Slightly angsty, AUish oneshot. Set during volume 1.

If you ask me if I love him...

I'd lie

She won't admit it, not any more. In fact, she's gone the opposite way, now deftly opposing that she does (or ever did) care for Finn. Because truly, Kurt was right. He was having a baby with Quinn, and although Rachel has her own severe doubts about the father of the small life growing inside the carefully crafted (and Rachel would like to think bitch or skank but somehow those descriptions don't fit Quinn at all) Cheerio, it doesn't change the truth of what Kurt said.

Really, who ever thought that she, Rachel Berry, would be dismissed as a mere distraction? An annoying fly buzzing around the picnic table, a centipede on the arm of the pool chair. Honestly, though, Rachel grasps at this, because she thinks that if the only thing she can ever be to Finn is in the way, well, she'll take it.

And that's the saddest part of all, really. She can declare that she views Finn Hudson as merely a friend, that theirs is a relationship like co-workers; casual, somewhat sterile. And alright, yes he gives her the occasional ride home, and even though she thinks it's quite adorable how he fumbles the door handle on the passenger door because her dads are watching them from the living room window, she will adamantly tell them, when they bombard her with an interrogation later, that Finn is justsomeguy.

She thinks that Brittany knows the truth, though, which is slightly terrifying. The blonde may be oblivious when it comes to algebra or conjugating Spanish verbs, but Brittany sees things that others don't, and it gives her a larger perspective on life. There's always a knowing smile hidden in her probing eyes when she looks at Rachel, and it's possibly because Rachel has let her own gaze linger on Finn for too long, but if Brittany truly has noticed that Rachel's feelings haven't disappeared like she so claims (in fact, Rachel miserably realizes that if anything, she has fallen deeper in love with Finn as the days pass), she hasn't mentioned it.

And there's always Ms. Pillsbury, of course. But Rachel just thinks that Emma knows what it's like to long for somebody so unattainable more than anything, and though she's a more decent counselor than most, the deduction she's made that Rachel hasn't, in fact, made good on her publicly stated promise that Finn Hudson no longer has any sway over her stems from her own loneliness that Will is married to somebody else.

But Rachel, unlike the neurotic, obsessive compulsive woman, has decided something. She will never settle for anything less than what she truly wants, and this is why Puck, though he constantly fails, tries so hard to "get into her pants" (because Noah really is a stickler for what he can't have), and now it seems that more guys are calling the house (discreetly of course; their conquests that involve girls who constantly get slushie facials need to be kept private) than before, and Rachel assumes that's just because she's become a challenge for them now.

She wonders if Finn doubts it, though, doubts all she says and the vacant smiles she sends his way. Sometimes, Rachel would like for him too, because she only thinks it's fair that he know the truth. But life isn't fair, so why should she be? And the whole point of this futile exercise is to dissuade Finn about her feelings.

Although, if she's honest (which is something she's obviously been trying to avoid; the truth can only hurt you, and that's apparent in not only her life, but the lives of her fellow Glee clubers) the only person that really matters, the only person she set out to fool from the very beginning, is the girl with hollow brown eyes and full lips set on perma-fake that stares back at her.

Because if there's anybody that she's good at lying to, it's herself.

Lyric line from I'd Lie by Taylor Swift.