or was it fear? She didn't know why she was lying, what purpose it served her. She knew the boy sitting by her side didn't believe her. If that was because he was overly perceptive or because she was a bad liar, she wasn't sure but she knew that he definitely wasn't buying her feigned ignorance.

They sat in the hazy afternoon quietly, Bree almost aching to say something, anything about Zach's suspicions until she remembered she was the woman who looked to the sun and denied what she saw there. She was the person who would repress until she could repress no more... yet with Lynette, who made her heart flutter in the adolescent way that she had almost forgotten, she wanted none of that. It was reminded her of high school, with Billy Allen [straightlaced quarterback] with whom she linked arms at every lunch just for the pure joy that she had, Bree believed, found someone to love and that loved her back. Of course that relationship ended two weeks later after he cheated with Laura Goldberg after remedial algebra, but all she could think about was how she wanted to walk down Wisteria Lane with Lynette's hand in her own and to just let everyone realise.

"Is that why Mr Scavo left?" He asks and she doesn't know. Lynette doesn't talk about that, won't talk about that, not yet. Whenever Bree presses the question, Lynette distracts her with a searing kiss and all talk of husbands and lives they no longer have is forgotten. They fall to the bed, under the covers and questions like that don't matter to Bree anymore.

She turned to look at Zach, with his thick rimmed glasses and dorky exterior that held a heart of tragedies and confusion that she could not comprehend, who would neither judge or be repulsed, and realised the reasoning behind pretending had gone. There was no use telling herself that the facade of pure friendship [or even pure sex] was real anymore because she knew that it wasn't. She had looked in that mirror in her hallway, with the eyes of her family bearing down from saccharine photos hanging oh-so symetrically on the wall, and she had admitted to herself that she loved Lynette. Screwed-up, repressed, dysfunctional love but love it was nonetheless. The flutter in her stomach, the wringing of the hands, the expectant heart were all so obviously symptomatic of something far deeper; she was not a naive high school sophomore anymore. And she wasn't losing Lynette to anybody: be it Laura Goldberg or her own neuroses.

A car roused Bree from her thoughts, and she looked up to see Lynette's SUV passing by, the driver unaware she was being watched. She looked almost peaceful, despite the rowdy children in the backseat, already causing a ruckus. The car passed by and zoomed down Wisteria Lane, no doubt late for nursery or school or yoga or one of the million other activities Lynette Scavo juggled, sometimes less than successfully. As Bree's sight of the tail lights faded, she sighed at the impossibility of unconventional love. The gossip, the rumours and the looks would be just too much. Before Lynette, she would have been one of them, raising an eyebrow and trying desperately to hide her disdain. The Gods had a cruel sense of humour.

"Zach?"

"Mm?" He murmured, seemingly caught in a world of his own. She followed his eyeline to Susan's house [Julie's bedroom window] and a smile graced her lips. It seemed it was not only she who was struggling with infatuation.

Her voice was quiet, he almost failed to hear the whispered words, "Do you think I'll ever be able to be with her?"

He looked almost shocked at the question, at her honesty but he hid it well, only allowing himself to shuffle slightly uncomfortably as he sat on the porch step. "I don't know..." Zach trod the line carefully. Too carefully.

"Lie to me."

Pause. Silence. "Yes."

[And love will not fade away]