Look at me. Here I lie, surrounded by the elegance and finery that many people could only dream of, loved by everyone, wanting for nothing. It is the perfect lifestyle befitting the crown prince of the fire nation.

Everything I've ever wanted, I have. Everything I've ever dreamed about is mine. Everything I've fought for is now sitting in the palm of my hand. I am the very picture of triumph.

So why is it that on these nights, surrounded by everything I've earned, I lie awake, still unhappy ?

I know why, at least in part. It's because every time I close my eyes, I see the face of the little waterbender girl. Her eyes locked with mine, on the brink of tears as she screamed-"I thought you had changed!"

I couldn't bear it. Her beautiful eyes, so twisted and contorted with rage and pain-it made me feel it, too. All the anguish of my betrayal came whirling around at me, full force. I wanted it to end- I needed it to end. So I said the only thing that I could grasp out of the million thoughts whirling around my brain-"I have changed!"

When we were trapped in the cave together, it was my first taste of the life I could have had. I had been so driven; I had never even stopped to think that there might be another way to restore my honor, that I could be happy without it. The water tribe peasant seemed to see a part of me I tried so hard never to let show- even as I wished someone would find out. Her gentle hands touching my face sent chills up my spine like I had never experienced before. She was the only one who had ever believed I could be anything more than evil. The only one who saw me for who I truly was…

How could I have let her slip away? Whenever I thought about how close I had come to being who she wanted me to be, I felt so much regret it hurt. I had almost had her. I could have been good. I could have redeemed myself!

And yet when the time came, I chose Azula. I chose my father's love. In short, I had betrayed her. Even now, so many months later, I could still see her brilliant cobalt eyes, so beautiful even as they were slashed with pain. And I had been the cause of it. I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to be everything she saw in me. I wanted her to love me. And I had wasted my only chance to be with her…

It doesn't matter. This is the life I have chosen, and I can never turn back.

Not now. Not ever. Not after that.