There were many things Mai knew she couldn't do. She knew she could never be as out going as Ty Lee, not as happy or as flexible or as easy going. She knew she could never be a fire bender, like Azula. She couldn't be an authoritative figure, or a leader of the greatest army the planet had ever known. She didn't want to be these things. And so she told herself that she couldn't.
Though she learned that there were things that she told herself she couldn't do, that she could do.
Cry.
It wasn't as though she wanted to, it wasn't as though she felt any better when it was all said and done, her hair sticking to her damp cheeks and she yanked the curtains of her spacious room closed, throwing herself into her bed. She glared at her ceiling, almost daring herself to continue sobbing. If Zuko really was the traitor Azula said he was, then what? Then what did that make her? She would gladly have followed him to the ends of the earth, she would have captured the Avatar herself if it meant he could come back.
She knew that was another one of those things that she couldn't do.
Her fist crumpled the paper she had found. His handwriting poking between her fingers. Telling her how he was trying to protect her, if he wanted to protect her he'd take her with him. Instead of leaving her with his damned sister. Listening to her pointedly attack him, knowing full well there was never a thing Mai could say in his defense. Knowing that she just had to listen to Azula mock him, call him a failure, and an embarrassment, and "better off dead". All she could do was nod. All she could do was agree.
With a disgusted sigh she pulled the note from her hand, smoothing out the crinkled letters on her knee, another damned tear smearing the ink. She frowned, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand with disgust.
She didn't used to have to cry. She used to be able to smile, even it was few and far between. He used to visit her, used to hold her hand and tell her that one day he would be fire lord, and he could have whatever it was he wanted, not simply just food she thought up on a whim to make him happy ordering people around. Telling her that she could always speak her mind, that she would be loved for who she was and not for who she pretended to be. That they could be the parents they never had. She only laughed at him. She only laughed and call him a liar. Because what else could she say? That it was what she wanted? That she hoped that Zuko, for once in his life, could have what he wanted. It was simply beyond her.
She hated him for leaving. Hated him because he didn't say goodbye. She just wanted him to come home. Not because she missed him, not because she was worried, not so she would stop crying for his sake. Just so she could tell him how much she hated him.