It has officially been about a week since Naruto and I started our secret relationship. We tried to spend as much time together as possible. Though the only time we could see each other was mostly at night or when he pretended to have an injury to stop by my office. It was hard to see Naruto in public and not be able to interact with him much other than small conversation.

Even though this affair was going on, I always made time for Salad. My priorities of a mother came first. I made sure to be up in the morning to send her off to school and have dinner ready when I gotten home.

I couldn't go to work today. Salad was sick. I decided to stay home and take care of her. It was only a small cold, but I rather her get better soon so it doesn't get worse. Most likely I wouldn't be able to go see Naruto tonight as I would need to watch over her.

"Mom?" She called out for me while she was sniffling.

"What's wrong?" I called back out to her while I was in the kitchen making her some tea.

"Can I go outside today? I'm not that sick you know."

"You're not going anywhere today unless that sniffling stops and you're not coughing! So get that idea out of your head right now!" I could hear her groan in frustration.

The teapot started hissing. I turned the burner off. I wrapped a small cloth around the handle of the teapot just in case it was hot. I poured the hot water into a small cup with a teabag in it. When the water hit the teabag you could instantly smell the aroma of bitterness from the cup.

I placed the cup on a little plate and transferred it over to her.

"Now drink up so you can feel better."

"I'm telling you I'm fi-" In the middle of her speaking she started to cough. "…fine"

"As I thought. Now drink the tea and go watch tv or something."

"And what are you going to do?"

"Well… Hm?" I had no idea what I was going to do today while I was home. I took a quick moment to figure out what I could do or just blurt out the first thing that popped up into my head." While I'm home. I thought I'd clean up a little and complete some unfinished work."

"You have fun with that." She picked up the small plate with the cup on it and went to her room.

I retreated back to my room. My room was a mess. I just threw my clothes around everywhere in a rush to get out the house in the morning. I never realized how junky the room was until I took a good look at it.

"Shesh, there's so much to do in here." A small sigh escaped my lips.

I started my boring cleaning adventure. Bit by bit I would pick of pieces of clothes and sort them out. The dirty clothes would go in the bin and the clean ones would be folded and placed back in the dresser or closet. For the meantime I just threw everything on my bed to be sorted out later.

Pacing myself, I slowly got the clothes up off the floor. My room was looking better and better as I went. I never seen my room so clean before. It was like living in a brand new room.

"I'm tired already." I said to myself. "I'm never letting you get junky ever again." I spoke out loud like the room could hear me and it would talk back.

There was a black shirt on the dresser covering something. I walked over to the dresser and picked the shirt. My eyes widened when I discovered what was under it. It was a picture of Sasuke and I from our wedding. Just seeing the picture brought me pain. I can see why I had it covered, but there was no need for me to keep it anymore. It was just more bad memories that would haunt me if I didn't get rid of it. Sasuke was never coming back so what was the point of keeping memories of him around here.

I picked up the picture frame and gripped it in my hands. A sudden burst of anger took over me. I hated Sasuke so much.

"You're trash." I blurted out to the image as if Sasuke was here to hear me say it. "…And this is trash too." I started to walk towards the kitchen to throw the picture in the trash.

I held the image out in front of me giving it one last look before I would throw it away. I could hear Salad's bedroom door open. I started to loosen up the grip I had on the frame as it slowly slipped out of my hands.

"Mom what are you doing?!"

"Huh?" I looked over to Salad as she ran over to me and snatched the frame out of my hands.

"Why would you throw this away?!... This picture is important!"

My eyes lowered. I didn't want to be harsh and tell her the truth about her father. He was never coming back and it was something that we both had to deal with.

"Listen… Sometimes you have to let go of things for good."

"What are you even saying?! Let go of things?! This is a picture of you and dad. Why wouldn't you want to keep something like this...?" Her voice lowered.

"…Because I don't want it anymore. Things are too hard to explain right now, but I need you to understand." I tried to place my hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away from me. It was clear that she was upset, but she didn't know the kind of person her father is.

"There's nothing to understand… You're trying to get rid of Dad aren't you?!"

"Can you just listen to me for a second please?" As I stood there I thought about it. I was trying to get rid of him. She wasn't lying. I wanted to get rid of the memory of him out of this house and I was determined to do so. "You don't have any idea what's going on and why I'm doing this."

"I swear you act like you're my age sometimes! Why can't you act like an adult?"

"Why can't you stay in a child's place?!" Those words blurted out my mouth loudly. I was getting overwhelmed with emotions. "You don't have any idea what's going and why I'm choosing to do this! Your father isn't ever coming back and you need to accept that as do I!" I yelled at her unintentionally.

"…You're lying." She had tears in her eyes. She stormed off to her room tightly holding onto the picture frame. The door slammed behind her. At that moment I felt terrible about what just happened. I shouldn't have been so hard on her. I walked up to the door and knocked on it.

"Salad, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. Just please come out and talk to me."

"Leave me alone!"

I sighed loudly before walking away from the door. Everything was getting so much harder. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. I wish I could bring Sasuke back for her, but it would be for her only. I don't want anything to do with him anymore. I just wish things were easier to explain to a child.


Night rolled around and I made dinner. Salad came out of her room for dinner, but she didn't speak to me. I wasn't going to force her to say anything. It was clear that she was still upset about the prior event that happened earlier. Her sniffling seemed to stop, but I didn't know if she was completely better. I made her another cup of tea.

"I made you some more tea." She finished up dinner and went back to her room. This time she didn't slam the door. She left the tea on the table. She didn't even touch it.

A few hours went by and it was about 11:00pm.

I was pretty sure that Naruto was going to stop by. By this time he would be curious about why I wasn't there by now.

I sat around waiting for Naruto to arrive. Salad should be asleep by now. She never made it past 10:00. It was about 11:30 so he should be here at any minute. As I thought to myself there was a small knock at the door. "Right on queue. " I said to myself.

Quickly I rushed to the door to answer it. Naruto was standing there with a slight smile on his face.

"Sakura-chan, is everything alright?" I moved out of the doorway allowing him to come in.

"Everything is fine. Salad was sick. So I stayed home with her today."

"Ah, I understand." Naruto walked inside and I closed the door behind him. He was staring me in my face. "What's wrong?"

"There's nothing…"

"You're lying to me. I can tell when there's something wrong with you. What happened?" We sat down at the small counter that was in the kitchen. I poured us a cup of tea to drink while we sat there.

"Well Salad's angry at me."

"Why is that?"

"I went to throw away Sasuke and I's wedding picture and she got upset. I got upset." I paused for a moment before continuing. "Then I said Sasuke was never coming back. She's really hurt Naruto and I don't know what to do. I should have never said that."

"I know it must be hard for her to hear that her father isn't coming back, but at some point she was going to have to hear the truth."

"I'm pretty sure you know things have been hard for me since Sasuke has been gone. I'm a single parent doing everything by myself. I'm thankful for the help I do get from my parents, but it's not enough." I sighed a little. "I do what I can financially, but there's always going to be that space that I can't fill in her heart that belongs to her father."

"Sakura-chan… Listen to me." I cut Naruto off before he could say anything else.

"I don't know what to do." I pressed my forehead against the palms of my hand.

"You know I'm here to help you with whatever you need."

"I know, thank you for that." Naruto brought himself closer to me as he wrapped his arms around my waist pulling me into an embrace. He placed a small kiss on my lips. I wrapped my arms around his neck in response to his embrace. His familiar scent eased up my mind a bit. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment.

I opened my eyes and to my surprises Salad was standing there with a blank expression on her face.

"Salad!" I removed my arms from around Naruto's neck and he released me. "What are you doing up?" My heart was racing. I didn't know what to think at that moment. Naruto and I weren't doing anything, but I know she was still upset about earlier. Did she see the kiss? I started to panic a bit.

"Hello there." Naruto said to her happily.

"Hello ." She responded back to him and walked away.

"Do you think she seen Naruto?" I looked to him.

"Seen what?"

"The kiss … you idiot!" I whispered to him just in case she was still close by.

"I don't think she did. Don't worry we'll be fine."

"I think it's best that you leave for the night." I let out a little sigh.

"Alright Sakura-chan." We stood up and walked to the door. I opened the door for him. He stood in the doorway and looked down at me. "See you tomorrow?"

"Of course. See you tomorrow." I looked behind me quickly to see if I spotted her, but she wasn't in sight. I placed a small kiss on Naruto's lips and sent him on his way. "Goodnight."