Sun is up, I'm a mess.

Gotta get out now.

Gotta run from this.

Here comes the shame.

"Chandelier" by Sia

I don't know where I'm going. All I know is that I need to get away before I show up at Katara's house and the truth spills out of me before I have a chance to process it. Or worse, he's there and I beat the tar out of him.

I get on the 101 and follow the two-lane highway. My blood is hot in my veins and my heart is a thunderstorm in my chest. I'm wound tightly, and it won't take much for me to snap.

Jet's smirk flashes through my mind's eye and I tighten my grip on the steering wheel.

I'm glad Azula didn't tell me. She's right. I don't need to know every detail. But I know just enough that I can picture it. Her rumpled clothes and tangled hair framing her too-wide eyes. The mascara running down her cheeks. And the way he looked at her.

I beat one fist against the steering column and let out a string of curses. With each punch of my fist, the anger escapes me like puffs of smoke. As the anger ebbs, the guilt settles in.

I was oblivious. Completely, utterly oblivious. All because I was too concerned with my own shit. I'm just as angry at myself.

I round a corner going way too fast. The back end of my car slides across the pavement and I let off the gas. For one horrifying moment I think I'm going to crash. But then my car straightens out, and I slow down. I pull off on the shoulder and bury my face in my hands. I'm shaking all over.

My scar is stiff and unforgiving against my palm. My fingers graze the edges, where rough flesh meets soft skin. My heart is in my throat and my stomach is churning. The vodka I drank earlier is souring in my stomach and for a moment I think I might be sick. I close my eyes and take deep breaths until the feeling passes.

When I look up, something blue is illuminated in my headlights. I blink and realize that it's a cross.

I unlatch my seatbelt and step outside. Pine needles are springy under my feet, and I can smell the salt of the ocean and the musk of loam in the air. My feet carry me to the powder-blue cross and I see bouquets of flowers and ribbons and a teddy bear.

There's a photograph, sealed in a plastic case. I crouch down to get a better look. I see Katara looking back at me.

I blink. No, it's not Katara. But it's a woman who looks a lot like her, with the same nose and mouth and cheekbones. But this woman is older, and her eyes are a darker shade of blue.

I look up at the cross. There's a name carved into it, painted white. Kya Kuruk.

I rock back on the balls of my feet. I feel like the breath has been knocked out of me.

This is the place where Katara's mother died. On this stretch of highway, Katara lay in a wrangled heap of metal, plastic, and glass beside her dead mother. This is the place where Katara's life became upended, where everything changed and nothing could ever be the same.

I stand up and back away as gooseflesh breaks across my skin. I don't turn around until I reach my car, but then the contents of my stomach are surging up my throat and I throw up on the side of the road.

I finally quit heaving, my eyes streaming and my chest aching. I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and dare to straighten up. My gaze lands back on the cross and I feel cold. I look at that framed picture and want to scream.

All of my emotions, my rage and grief and guilt, rise up until they burst out of me. I curse the spirits as I kick the tire of my car. There are hot tears behind my eyes but they don't come.

I exhaust myself, my fists denting the hood as the curses tear my throat raw. I drop to the damp ground and lean my head back against the car door. My chest is heaving and I just want to run. I don't know where to. Home? Seattle to tell Azula I'm sorry? To Katara's to tell her the truth? To find Jet so I can kick the crap out of him for whatever unspeakable thing he's done to my sister?

But somehow, I don't do any of those things. I climb back inside and turn back onto the road.

I don't stop until I make it home.

Katara

I'm on the cusp of sleep when I hear the soft knock on my bedroom door. I drag my head off of my pillow and blink sleepily, wondering who it could be.

"Yeah?" I call out.

The door opens, and my brother pokes his head into my room. "Are you awake?"

"I am now." I rub my eyes. "What's up?"

"Can we talk for a minute?"

I sit upright and click on my bedside lamp. Soft light fills the room and illuminates Sokka, and I see the worry in the downturned set of his mouth. He comes deeper into the room, closing the door behind him, before he settles himself on the end of my bed.

"Is everything okay?" I ask him.

Sokka nods. "Yeah, I guess." He looks up at me. "What about you and Jet? Is everything okay there? He left pretty quick tonight."

I look away. "Yeah, we're fine."

Sokka sighs. "Alright. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. But just know that I'm not stupid or blind, and I can clearly see something is up between the two of you, and I think it has to do with that Zuko guy."

I look sharply at my brother, shocked. Obviously, he's not blind or stupid if he was able to pick that up so quickly. Or perhaps it was just that obvious, and I'm the stupid one for thinking that it wasn't.

"What's the story behind you and that guy, anyway?" Sokka asks me.

"What's the story behind you and your mystery girlfriend?" I quip back.

"Touché. But I asked you first."

"We're just friends," I say defensively. I throw my hands up in exasperation. "Why can't a girl be friends with a guy without everyone assuming something is going on between them?!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Sokka holds his hands up peaceably. "I never said anything was." He narrows his eyes at me. "Is there something going on?"

"No!" My voice is nearly a shout, and I clamp my mouth shut. I scrub my hand down my face and huff out a frustrated sigh. "No, nothing is going on. Like I said, we're just friends."

"Hey, you're all grown up and you can make your own choices."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Sokka looks at me. "It means that you can do what you want." He lowers his voice. "You don't have to be with Jet if you don't want to, you know."

I stare at him, unable to form a sentence. Sokka seems to understand this, because he nods again before he continues.

"You guys have been together for a while, and it's easy to fall into a routine, ya know? You get comfortable." He snorts. "Think about how long Yue and I were together for."

It felt like they were together forever. They dated all throughout high school, actually. Everyone thought they would be high school sweethearts, like our parents were. But then, right after graduation, Yue broke things off with him and ran off to college without so much as an explanation. Sokka had been heartbroken. As far as I know, Suki is the first girl he's dated since.

"Long distance isn't easy on a relationship," Sokka goes on. "I can't speak from personal experience, but I can imagine that it's rough. So, I'm just saying, if you aren't happy with Jet, you don't need to be with him."

I snort. "And you got all of that from a five-minute meeting with a friend of mine?"

"No. I've actually been thinking of it for a while." Sokka shrugs. "At least since winter break. He came up for what, five days? And then he left again."

"He had a show in Seattle." I mean the words as a defense, but I just state them like a fact.

"I get it. But still." Sokka looks at me from the corner of his eye. "Are you happy with him?"

I open my mouth to say yes. But then I close it again, because that sounds too much like a lie. The truth is that I don't know how I feel about Jet or our relationship. There's a war in my mind, and I don't know which side is winning.

Sokka nods. Apparently, my silence is all the answer he needs.

"Dad says he hasn't seen you this happy since Mom died," Sokka says quietly. "And that it all started when you met Zuko."

I swallow hard against the lump that has suddenly risen in my throat.

"This stuff with Zuko…" I trail off. "It's been...nice."

"Do you like him?"

I hesitate. "I think so."

"Then why are you holding on to Jet?" Sokka asks me.

My face scrunches up as Toph's words come back. Just another guy waiting in the wings. That's not what Zuko is. I never meant for him to be. He was only supposed to be a friend. How was I supposed to know that a scarred stranger with his timid smile would get under my skin and into my lungs?

I'm afraid. I'm afraid of how strongly I feel for Zuko after only knowing him for such a short period of time. And I'm afraid that I only feel this way because he's new and intriguing and a break from the sad melancholy my life has become. He doesn't treat me like I'm going to break apart in his hands. And he knows what it feels like to lose someone so important. He understands what I'm going through. How did I ever tell myself we could just be friends?

Sokka seems to realize that I don't have an answer. He gets up and makes his way back to my door. He stops and looks back at me.

"Like I said, it's your choice," he says. "But I think you'll be happier with him."

I don't have to ask if he means Zuko or Jet. I already know the answer.

Zuko

Rhett leaves early the next morning, and then it's just me, Uncle, and the storm inside my head.

We have breakfast before we go down into the shop. Opening day is a week and a half away, and there's still so much left to do. Katara and I didn't finish the kitchen on Saturday, and Uncle and I didn't do any work yesterday, and the panic of a deadline is starting to set in.

I don't want to paint. I want to see Katara. But I'm not in the right headspace, and this place, this tea shop, is my definite future, and I can't shirk my responsibilities to it.

Uncle and I paint in silence. I'm not stupid. I know my tension is palpable in the air, and I know sooner or later Uncle is going to bring it up. So I'm just going to bide my time until he does.

I didn't get any sleep last night. I could only toss and turn as my sister's cries echoed in my head and the sight of the cross flashed behind my eyelids. When I dragged myself out of bed when the day dawned, bleak and gray, I had a pulsing headache that even painkillers haven't managed to touch.

Why can't my life ever be simple? Why is it always one thing after another, back to back, without ever giving me a chance to catch my breath? I long to go back to last week, when everything was starting to feel okay. It was the calm before the storm.

Finally, Uncle speaks. "What's on your mind, nephew?"

I set down my paint roller and turn to him. Uncle is clearly surprised: he looks at me from over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised.

"I know Katara's boyfriend." I speak slowly, carefully. "Well, I sort of do. Azula met him at a party in December."

Uncle watches me cautiously and doesn't speak. I press on.

"He...came onto her. Azula, I mean." Bile threatens to rise in my throat as unwanted images flood my brain. "And I think I should tell Katara, but I'm just so angry right now, Uncle, that I don't know if I can."

Uncle takes in my words; he chews them up and swallows them. He nods his head slowly as he digests them.

"I think," he says at last, slow and cautious. "That you need to ask yourself why you want to tell her. Is it coming from a place of good intentions, or selfish reasons?"

"I want to tell her because that guy is a punk!" I scrub my hand down my face. "He's a fucking—" I cut the words off. I can't tell Uncle what Azula told me in confidence. "He's a cheater," I finish lamely.

Uncle considers this for a moment before he speaks again. "And if she comes running to you, that's just a bonus, I presume?"

I narrow my eyes at him. "Weren't you just telling me like, a week ago, that I should take this opportunity?"

Uncle pierces me with his eyes. "That was before there was a bias, Zuko. Now it's personal. This man did something to your sister, and it's going to cloud your judgment on how you handle this situation. That's why I'm asking why you want to tell Katara what you know."

I rake my fingers through my hair as I turn away from him. "What do you think I should do?"

"I think you should tell her because it's the right thing to do." Uncle holds up a finger. "But, you need to do it because it's the right thing to do, not because it gives you the opportunity to move in closer to her."

"Of course!" I splutter out.

"Nephew…" Uncle arches his brow at me.

I huff out a breath. "I've been up all night thinking about this, Uncle. And this is going to go two ways: either she believes me, or she doesn't. If she believes me, then she'll probably break up with him. And yeah, that gives me a chance, but that's not why I really want to do this. I mean, that's part of it. But not all of it."

"And if she doesn't believe you?"

I shrug helplessly. "Then...she'll probably hate me and she won't talk to me ever again."

Uncle nods thoughtfully. "And you're okay with that?"

If I hadn't learned the truth from Azula, I don't know if I would be. But now that I do know, I think I am. It'll hurt like hell, but I'll know that I did everything I could. That's really all I can do.

"Yeah," I say. I exhale slowly. "I just hope it doesn't go that way. I hope she believes me."

Uncle shuffles across the kitchen to me. He puts his hands on my shoulders and squeezes me gently. Then, to my surprise, he brings me in for an embrace. After a moment, I hug him back. When Uncle pulls away, I can see the adoration in his eyes. He smiles at me, and pats my unscarred cheek.

"I am so proud of the man you are becoming, nephew." His eyes are bright with unshed tears. "For so long, you were afraid to stand up for what is right, and for what you believe in. Your father made you afraid to do that. I've been worried all of this time since your mother died...that your father's influence was too strong. That it would turn you cruel like him. I was afraid you had lost your way. But when you stood up to your father, I saw that you hadn't." He beams a watery smile at me. "You are an honorable man, Zuko. I think you are doing the right thing by telling Miss Katara the truth, no matter what the consequences of that might be."

A tear slips down my cheek before I even realize it's there. I wipe it away, a little embarrassed. But tears are shining in Uncle's eyes too, and when he looks at me, I know that he means every word he's said.

And his words give me the strength I need to face this.