Chapter 7: From Good to Bad

A/N: This will get on the darker side in the end and why this story is rated M.

Last Time:

He didn't how he was able to get such a sweet sound out of this girl, but if there was thing Aang knew, it was that he would do anything to make it happen again.

Still clutching her sides, Katara gradually stopped laughing, the smile never leaving her lips, and as she regained her bearings, she noticed Aang staring goofily at her.

Raising an eyebrow, she asked, "Why are you smiling at me like that?", shying away from his gaze.

Snapping back into reality, Aang stammered, "Oh, I was smiling?"

Shaking her head, the waterbender looked back to her journal and jotted down a few notes.

'Favorite color = orange, yellow, cerulean

Values position on soccer, basketball teams' she wrote.

Flushing, she decided to add one more tidbit of information.

'Funny and sweet -for now'

Katara looked up at Aang, who was also finishing up some notes of his own before he looked up at her.

"Shall we get back to the game?"

The girl nodded. "My turn or your turn?"

Scrunching up his eyebrows in thought, "Mine," the boy answered.

"Birthday?"

"December 12th -and yes I know, 12-12, how funny," Katara drawled sarcastically as Aang chuckled.

He shook his head, still grinning.

"That's not the reason I was laughing. My birthday's 11/11, November 11th."

The waterbender raised her eyebrows. "Really? I guess we're more similar than we thought."

Aang gave her a crooked smile, "Guess so. Your turn."

"Hmm," Katara hummed in thought, "Tell me a random fact that not many other people know about you."

The airbender quirked an eyebrow at her, "That's not a question."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine Mr. Grammar Police. What is a random fact about that not many other people now?"

The boy thought for a second before motioning for her to come closer.

He leaned in, paused for a dramatic effect, and whispered in her ear...

"Mangoes are my weakness!"

Katara snorted. "How deep and philosophical; truly an incriminating secret."

Aang shrugged his shoulders and grinned.

"What can I say? I'm just that kind of person."

Shaking her head, the waterbender wrote down some more notes.

'Birthday - 11/11

Weakness - Mangoes'

When she looked up, she was greeted with her partner pointing to her.

"You have to answer too! It's not fair if only I do it."

Katara grinned and gestured to him, leaning in and imitating what he had done minutes earlier.

"I own non-black clothes."

Exaggerating his reaction, Aang fell back against the bed, clutching his chest in shock.

"I was not ready for this... revelation! Non-black clothes?!"

The waterbender giggled into her hand, trying to stifle her laughter.

Hearing her fail, the boy subconsciously smiled again.

"There's that laugh again," he thought.

The two sat in comfortable silence with the aftermath before they were interrupted by Aang's phone ringing.

Picking it up, "Hello?"

The airbender nodded and replied to the other end.

"At Sokka's for a project."

"Now?"

He checked his watch, "Yeah. Okay, I'll come. Mhm. Bye."

Aang disconnected the line, started packing up, and gave Katara an apologetic look.

"That was my dad. I have to go home and we can do an hour and a half to make it up for next time, promise. See you tomorrow?"

Internally disappointed but not wanting to show, the waterbender shrugged half-heartedly and followed him out to the door.

"Sure. Bye," she said, waving to the receding figure.

The boy waved as he got into his car and drove down the long, winding path.

Sighing, the waterbender closed the door and sank to her knees.

"I'm falling for him so hard that I'm not even going to last 3 days."

Yawning, Katara got out of bed the next day to get ready for school.

Sleepily rubbing her eyes, she wondered, "Given yesterday, maybe he'll be nice to me?" her thoughts already on the boy of her dreams at 6:15 in the morning.

After brushing her teeth and changing into some black leggings, her normal leather jacket, and a plain black long-sleeved shirt, the waterbender went down for a quick breakfast before getting in her car and driving to school.

Off to a good start, the girl nearly skipped to her first period class, hoping for perhaps a small smile from her project partner.

Upon arriving, Katara sat down and unpacked at her desk, taking out her journal and saw Aang come and sit next to her, a smile on his face as well.

She quirked an eyebrow at him good-naturedly. "The board doesn't say to sit next to our project partners."

He shrugged, his cheeks turning slightly pink. "It doesn't say we have assigned seating either, so I can sit where I choose."

"Okay," the waterbender said, turning away with the heat running to her cheeks.

After the late bell rang, Mr. Iroh entered the classroom and began talking.

"Now today class, you will review what you and your partner... blah blah blah blah blah..."

Katara snuck a quick glance at her partner and saw him smiling at her before blushing and looking away as she did the same.

She sighed happily.

It was going to be a good day.

RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG

The bell rang for lunch as all of the students in Lunch Group B exited class, not able to escape the horrors of cosine and clauses fast enough.

Getting her lunch out of her locker, Katara sat down at her usual table in the back of the cafeteria, alone, with her book and phone for company.

Absentmindedly chewing on her sea prunes, the waterbender scrolled through her book before finding her page and reading.

"Moving at a rapid clip... got a prickly feeling... Strong Ones stay inside the castle.."

"Ahem," she was interrupted by someone clearing their throat in front of her.

The waterbender looked up and saw Aang staring down at her, a frown on his face.

"Oh," she said, "Hi?"

The airbender snorted at her and glared at her intensely.

"You didn't honestly think anything would change, did you?" he asked.

"That what would change?" Katara replied cautiously, confused at his sudden change in behavior.

He scoffed. "That we would be equals and become all friendly with each other. Just because we're project partners doesn't mean anything is changing."

Aang looked into her eyes seriously.

"You are still a social outcast. You are still Goth Girl. You are still the one that no one wants to be seen with. You are still the one that is worthless."

Dumping her lunch on her lap with a final statement, the airbender stormed off, not even waiting to see her reaction.

The girl's eyes widened, shocked from both his harsh words and actions as well as his sudden change in attitude.

Shaking her head with tears threatening to fall, Katara got to work waterbending some of the sea prunes off of her and picking up the rest.

"He's right," she thought, hurt by what he did, "I was a fool to think anything would change. I take it back, this is going to be a bad day."

On the other side of the lunch room, a certain bald-headed monk was thinking the same thing, still feeling guilty over his actions.

"I didn't want to do it," he tried to telepathically communicate to his partner, staring at her while she had her head down,"But everyone else was getting suspicious. My reputation was at stake. I'm sorry."

With a soft sigh, the airbender turned away from Katara and forced himself back into the avid conversation over his friends' experiences with their partners.

Little did he know, across the room, the very one he had tried to mentally communicate with had, in fact, been listening in.

With a pained expression on her face, she had been hearing his thoughts the whole time, and was left frustrated that once again, his reputation was more important than showing his true self and making real friends.

The waterbender shook her head. That's just the way high school was; you were molded into a new person, and had to stay that way if you wanted to be accepted. It was a sad but very real truth. She had been naive if she thought that Aang would honestly try to change just for her, the least important person at school, the one whom no one would care about if they just died or disappeared. After all, not even her once best friends and brother wanted anything to do with her.

She clenched her fists, willing the long, painted-black cuticles to dig in and draw blood from her palm, hoping for some relief from the internal pain she felt. Then, standing up, she entered the girls' bathroom and went to the very last stall, also known as 'The Wall'.

On 'The Wall', there were dozens of secrets and insults, rumors and gossip, truths and lies, designed to break someone's will to live.

Taking a shaky breath, Katara drew some water from the sink and froze it into a dagger, reading each and every one of the insults that were meant to get under her skin.

Biting back a cry, she made a cut, the first.

Of course, this wasn't her first first cut, just the first of that particular week. The waterbender repeated the action numerous times, making small, centimeter long nicks as she made her way up her arm, swiftly healing them afterwards, enough to make the cut nearly invisible, but not enough to completely heal it so that there would still be some physical pain to distract her from the mental wounds reopened.

Tears flowed down her typically neutral face; blood trickled down her burnt-sienna arm; breathless gasps escaped her dry throat; her knees buckled as she crumpled against the stall door.

"I am all alone," she thought, "No one loves me, no one cares, no one wants anything to do with me, unless it's insulting me or hating me. I should just do what they all ask and go kill myself."

The waterbender let out an anguished cry as she forced her nails to reopen the nicks on her forearm.

"Why? Why does no one care? Why doesn't anyone bother to help me, to love me?"

A little inner voice snarked at her. "You know exactly why. You have no purpose. You're a good-for-nothing waste of oxygen. You're worthless. That's why no one wants you."

Lip trembling, Katara buried her face in her knees, willing all of the pain swirling in her arm and head to just stop, just once.

"Please."

A/N: That's the end of 7! I thought about making it longer but decided that I could get this to you readers out there faster and then start planning chapters ahead of time to have a more regular updating schedule. Again, once I get into the swing of things, there should be a chapter every week-ish. Also, THIS IS THE FIRST CHAPTER TO BE MORE THAN 1500 WORDS! *cheers* To finish this note off, I probably will start my new story Out of A Dream (Kataang, obviously) in the next month-ish but hopefully before Thanksgiving so stay tuned! Once the New Year hits, we'll have a holiday Gaang story coming up and a few more on the way in 2019!