Imprisoned is the freest you've ever been, free to weep and scream and caterwaul like the villain you really are. No more need to maintain your faint veneer of civilization. No more need to plaster on a smirk and greet the day, to conquer, to burn. No more need to bathe or dress or even feed yourself. But then Ty Lee comes to visit and for the first time you are ashamed— of your unwashed hair, of the bruises littering your arms from constant needle pricks, of the shabbiness of your asylum garb. She's older, taller, prettier than she was at fourteen; less vapid, a bit sad and doe-eyed. You get to watch all these people grow up and out, yet remain static; a statue, frozen in disgrace. Not for the first time, you think you should be dead.
"Why do you have to be so mean all the time?" Ty Lee asks, her hands on her hips. She wants an answer, you realize. Maybe she's been waiting her entire life for an answer.
You laugh. As if your vast reams of cruelty could be encapsulated with mean. "Maybe I was just born that way," you suggest. "A twisted bitch. But you can't accept that, can you? You always had to have someone else do the thinking, always had to have a pair of heels to slobber at, and you picked me to hero-worship. Well, I can't help anymore, Ty. You'll have to use that brain of yours for more than figuring out which boy's cock you want to suck today."
Mai would slap you. Ty Lee just looks at you with those damn doe-eyes again and suddenly you feel cheap and vulgar, like a two-copper whore. "I came here," she murmurs, "because I thought you might have changed. But you won't, and it's not that you're some crazy monster. You're just scared."
"Me. Scared."
"Yeah," she says, turning towards the door. "I'm not stupid, Zula. You've been scared your whole life— of being nice to people, or loving people. And I still care about you— not just 'cause you're so smart!— but to be honest, I don't really want to see you again."
"You know how I am. I don't see why you expected anything else."
She smiles, a little sadly and a little mockingly, and before she can walk away like everyone does, you say, "Wait. I'm... I'm sorry. Don't go."
Ty Lee has the dubious distinction of being the only person you've ever apologized to, and she turns around. You don't even know what you said it for, for calling her a slut (again) or for locking her up in prison or for breaking her wrist when you were kids, but then you kiss her so hard she stumbles into the wall. She smells of cinnamon and vanilla and a warmth you can't find in this sterile room, ever since the last shade of your mother vanished. "I missed you," comes out as a gasp once you pull away, the closest you'll ever get to I love you. "Admit it. You missed me, too. You missed this."
"Damn you," she says under her breath, but she never could tell you no, and then she kisses you back like she's trying to suck the madness out through your mouth.