{ Michael and Rachel - zoo!They can't stop~!}

[Rachel Reed]

(( www.polyvore.com/friends_go_to_zoo/set?id=95480062 ))

Having a boyfriend didn't mean that Rachel had to stop hanging out with male friends, right? She didn't understand why everyone would assume that something terrible was going to happen just because she was spending some of her free time with a guy who she used to sort of have a small crush on. It's not like Michael was anything like his brother and she wasn't anything like Esme! First, she wasn't pregnant and second, she totally wasn't going to fall in love with this boy just because he'd spent an afternoon with her. Sure he was wonderful and gave her butterflies in a way that Kyle never had but that didn't necessarily mean that her relationship wasn't working. Lot's of people don't have strong feelings like that for their partner and it didn't mean that they couldn't work out, right?

She had her share of suspicions that he could be in love with someone else or just not that into her but she didn't have any proof of that so she pinned it on her guilty conscience. She'd never experienced something like this before and her justifications weren't helping like she expected. She couldn't hurt someone as special as Kyle but she also couldn't live like this. She didn't want to be the girl who was begging for affection - she wanted to be the girl who got to do everything for their boyfriend and knew that he appreciated it. Most people would do the more mature thing and tell their boyfriend that they weren't happy but she was doing the more fun option which was dating Kyle to spare his possible feelings while still having all the fun with Michael.

It wasn't like Kyle would have enjoyed spending the day looking at adorable animals with her anyway especially since she looked at the zoo 'wrong' according to her brother. He seemed to believe that you should try and look at as many animals as possible while she preferred to spend her time looking at her favorites and maybe the others like the puffins and the pandas. How could someone not want to just spend hours looking at the new baby panda? Or the lovely puffins? She mostly liked the puffins because their name made her smile whenever she read it but that wasn't important.

She picked up a map at the front and tried to figure out the best path that they should take that would get them where they needed to be the fastest. "What do you want to see first?" She didn't want to ruin his experience just because she had her own way of doing things. "Oh and are you hungry? I brought some cookies and chips in my bag if you do." She always had snacks in her purse and didn't understand how anyone could live without them. What if you were in a long line and desperately needed something to nibble on? Would you just suck it up and wait? How terrible!

[Michael Russel]

Michael always looked forward to spending time with Rachel. She was sweet and bright and an all around great girl -- what wasn't there to like about her? Since he met her, he knew they would get along great... also it didn't hurt to keep around a friend who made the most delicious cookies in the entire world. (Seriously. Rachel's cookies were like crack.) As time had gone by since their little "blind date" thing (which Michael really wasn't sure he could consider a date what with the fact that it was school-run and all) they'd grown closer and he liked that. Michael was all for new friends, making a name for himself, getting himself acquainted with the school crowd, but Rachel was definitely a keeper.

He'd understood that Rachel wasn't the most secure in herself, so he'd made a point to bring his polaroid camera with him along to the zoo, so as to take plentiful pictures of his best friend that he planned to put together later on in a sort of poster collage to give to her later. You know, to show her how pretty he thought she was. In a totally friend type way. Because they were friends. Yeah. Michael might have been single but Rachel had a boyfriend, and in no way was Michael the type to infringe on relationship territory like that despite his family's history of not respecting relationships... he was different! Michael was the other Russel, wasn't he? Which meant he was different from Jon, so ultimately he wasn't going to commit the same actions as his. Yeah, that made sense.

"Sure, I'd love a cookie," Michael half-chuckled, reaching over to take one from Rachel's bag and nodding smugly at her as he took a bite, then looking down at the map and shrugging, scoping around, "are the puffins anywhere nearby?"

[Rachel Reed]

Rachel wasn't the kind of girl who cheated on their boyfriend. She wasn't even the type of girl who usually had feelings for someone else when she was in a relationship. She'd never understood how someone could be cruel enough to even consider taking someone else on as a lover while someone was trusting them. Kyle trusted her and she was betraying that. She knew that what she was doing was bordering on wrong especially since all that she wanted to do right now was take her new best friend and kiss him. She didn't want to give him one of those silly little pecks on the lips either. She wanted to full on passionately make out with him in front of all of these people despite the fact that they would judge her. She'd look like a giant whore who didn't realize that a zoo full of children wasn't the place to do such a thing. So, she was going to once again resist the urge to do what she really wanted to because of other people.

Isn't that life though? Everyone gives a little bit of themselves up to confirm to what other people expect of them. She wasn't the only girl in his life anyway! What if he already liked someone else? The thought of that shouldn't hurt her heart as much as it did considering that she was in a relationship already but it did. It was like a dull ache in her chest that just wouldn't go away. How in the world was she going to handle it when he did eventually find a nice single girl to be with? She would just have to force herself to be happy for him because if some other girl made him smile then who was she to judge? "I hope that those cookies are good. I didn't use a recipe for them and just kind of went with what seemed like it would taste good together."

Her eyes widened when she heard him ask if any puffins were nearby. "You're absolutely perfect, Michael Russel." Was it too soon to be calling him 'perfect?' Maybe that wasn't such a big deal but the fact that she reached over to hold his hand probably was. She would say that it was just so he didn't get separated from her in the 'crowds' but it was really just because she felt like holding his hand. It felt just as wonderful as she had expected it to. "I love puffins so much like what is there not to love? I mean even the name is adorable... Can we steal a baby puffin and name him Muffin? We could train him to save the world one day or rule it for evil. We'll decide later on." She was mostly kidding about stealing the animal but if he took her up on the offer then she wasn't going to refuse. She could imagine herself rasing a little baby puffin with Michael.