Disclaimer: I don't even own the shoes I'm wearing right now, let alone an entire comic series.
They think that she's fine.
They believe that because she's never truly, completely lost someone dear to her, that all is right in her world. They are wrong.
They fail to see (Comprehend, the voice corrects.) her growth, which is part of the reason why they don't understand. With growth comes knowledge, and where knowledge blossoms, pain follows.
They don't know (Don't care, that traitorous part of her conscious hisses quietly inside her mind.) about the things that she keeps hidden deep within herself, and she doesn't mind that they don't know, because she prefers it that way.
They have their own problems to deal with, she says to herself, in hopes of stopping the dam of things she wants to say from overflowing into the world of spoken thought. She doesn't let herself consider that she does this to prevent her treacherous Inner Self from throwing yet another painful barb into the brittle shield that protects her carefully formed reality from destruction.
It doesn't matter that this fragile reality is based solely on gossamer-thin hopes and lies told to her by both others and herself.
What matters is that it's there, saving her from the harsher reality that she simply cannot bear to continue living in.
The life of a shinobi is never easy, but it seems that fate had been particularly cruel to her entire team. Compared to them, she was the lucky one, dealing only with miniscule losses and relatively easy decisions that didn't really have any great impact on her life, while at the same time being protected by her stronger teammates.
She shakes her head wildly, denying everything. No, I'm not like that anymore, I'm stronger now, she screams inside her head. (Really? Since when? Her venomous subconscious interjects.)
She wants to tell them about all the things that keep her deprived of sleep and sanity, of the things that keep her smile from being fully sincere, even on the best of days.
But she doesn't tell anyone, and she contents herself by laying her head on the cold, hard pillow she created from all her broken hopes and dreams.
For some reason I can't seem to get out of my Sakura-angsting mood (Plus, this was written in the span of about 45 minutes). If you were wondering, the "they" are supposed to be Sasuke, Kakashi, and Naruto (but feel free to put anyone else in their places) and the bold is Sakura's Inner Self (If you didn't figure that out already). The point of View is a little confusing, but that's only because I suck at it.
This is my second fic to date so any (constructive) feedback is appreciated. In other words, review. Now.