Sometimes it's hard to stop pretending. When you've done it for so long that it's hard to separate what's fantasy and what's reality it can become all you know.
Sometimes it doesn't matter, sometimes your fantasy is so much better than reality that you can curl up into yourself and forget the world. Forget what happened to him- to you, forget why you even have to pretend.
It was easy to slip off into a world of your own-when the world that was meant for you wasn't yours at all.
She didn't care if she never came back to reality. If it meant she got to be with him, even for a short while she'd keep on pretending. Seeing him, touching him, just being with him-was like bread to a starving man.
Sakura's fantasy was much better than her reality.
Everyday she could see him, Sakura could kiss his soft lips, and she could fall into his warm, strong embrace.
Everyday her bright green eyes met with his swirling red ones, and she remembered it all. Every moment with him, and she never wanted to leave.
She relived their walks, their talks, and their love. Sometimes she just remembered him- his soft, long black hair, the way light reflected off of his obsidian eyes, his comfortable chest, and Sakura could stay in this world she created forever.
Why would she need to leave when she had everything she needed right here? Everything she desperately wanted, she had- she could go on pretending life was perfect. Like the accident never happened.
At night, she was still in the arms of her love.
That's why she was here, why every day the ones who loved her would come to sit by her chair and hold her hand and whisper softly to her- even if she couldn't see them-even if she saw no one but the one that she loved-the one she lost.
Her sleeping hours grew longer each day and her waking hours became so sacred that they had all thought they had lost her completely - but in those few, painful hours a day she could hear them, and she didn't understand why Tsunade was always crying and Naruto hid his face behind his hands.
Sakura didn't understand because she didn't need to be saved, she was with him, right where she belonged.