Sakura looks in the mirror and thinks. She studies the girl in front of her and can't fathom, can't understand, can't reconcile the girl that looks back at her with the girl that used to be there. How did this happen? she wants to cry out. But she doesn't.
Instead, Sakura thinks.
Sakura thinks of the way his calloused hand would cup her face after she got into his car.
Tender. Like, maybe, one day he could love her.
And he would lean over to kiss her, soft at first then rougher and harder and needier.
Like he'd been waiting for her all his life.
Sakura would let him put his hands all over her. Do almost anything to her.
When they were done, he'd ask if she was okay. She'd say yes and he'd kiss her.
And, only when he thought she was too far away to notice, would he pull out his phone to call her.
And Sakura would pull her jacket tighter across her small frame, and hate herself.
When she meets him, she's a virgin.
And she intends to stay that way, truly.
But they fool around and she knows he wants more and he asks her sometimes, in the heat of the moment, to let him do it, to let him make her feel so good. His eyes are so black when he asks - so intense - and he looks at her like he's never wanted anything in his whole life more than he wants her.
She says no, at first.
But things are so heated and they've fooled around so much before and she's confused and blurred and not sure of anything anymore.
All she knows is that she wants him to like her. Wants him to love her, even. Wants to prove that he doesn't need Ino, because Sakura can give him everything he'll ever need.
And so, the next time he asks, she doesn't say no.
Really, she never says yes, but she doesn't deny him either and that's all he needs.
They do it in the backseat of his car and she acts like it doesn't hurt, like she doesn't want to cry and take it all back. He asks if she's okay afterward and she barely resists breaking into tears as she says yes.
He has to go and she tells him that's fine.
She watches him drive away until he's out of the parking lot, so far away that he cannot see her if he even cared enough to look back at her in the first place.
Sakura stands alone and sobs.
It becomes a habit, perpetual and disheartening.
She gets into his car, and he barely says hello before he reaches for her, pulling her close and skipping straight to the good stuff.
Sakura hates it.
But then there are the "after" times. When he pulls her into his lap as they pant in the backseat, covered in a thin layer of sweat and tired.
He talks to her, then. Tells her about how he really doesn't love Ino but he's expected to date her, to propose to her, to marry her and start a family with her. I like you, he whispers to her sometimes - very, very quietly so that sometimes she's isn't sure she's imagined it. I'd be with you, he mutters, but...
All this makes her feel so conflicted. Because she wants him to like her. Wants it more than she's wanted anything in her whole life. But, deep down inside, she knows he's lying. Alarm bells go off in the back of her mind because if he liked her so much he'd break up with his girlfriend, if he liked her he wouldn't treat her like a whore, if he liked her he wouldn't make her feel so used.
Sakura just isn't ready to accept this truth, and so she snuggles closer to him and stays her tears.
She relishes in the feeling of being close to someone, of being held by someone, before the inevitable comes and he has to leave her.
Sakura finds that she feels lonelier than ever as she steps out of the car and into the night.
She is losing, losing, losing and she knows it.
He is just about done with her. He can see the growing need that is blossoming in her chest like angry weeds, hungry and demanding to be recognized. He knows that she wants more, that their late-night rendezvous have ceased to satisfy her and this, this change, he cannot allow it to go unchecked.
But Sakura, for all her shit, is smarter than him, and she knows this but he doesn't. She feels him pulling away, distancing himself. She understands, knows she's losing what she's worked so hard building, and thinks that she cannot allow him to beat her to the destruction.
So, she calls him and says, I need to see you, it's urgent.
At first he denies her, but she insists and he says she can come to his office; he'll meet her outside.
In her true heart of hearts, Sakura goes there to tell him it's over. She wants to spare herself the pain of hearing the words come out of his mouth, wants to beat him to the punch.
But he comes outside, doesn't even touch her, but says, yeah, baby? and she is instantly hurt, instantly angry, wants to scream and bash his head in.
The words 'we're done' are right on the tip of her tongue, really they are, but for reasons she doesn't understand, they just won't leave her throat. Something else leaves instead, something she really, truly, didn't intend to say, something that instantly leaves her feeling dirty and ashamed and pathetic.
I'm pregnant.
He is shocked, and obviously not happy, but he comes to her nonetheless, kissing her forehead and whispering little apologies and encouragements into her ear.
She knows that he thinks she's crying because a baby is so much work and she's scared or whatever.
But really, she is crying because it's bittersweet, she thinks. Such conflicting emotions caused by two little words; she feels pathetic, feels ashamed and sad and even a bit lonely, but at the same time, with his soft kisses peppering her face, she feels like maybe it was worth it.
The contrast is almost too much for her to bear.
They meet up to talk about the (nonexistent) baby.
He's talking about options and plans and money and is saying he'll take care of the procedure and blah, blah, blah, she can't even listen. All she can do is stare at his moving lips and wonder, how did I get here? How did I let it get this far?
When he talks like this, all clinical and factual and with no feeling, no love, she wishes she had just let him end it. Wishes she had never lied and doesn't know what to do now.
All she knows is that she cannot listen to him talk like this anymore, so she closes her eyes tightly and says, I don't want anything from you, I'll handle it. And then she moves to get out of the car.
He catches her shoulder, pulls her back to her seat gently, and kisses her square on the mouth, just like he used to, trying to entice her into something more.
She cannot bring herself to return it, and when he pulls away he has to see it in her eyes, that rage, that disappointment, that utter hatred (for herself and him) that shines there, crystal clear and as hard as steel.
He sighs and whispers, so I take it you don't want to see me anymore? and she'd like to think that he sounds almost sad, almost like he'll miss her, but she isn't so sure.
She turns away and gets out of the car without another word.
Sakura cries for a whole day straight.
The grief, the hatred, the sheer unfairness of the whole situation settles in her gut and she cannot get it out no matter how much she tries. It consumes her, immobilizes her, so that all she can do is sit and cry about everything she's said and everything she's done and everything she's lost.
She rages, sometimes. Smashes things and screams, pulling roughly at her cotton candy hair, but then the anger leaves as instantly as it comes, and the sorrow returns because he was just being a man, wasn't he? He took what she gave, and sure he pressured her, but isn't that how it's supposed to work? He's supposed to ask and she's supposed to deny?
Only she didn't. She let him do those things to her, and she isn't even sure she's allowed to hate him for it now.
Sakura cries, and cannot be consoled.
Time unevenly heals the wound.
It happens so slowly that she feels as though maybe it happened all at once, even though she's positive it didn't. One day she simply gets out of bed and can go through a day without crying. And then, before she knows it, she can even go a whole day without thinking about it.
It's still there, albeit as a scab now, that wound. She can ignore it, can go without thinking about it, but on those nights when she chances to look at it, she can see it, can remember what the gaping injury had looked like, can almost feel the pain of it again.
It's still very tender, she thinks with some small sense of wonder – the pain.
And though she knows she still has a ways to go before that scab, that tenderness, that almost-pain is gone, for the first time in a very long time, Sakura feels hopeful.