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By all accounts, Ty Lee should be having the time of her life.
It’s the Spring Fling — the kind of event Ty Lee should revel in. She loves getting dressed to the nines, having all the boys tell her how nice her makeup looks, dancing until her feet are sore. Even now, her date is doting on her. That is, until she glances to the side of the gym, past the streamers and the paper maiche decorations.
She can barely hear what he asks her over the rush of blood in her ears.
Mai is sitting on the bleachers. Her head leans onto Zuko’s shoulder as he mutters something to her. Her lips twitch upwards. Their hands are almost touching.
Ty Lee feels nauseous. Her head is swimming and her tongue feels too big for her mouth. She tries to push the reaction down. (It doesn’t work.)
She just flashes her trademark Ty Lee smile. Or, the best approximation of it.
“Chan, I’m just going to step out to the bathroom for a second. Don’t move ’til I get back!” She gives him a wink. It feels like a lie.
A second pair of eyes follow her as she skips out of the makeshift dancehall. What people might be saying is the least of her worries.
It was her fault she was in this mess, anyway. She’s the one that insisted they come out tonight. She’s the one that told Azula to bring Zuko. She’s the one that let Chan dance with her. She is the architect of her own demise.
The bathroom is mercifully empty when Ty Lee busts through the door. For as outgoing as she is, the crowds can get to be too much sometimes.
One minute, she tells herself. That’s all I need.
In the mirror, she examines herself, her features. They’re all so… feminine. Confidence issues don’t typically plague Ty Lee, but tonight her own image is a cruel reminder of everything she’s trying desperately not to think about.
The door swings open in the reflection. Ty Lee is relieved to see a familiar face.
“Hello, Ty Lee.” Azula glances around the bathroom in disdain. There’s a tube of lipstick rolling on the floor, splotches of foundation on the sink. “What are you doing in here? Chan not good enough for you?”
Her voice lilts slightly. If Ty Lee didn’t know her better, she would say Azula is trying to joke. On a better night, she would’ve laughed. Instead, tears threaten to spill from her gray eyes. Ty Lee doesn’t do anything to prevent it — crying is healthy for your energy. For a second, Azula’s eyebrows pinch together with concern. They smooth out the next moment.
“Talk to me,” Azula demands. But Ty Lee knows she doesn’t have to say anything. Azula is smart enough to put two and two together. She can feel her friend’s eyes tracking her face, frantically searching for answers.
“You like someone,” she determines. Ty Lee’s eyes widen a fraction, but that’s all Azula needs to cement her theory. “You like Mai.”
“Azula,” Ty Lee pleads. She hopes her message of ‘please don’t be mean right now’ translates.
“Oh, don’t worry, Ty Lee. Missus Angsty Teen won’t know anything about your little crush.” ‘For now’ is implied. It always is, with Azula.
Ty Lee knows that deep down, her oldest friend is a good person. She tries to remember that as the aura in front of her shifts into a red so deep it looks like freshly spilled blood.
-
Everything had been normal after the dance.
Well, as normal as they could be when the ache in her chest amplifies by a thousand every time she speaks to her best friend. Azula keeps looking at her with this glint in her eye that could scare even the most skilled warrior. Ty Lee does her best to ignore it, to be her bubbly self. It works, for the most part.
A few days later, though, Mai isn’t in homeroom. It’s not strange for Mai to skip out on first period if she isn’t in the mood to come to school. So why does Ty Lee keep feeling a gnawing pit in her stomach?
Mai’s not at lunch either. The gnawing persists, growing hungrier by the minute. Ty Lee pretends not to notice that Zuko and Azula are gone, too. It’s fine. They’re probably studying for finals. Ozai works his children to the bone.
She sits with her gymnastics friends and chatters on about classes and teachers and new routines to practice. Everything you’re supposed to chatter on about. Everything she doesn’t have to chatter on about with Mai.
With Mai, Ty Lee doesn’t feel the need to fill silences. She doesn’t have to feign interest in Ruon-Jian’s thoughts about the new seating chart in math. She can just be herself.
She finally sees the other girl at the end of the day. She’s dressed in black skinny jeans and her beloved Docs, waiting outside of Ty Lee’s beat-up Subaru. (Ty Lee could’ve asked her parents for something nicer. This car is her own.) Ty Lee’s whole face brightens when she spots Mai.
Something’s wrong. The pit in Ty Lee’s stomach threatens to leap out through her throat.
Mai closes her eyes for a moment as Ty Lee comes nearer. When she opens them, golden meets gray.
“Azula told me something,” Mai finally says. “Is it true?”
The June sun is beating down, but that’s not why Ty Lee begins to sweat. “I don’t know what you’re asking me.” She’s always had success playing dumb. Mai can see straight through it.
“Bullshit. Is it true?”
And Ty Lee, the girl who was always so in touch with her emotions, can’t get the words out. She nods, her eyes glued to the girl in front of her. Mai lets out a shaky exhale through her nose.
“Okay,” she murmurs. “I’m going to need some time.”
She has taken off before Ty Lee can say anything. Ty Lee drives home too far over the speed limit and can’t bring herself to care. When she gets home, she storms into her room so her sisters won’t see her cry.
-
The rest of the school year passes in a blur.
Mai doesn’t come to homeroom anymore. Sometime in the second week after the incident, Ty Lee convinced herself to stop looking up every time the door creaked open. At lunch, she sits with her gymnastics friends and chatters.
It’s fine.
She knows that she needs to give Mai space. Her best friend is the type of person to think things through, to rationalize everything. Ty Lee understands that — it’s not her place to dictate how someone handles their feelings. She just wonders how long it will take.
Soon, though, she doesn’t have the small talk of her classmates to distract her. It’s summer vacation, and her worst nightmare. If circumstances were different, better, summer vacation would feature beach trips and movie nights with her friends. Azula would gripe about the bugs and Mai and Zuko would complain about the heat, but at least she would’ve been happy. Now, Ty Lee hangs in limbo.
Gymnastics becomes her lifeline. It always was, sort of. It was an escape from the craziness of her home life and the stresses of school. She never imagined she would be using it to get away from her friends, too. Every day, she pushes harder and longer than the day before. Coach Piandao is worried, she can tell from the way his aura grows blue around her, but he can't argue with results. And boy, are there results. The ache in her muscles at the end of the day prove it. She's never been closer to getting The Amnar Vault right. Piandao tosses the word "professional" around a few times.
There's enough at home to distract her, too. Ty Lao is going to college in the fall so the living room is filled to the brim with clothes and boxes. Ty Lum has some new boyfriend that her parents won't stop yelling about. For once, she appreciates the chaos.
The reprieve never lasts long enough. With night comes sleep. With sleep comes dreams, and with dreams come Mai — her soft smiles when she thinks no one is looking, her nimble hands throwing knives like she taught herself to do in third grade, her silky hair cascading over her shoulders.
Ty Lee has never slept worse in her life.
A few weeks after she had last spoken to Mai, Ty Lee finds a black cardigan in her room. She recognizes it as Mai’s favorite. (It’s the only explanation — Ty Lee doesn’t wear black.) It must have been left behind the last time Mai slept over.
That night had been one of the best of Ty Lee’s life. Azula had been at some political event for Ozai that she either couldn’t get out of or didn’t want to. So, Ty Lee and Mai had gotten tipsy off her parents’ wine and snuck up to the roof to gaze at the stars. It was still in that odd period between winter and spring, when the weather is erratic and unpredictable. Ty Lee had been shivering. Mai had rolled her eyes and called her a baby, but offered the sweater with a fond smile playing at her lips. As Ty Lee wrapped it around herself, she bathed in the scent of coconut conditioner and vanilla moisturizer that she's associated with her best friend since childhood.
Ty Lee bites back a whimper at the memory. She can’t bear to look at the dark woven knit. But she can’t part with it, either. In the end, it sits folded under her bed.
—
Some time in mid-July, Ty Lee checks the mail when she gets home. She's sore from practice, but that doesn't account for the slight wobble she gives when she spots it. It's a gold envelope with hand-lettered maroon cursive addressed to her parents. She would know those colors anywhere.
The envelope is torn open voraciously. Her eyes skip over every other word, but she can still put together the meaning. Fundraiser. Senator Ozai. 35 Fire Lily Lane.
She knows that address. She's known that address since their first play date in kindergarten. Mai's house. The thick cardstock drops on the counter like it suddenly burned.
The next day, Ty Lee takes a different route home from the gym. She almost — almost — convinces herself that it’s because the main roads are too crowded. That doesn’t explain why she spends twenty minutes parked in one spot. 35 Fire Lily Lane towers across from her. The spiral staircase is illuminated through the windows by a gaudy chandelier. It’s exactly how Ty Lee remembers it.
Hope is a funny thing, Ty Lee thinks.
In the comfort of her bedroom, protected from her fears, she refused to let hope in. She barred the door with padlocks and plywood. (It was safer, she told herself.) Hope could die in the summer heat for all she cared. But Ty Lee was never one to shun hope. It always seems to detect her weak spots and weasel its way back into her heart. She feels it in there now, burrowing deeper and deeper.
Hope is what lets her mind wander for a second. What if she knocked on the door? What if she said everything she had been thinking and rethinking for the past month? Would Mai slam the door in her face, disgusted? Or, would she take Ty Lee’s hand and whisk her away?
And for a second, hope succeeds. Her heart swells like a symphony. Ty Lee can almost feel the warmth of Mai’s hand on hers. When her fingers reach for something and she finds only air, the illusion is shattered. Suddenly Ty Lee aches so much she can’t get her lungs to work properly. She nearly misses the car parked in front of her when she speeds off.
She misses how the curtains ruffle from the second floor bedroom, too.
The invitation taunts her from the refrigerator door daily, the gold standing out starkly against the cold silver.
‘You’re pathetic,’ it seems to whisper.
She tries to force it out of her mind. (It doesn’t work.)
-
It’s the beginning of August when she hears it through the grapevine.
The grapevine, of course, is Azula. Ty Lee hadn’t wanted to talk to the other girl for the rest of her life after what she did. But, of course, Azula had other plans. She had started texting Ty Lee again at the beginning of the summer. Seemingly, she had gotten bored of the whole ‘hanging out with your brother and his girlfriend’ thing. Ty Lee was her next best alternative. They don’t talk about what Azula did. That’s not her style.
What she hears is that Mai and Zuko are no longer together. Azula is uncharacteristically vague on details, either to piss Ty Lee off or because she cares about her brother’s privacy. Ty Lee is almost sure it’s the former. She still manages to gather that Zuko isn’t even living with their family anymore. Ozai kicked him out, accompanied with expletives about his “lifestyle choice.” Mai found a letter taped to her front door, and no one has heard from him since.
A sea of emotions floods Ty Lee. Sympathy for Mai, who just got dumped. Concern for Zuko, that he’s alright and if he’ll be safe wherever he is. Fear for herself, and what Zuko’s “lifestyle choices” mean about her own. Relief, that the pair aren’t together anymore. Guilt at that relief. Her aura turns mud brown.
For the first time in a month and a half, Ty Lee texts Mai. She wants to respect boundaries, she really does. But even now, Mai is her best friend. That comes with a duty to be there for her, even if she doesn’t want it.
From: Ty Lee
I’m sorry.
Read: 9:26pm
She’s not expecting a response. Ty Lee has felt what hope can do — she’s not eager to experience the heartbreak again. (It still hurts when she doesn’t get one.)
The call of the invitation displayed so prominently in her kitchen grows louder. The event is only two weeks away now. She can almost picture it: Azula intimidating rich eighty-year-olds into giving her father more money. Mai monotonously answering invasive questions about her life and college plans. In a different timeline, Ty Lee would be there too. She would run interference on the questions to give Mai a break from the bombardment. They’ve honed the process down to a science after the umpteenth political fundraisers. Her best friend’s eyes would twinkle, a silent thank you.
A plan begins to take shape. It’s an accident, at first. Daydreamed scenarios played over and over again in Ty Lee’s head whenever hope reared its ugly head. Along the way, maybe during those late night walks down the cobblestone streets of Caldera City, it becomes less abstract. She’s never been more single-focused.
Two weeks to perfect her strategy. I can do that, she assures herself.
-
Ty Lee’s parents left for Ozai’s fundraiser hours ago. Her sisters are all busy with work or school or friends or boyfriends.
Planning has been going on scribbled on scrap paper and typed in random notes on her phone. She has a strategy. She can do this.
It somehow still feels like a rushed decision.
She reaches under her bed — the cable knit wool soothes her. On an impulse, she throws it over her shoulder.
No one notices when she slips out the front door, keys in hand.
-
Cars are lined up and down the street.
All the other homes are mainly dark, save for a light on here and a television playing there. 35 Fire Lily Lane is different. The glow from inside contrasts the deep blue of the night sky and the pale silver of the shimmering moon. A din of partygoers echoes down the driveway.
Ty Lee takes a steadying breath. This is what all her planning was for. The cardigan is the sustenance fueling her fire, reminding her what, who all this is for. She gets out of the car.
With the cardigan on, the heat is oppressive. It’s the kind of heat you only get in the dog days of summer, the kind that only breaks with a storm. It’s not here yet, but the lightning strikes from across the lake are inching closer with every passing minute. Electricity crackles in the air, but whether it’s the storm or her own nerves, Ty Lee isn’t sure.
Her body remembers the plan before her mind does. On their own accord, her legs carry her up the three steps to the doorstep. She watches her fingers ball into a fist and knock on the door from outside her body.
Mai opens the door.
The delusion disappears. Ty Lee has never felt more grounded.
Mai’s in stilettos and a black bodycon dress, lace wrapping around her arms and neck. It’s elegant and harsh and so Mai. The last absent months seem to evaporate. Ty Lee doesn’t acknowledge Azula standing right behind Mai, glaring down at her. She doesn’t notice the attendees start to turn at the intrusion, her parents included.
The only thing she can think is Mai. Mai. Mai.
No emotion is betrayed on the taller girl’s face. Unless, of course, you know Mai. And Ty Lee does know Mai — knows what every quirk of her lips and scrunch of her nose mean. Ty Lee has no idea what’s going through her head right now.
“I need to say something,” Ty Lee starts. She takes Mai’s silence as an invitation to continue.
“I love you. I’m in love with you.” She ignores the gasp from the small crowd of politicians that have gathered in the entryway. “I don’t know what Azula said to you, but that’s the truth. You’re the best person I’ve ever met. You’re my best friend. Mai, I think I’ve been in love with you since you waited on the other side of the monkey bars to catch me if I fell. I love that you know how to throw knives, I love that you never stop reading, I love that you’re not-so-secretly funny and secretly kindhearted. There’s no one on the planet I think more highly of. These last weeks have been torture, not seeing you. I know you said you needed space, but I just - I just missed you. I know that I’m only seventeen, but I know what being in love feels like. It feels like this.”
It’s so quiet that Ty Lee thinks half the party can hear her heart beating out of her chest. Mai’s eyes trail slowly down her body before coming up to meet her face again.
“You’re wearing my cardigan,” is all Mai says. Her voice wobbles ever so slightly on the last word.
Ty Lee’s eyes cast down to her own attire — a tank top and jean shorts — and suddenly feels self-conscious. Still, she holds firm. “Yeah, I am.”
“You don’t wear black. You say it clashes with your aura.”
Frustration begins rising in Ty Lee’s throat. “But this is yours,” she all but scoffs out. Then, much quieter, Ty Lee makes her second confession of the night. “You could never clash with my aura.”
Movement happens in the blink of an eye. One moment, Ty Lee is staring up at Mai, petrified. The next, her face is in Mai’s hands and another pair of lips are on her own. It’s a fierce press of lips, quick and determined.
Ty Lee’s brain finally catches up, and she practically melts. Her mouth parts to give Mai access, and it’s everything she dreamed and more. Mai’s lips are soft, and a little tacky from her lip gloss. Her bangs tickle Ty Lee’s forehead.
It’s the best kiss she ever had.
Distantly, she hears commotion from inside. Lots of gasps and “how dare they!”s and clutching of pearls. She can’t bring herself to care.
Mai pulls away and leans their foreheads together. She gets the mischievous glint in her eyes Ty Lee recalls from childhood pranks.
“Let’s leave,” she whispers.
“Where?” Ty Lee asks. She know the answer doesn’t matter. She would follow Mai to the ends of the earth.
“I don’t care. Let’s just fucking drive.”
“Okay.”
The girls run hand in hand back to Ty Lee’s car, ignoring the protests of everyone inside. Mai slides into the passengers seat like she was made to be there. They’re both riding an adrenaline high when Ty Lee peels out of the driveway.
It’s not until the first light they stop at that one of them speaks.
“You should wear my clothes more often.”
Ty Lee can’t stop herself from leaning over the middle console to kiss her girlfriend. The only reason she pulls away is because the line of cars behind her start honking.
She tries to hide her smile when she feels Mai's eyes tracing her side profile.
(It doesn't work. She doesn’t care.)
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