Chapter 6

Hating

Ino had looked very worried at her friend when she saw her standing at her door in the middle on the night with Miyu and two bags. Looking at her green eyes was painful. It seemed she was lost and deeply hurt and desolate. So when she talked calm and softly smiling it really surprised the blond girl.

"Ino… Can I stay here at least for tonight?"

"Sure Sakura… come one let me help you."

The blue eyed girl took the two bags from her pink haired friend and let her pass to her house.

"Sakura you can stay here all you want, you know."

"I don't want to be a burden to anyone anymore. I'm pretty sure that will bring problems to you and your family so it's fine. I'll try to find a place for Miyu and me and we'll leave you the sooner we can."

Sakura smiled grateful and somehow sad. Ino could see it in her crystal and puffy eyes. She invited her with a gesture to sit down at the sofa and then went to the kitchen and brought a couple of cups of hot lemon tea. Sakura just stared at nothing holding apprehensively the sleeping little girl in her arms.

"What happened? You can trust in me… you can tell me if you want."

Sakura just smiled moved seeing the concerning and true caring in her pretty face. She just sighed tired and shocked her head.

"I can't right now. I'm still… trying to process everything… maybe tomorrow, ok?"

"Yeah, as you want. Don't worry about my family, I will talk to them. You can sleep with Miyu in our guest room anyway."

"Thank you Ino. I really appreciate this."

"Don't say anything. You would do the same for me."

Ino just smiled and the two drank their cup of lemon tea in silence. After that the blond girl led the way to the guest room and soon Sakura and Miyu were lying in bed sleeping in the shadows. It started to rain suddenly.

Ino closed the door behind her and stayed in the hall preoccupied. Something had happened in her friend's house and was bad enough to make Sakura to leave the house with bags and Miyu in the middle of the night. When she decided to return to her bed and think tomorrow in all with detail, she heard her crying in the silence only disturbed by the rain falling down and hard. And Ino stayed against the door just wondering about it.

Sakura POV

I can't believe what I have done. When I woke up this morning feeling better in Ino's house I never thought I would end my day at the hospital so shocked and petrified with turmoil of emotions running through every part of me.

After I woke up and thought calmly about everything that had happened the night before at my house between my parents, I prepared myself to confront the day and make decisions about my present life and future, about my little girl's life. I couldn't go back with mom and dad after hearing them speaking so honestly about their feelings concerning me and Miyu. Part of me tries to understand them and see the points where the truth could lay. But the major part of me was extremely sad and desolate. I was a young mother without a husband who would not depend anymore in her parents. So I started to think how to rebuild my life and in consequence Miyu's with my own hands.

For some days at least I will have to depend on Ino and her family who were very kind with me and my daughter. But if father was right in one thing was that I was not a young girl anymore like Ino or Hinata or Tenten. I was a mother too and I had another life to take care of.

So after taking a bath with my baby girl who always seemed so thoughtful and understanding, I got us dressed and then we had breakfast with Ino's parents who were preparing themselves to go to their respective jobs. Ino wasn't there and her mother told me she had left very early because she had received a call from Iruka-Sensei. Miyu and I had our breakfast and then I decided to go and see Tsunade-Sensei to ask her advice and help. Maybe I would have to postpone my apprenticeship for a while till I could fix my life and get a home and a job. If my mother wanted to help me with Miyu in matters of money I could accept it. At least my mother really loved her and I was pretty sure about that and her good intentions.

Ino's parents didn't ask me anything about being there. I guessed my friend had told them not to do it yet. So I left their home with Miyu in my arms and a big bag in my left shoulder with mostly her things and waved goodbye at them smiling and hiding my inner fear of the unexpected and the feeling of having my own life and future in my bare hands and went to see the Hokage immediately. Strangely enough I didn't meet any of my friends. I thought they could have been busy with missions and trainings or like Ino with Iruka-Sensei.

While I was walking noticing the people around me still looking at us and murmuring, my heart beat hard inside my chest and I felt the trepidation of everything trying to suffocate me. I felt sad and lonely above everything. I felt ashamed for my parents and the way I had affected their life but I felt angry when I thought in them saying that I could leave my little girl with them and go on living as if nothing had happened. Remembering that made the blood inside my veins to boil and I held Miyu closer who just was looking and smiling at her surrounding. I will never let anyone to take her away from me. No one. Not even my mother. How could they think I would do such a thing? I was her mother, she was my daughter. I love her beyond comprehension and I had promised to her and to me that I would do anything to protect and take care of her.

And I would never let anyone harm her. I could not go on living if she was taken away from me. She was now part of my life and I would be there to assure that. Not matter what. I will not let anyone to take her away from me and not even him. When I remembered my father saying that he was near Konoha and that maybe he would return for Miyu I felt fury and despair, terrible fear and hate. How could he think in that? He had said he wasn't her father and that he didn't care a bit about it. He had broken his fragile connection with us when he went away that time saying all that hurting and cruel words. So I had sworn to never let him near us again. And I would keep my promise not matter what.

I felt betrayed and deeply scared at the possibility of losing my daughter in the hands of my mother or his. Even in my father's hands if he decided to marry me with someone else. I was still underage and the simple thought of being away from Miyu made my eyes to water and my willing force to grow. I felt so many emotions and doubts that I almost ended crying in the middle of the street. I was terrified and I imagined my parents and him cornering me to try to convince me to take another path where my baby girl wasn't in the picture. Deeply I knew that perhaps I was exaggerating but everything had happened so soon that I let my imagination to carry me in my deepest fear. In my mind I only had the idea of not letting Miyu go and keep her in my arms forever.

I was confused and very shocked remembering everything since I slept the first time with him that I was trapped in my own heart and mind. If he had left me in peace with my daughter, if he hadn't been near scaring my parents and making them to have plans for me and Miyu and alerting everyone in Konoha, probably I would still be in my home and would have my parents' support and love. And I focused in my fragile hate for him, the hate I was still trying to feed and sincerely felt against him, a hate I wanted to be stronger than my useless love that never really reached him and never touched him with a single caress. I felt angry for the chance of him returning for the first time in my life. I didn't want to see him. I didn't want to be near him.

That would only make me remember what I never actually had and the logical reasons to not love anymore the boy I have fancied all my life. Logical reasons that hurt me intensely and were getting me to the desired "No" I should have said to every thought and feeling towards him.

So when I got at Tsunade-Sensei and I heard that she was in the hospital wing that was my state of mind. I controlled my shaking, either physical or emotional, and went there to talk to her.

And that was when I saw him.

And my world was shaken so badly that I lost my mind and froze in my place looking at him at the end of the empty hall I was walking with Miyu in my arms. I stared at his figure paralyzed like me at the end of the white and silent hall with my green eyes open wide and without any sign of my own voice. I felt my body trembling and instinctively I held Miyu closer to me looking like being in a trance-state at him. He seemed to be looking back at us but he had a strange spark of ignorance in his black eyes.

Suddenly I noticed his right eye looking black and blue and swollen and the way he was dressed. He was wearing special clothes from the hospital, clothes that only patients use. I let myself to be carried in the multiple details of his still and quiet presence only meters away from me. That black hair. Those black eyes. His skin looked paler than usual. The rare and weird expression of emptiness combined with his natural coldness and indifference. There was the person whom I love still and that I try to hate lately and desperately. There was the only man in my life and the father of the daughter I will protect with my own life.

There was him. The boy I loved so much. He was here again, in front of me. Staring strangely and confusedly at me.

And I went into panic so sudden that I lost my breath for a couple of minutes. It was almost as being drowned in the open sea. And my mind and my heart and my soul focused in the little girl who was in my arms playing with my hair and who was now attracted at the thing her mother was seeing in that moment.

Miyu turned her innocent and dark eyes at his father and just stared kindly and curiously at him.

After seeing that my mother's instinct took over me and I stepped back trembling in fear and anger. In deep hurt. I didn't want to be harmed again by him in any way. I need to have him away from me to survive and go on living. Like before I needed the hate and the anger to surpass the love and the sadness I felt in reality.

And that was all. The veins boiled with my blood running hot and quickly I looked for a safe place to put Miyu while I try to make him go away from us. He reacted at seeing me moving finally and started to walk to me with slow and tired pace. It was all I needed to reunite courage and will power. I left Miyu who just looked at me curious and softly inside the room I could find open first at the bed with my bag and the pillows surrounding her to keep her secure and away from harm. When I closed the door and didn't hear her crying (obviously she was braver than me and any other kid I have known) he was almost in front of me.

The words that came out of my mouth I didn't think them before. Right in that moment I let my heart to talk in my desperation and fear and the battle between my love and the grudge I felt against him.

"What do you want?!... Why you can't leave me alone?! Go away!!"

My voice was shaken by the tears of frustration and anger. He paused after hearing me and just let his gaze study me in all his coldness and stoic presence. Somehow I saw deeper feelings floating in his eyes, like sadness and loneliness, like defeat and confusion. But in that moment I didn't gave them credit because I was protecting my daughter and myself from him and his presence and all he symbolized.

" I don't want to see you anymore!! Just go!! GO AWAY LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO!!"

I started to cry mostly caused by hurt and the pain of my broken heart. It got me angrier seeing him without reacting or talking, just glaring at me with his cold glance and his stoic face. When he finally extended slowly his right hand to touch my cheek I stepped back again and dismissed his gesture with my own hand.

"Go, go, go now!! I don't need you! Why are you here?? Leave me alone! Please…"

When I saw that he was turning his gaze to the room where Miyu was I was beyond scared. If he decided to take her with him and away from me I knew I would not have chance against him. That only made me angrier and terrified me enough to use physical force against him. I pushed him away with all my force. He didn't put on resistance of any kind. Soon I had him against the crystal window that showed the gardens of the hospital and people who were staring at us and some of them were coming to us quickly. I didn't put attention to recognize anyone.

"Don't dare to see her or harm her!! I won't let you do it!! Did you hear me?? I won't let you take her away from me!! You're nothing to her and you're nothing to me now!! I don't want you here!! Go and don't come back!! I hate you!! You made me to hate you!! You hurt me with your words that night!! You hurt me and broke my heart saying she wasn't yours! You insulted me saying she wasn't yours and that her father was other!! How you dare to come back and face me?? Face her?? You said I was just a "moment of fun" a "moment of release"!! You said you didn't care about me and anyone here in Konoha!! Then go away if you don't give a damn about anything here!!"

I was crying freely so angry and so hurt. I didn't know how I had kept all that inside of me without saying it to anyone for so long and now that I was willing to let it out I was shaking and looking at him with so much pain and fury like I never thought I would be looking at him one day against all odds. He just stayed glancing at me with his serious face and without saying a single word.

Then he tried again to touch my cheek but I dismissed it again brusquely and then he lifted his other arm at the room where my baby girl was and I felt a rush of blind fear and anger running to my brain that I only thought in wanting him to go, to apart him from me and from Miyu.

And I pushed him aggressively so hard and focused in my turmoil of suffering and he didn't do anything to defend himself. I saw him crashing against the crystal window and then I heard the sound of the smashing and the breaking glass and I saw surprised how he fell through it easily and landed in the garden hitting him badly at the use of my force. I think I pushed him so hard that I made him fly away a couple of meters.

I stayed wide eyed, crying shocked and afraid, trembling and staring at his lying body unconscious and still. He had his eyes closed and it seemed he had hit his head when he had hit the grass after the violent push and fall.

I didn't notice when Ino and my friends came running to me very amazed and shocked at the whole incident. I cannot recall all they said to me and all the other persons said in that moment. Their presences were a blur in my head where only the falling of him was played over and over.

I had hurt badly the man I love. I had hurt the father of my baby. I had hurt my Sasuke-Kun.

My eyes unfocused and my mind entered and left the world around me in an alternate way. I saw with my blurry vision from the tears and the impact of my doing when Kakashi-Sensei came preoccupied at his side and lifted him in his arms to a sitting position calling his name. I saw hypnotize and speechless the blood running out of a deep cut he had in the right part of his forehead. He was bruised and dirty from the impact of the falling. Everything became a deeper blur and I felt like I was floating and falling in a deep and dark place but I tried to maintain myself conscious. Then I felt two pairs of hands pushing me away from the scene and guiding me to the room where I knew I had left Miyu. Hinata and Ino were the ones who led me into the room and closed the door. When I say Miyu giggling and welcoming me with her sweet expression and his same eyes everything went clear in my mind and suddenly I understood what had happened minutes ago.

I had hurt deeply and badly Sasuke-Kun. I had hurt my baby's father. And I didn't want to take it so far! I didn't! Oh my God I still love him! That's why I cannot bring myself to hate him openly!

But I had hurt him physically. I just wanted him to go. I just wanted to start a life without his presence giving me useless hope. I just wanted to erase him from any part of me. I wanted peace and calm. I didn't want to hurt him like that! I just wanted him to free us, free me from him and all he meant to me.

"Sakura... Are you alright?"

Ino looked worried at me and Hinata was holding my hands in hers with a concerned glance. I was crying desperately and madly.

"I..."

I? What was I going to say?... That I hurt the boy I cherished and loved beyond understanding?...

"I just... I just..."

And my tears began to fall freely and abundant from my green and tired eyes and I sobbed trembling immerse in the full hurricane of my feelings and thoughts.

"I just wanted him to go and leave me alone..."

I couldn't say anymore. Hinata hugged me trying to calm me while Ino patted my back and head. In the silence of the room where my little girl was just looking at me curiously and kindly I cried and sobbed consternated at all for long minutes.

"Oh my God... I tried to kill him!"

"That's not true Sakura! It was an accident! Just that!"

Ino said quickly. Hinata talked softly then.

"You thought he was going to take or hurt Miyu, you were only protecting her... it was an accident."

I knew they were right. I could never bring myself to seriously kill him. Not even after all and not even in the worst scenario. My love was still so big that it enabled me to do so a horrible thing. But in my terrible fear and anger I had hurt him still.

I didn't and couldn't say anything more and I just cried while Hinata let Ino to comfort me and she took Miyu in her arms soothing her. And I just replay the scene of him falling because of me through the window with that acceptance in his stoic expression.

I had hurt my Sasuke-Kun. And I didn't felt any good at it like everyone maybe could thought I would feel. I felt miserable. Even if I didn't want him near me again that didn't mean I wanted him hurt or dead, just away. I don't remember how long I kept crying. I just wanted him away. That's all. And I cried and cried until there were no more tears to shed.