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SUMMER-BEFORE-COLLEGE BUCKET LIST
- Jump off a cliff (Toph)
- Stay up for an entire night (Toph)
- Test every flavor of Ben & Jerry’s and rank them all from worst to best (Aang)
- Movie marathon – mute and make up our own dialogue (Aang)
- Go tubing (Suki)
- Watch the sunrise (Suki)
- Rooftop Party at Haze! (Sokka)
- Egg someone’s house (Sokka)
- Go to the theater (Zuko)
- Camp out on the beach (Zuko)
- Night swim (Katara)
- Get caught in the rain (Katara)
- Do something you’re scared of (everyone)
- Jump off a cliff
In the end, no one remembered whose idea it had been.
All they knew was that at some point back in May, on a heady late-Spring night the week before prom, someone had said “we should make a bucket list,” and everyone agreed. Each member had added two items, with the entire group agreeing on the last two.
And somewhere along the line, it had taken on a mind of its own, and now the whole group was gathered in Toph Beifong’s living room at seven o’clock the morning after graduation (no small feat when Mai Takeda’s grad party, which they’d all attended, had stretched into the wee hours), wearing clothes they didn’t mind ruining per Toph’s instructions.
“You ready, kids?” she said, scarily energetic given the hour.
“Ugh, no,” Sokka groaned. “I barely feel alive right now.”
“That’s your problem,” Toph said, smirking. “I got the directions, and if you want to get there before it gets crowded, we gotta go.”
“Okay, Toph, lead the way.” Katara smiled tiredly, as if her head wasn’t in a jumble, hefting the oversized backpack she’d brought along onto her shoulders. “Guys?”
In a dismal single-file procession, the group filed out the door, led by Katara. Toph tossed her the keys to her parents’ SUV, and they piled in. Katara glanced back in the rearview mirror after fifteen minutes of driving to see that Sokka was already snoozing on an equally-exhausted Suki’s shoulder, Zuko was passed out against the window – out like a light, Katara thought with a smile she couldn’t quite fight off her face even as a stiff blush rose in her cheeks – and Aang looked like he was fighting to keep his eyes open.
“Can you put on some music?” he asked when he noticed Katara glancing back at them. “Might help me. I’m trying to stay awake because I know if I go to sleep now, I’ll be drowsy when we get there and it won’t be any fun.”
“Of course.” Katara smiled softly – it was so Aang, trying so hard to stay awake so he wouldn’t ruin the experience for them. “Any requests?”
“Whatever,” he responded. Katara handed him her phone so he could choose a playlist, and as the bright indie music he’d selected started to play, Zuko jolted awake, rubbing his eyes blearily. Katara’s heart stuttered but she forced it not to – don’t think about last night, she begged herself, not when we have a whole summer of pretending it never happened to look forward to.
“Where are we?” he asked, his voice foggy with sleep.
“About fifteen minutes out,” Katara told him. “You can go back to sleep if you want.”
“I don’t think I could,” he sighed.
They talked until the car pulled into the parking lot at Caldera State Park, the site Toph had picked for their first bucket-list item: “jump off a cliff.” The park, apparently, was known for its spectacular rock formations, some of which were situated above a deep lake and perfect for jumping. Katara’s heart hammered at the idea of spending an entire morning hiking to and from the lake with Zuko, but if she told herself her jitters were just adrenaline at the idea of jumping off a cliff, she almost believed it.
“This cliff better be worth it,” a drowsy Sokka yawned as he stumbled out of the car. Suki, barely more awake than he was, had to steady him. And Aang was a little better off, but the dark circles under his eyes made it clear that a night out (something he rarely experienced) had taken its toll.
“Oh, trust me, it will be,” Toph insisted. She’d been out as late as the rest of the group, but it didn’t seem to be bothering them. “So let’s get going.”
“Um…” Katara glanced up from her phone, where she was looking at a trail map of the park. “It looks like we need to be following Boiling Rock Trail. I think that’s the one that starts to the left.”
“Wait, there’s a trail?” Sokka whined. Suki flicked his forearm, shooting him a “we’re-all-too-tired-for-this” glare. “No one told me we were gonna be hiking!”
“Really, Sokka?” Now it was Katara’s turn to glare at him. “It’s less than two miles. If we make good time, we’ll be at the lake in a little under half of an hour.”
“Ugh.” Sokka huffed, crossing his arms as he made his way to the trailhead. “Let’s get it over with, then.”
The group didn’t say much as they walked, though Aang tried to start conversations a few times – Sokka and Suki were too tired, Toph not interested, and Katara and Zuko, he in the back and she in the front, were unusually stiff. It was all Katara could do not to sink to her knees and cry with relief – or, alternatively, yell at Toph for choosing to schedule her first activity now – when they finally reached the lake.
But the way Sokka’s eyes widened when he took in the scene, seventy-foot rock faces ringing a perfectly cerulean lake undisturbed by the breeze, almost made it worth it.
“All right!” he crowed, suddenly energetic as he threw off his shirt in preparation for his first jump. “Gotta hand it to you, Toph, you know how to pick ‘em!”
“I try,” Toph said with a self-satisfied smirk. “Okay, do we all wanna jump together, or-“
“Yeaaaaaaaaah!” Sokka’s elated whoop cut her off as he ran towards the edge of the cliff they stood on and flung himself over into the water, screaming all the way down.
“Never mind,” Toph sighed.
“Guys, this water is freezing!” Sokka shouted after he surfaced from the water seventy feet below. “You gotta try it!”
“You were supposed to wait,” Suki yelled back at him, grinning anyways as she pulled off her shorts to reveal the practical red bikini – athletic and practical but stylish, just like she liked it – underneath. “Now get out of the way so I can jump!”
Katara watched the two – Sokka, his face still lit with adrenaline, and Suki, glowing with anticipation, as if they were sharing a joke no one else understood – with gnawing regret. I could’ve had that, she told herself, melancholy drifting across her mind like a bank of storm clouds.
But she noticed Toph staring at her and shook it off. This is your problem. Don’t ruin her day with it.
“All right, I’m going in,” Toph announced after Suki swam to the side and pulled herself up on the rocks around the shoreline. She hadn’t taken off her shorts or t-shirt.
“In your clothes?” Katara asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Why not?” Toph shrugged. “Might as well.”
“Crazy,” she muttered as Toph ran full-speed towards the cliff’s edge. (This should’ve been problematic, a blind girl charging off a cliff with no way of seeing what was below, but they all knew not to worry for Toph by now). Aang, standing beside her, chuckled.
“That’s Toph for you,” he said. “You wanna go next?”
“Oh, no, you can go.” She stepped aside to let Aang jump next, too nervous to take the plunge.
(And not, she had to admit to herself, for the reason anyone expected.)
“You sure?”
“Yeah, totally.” Katara smiled tightly, trying and completely failing to sound casual. Aang looked back at her with worry written all over his face as he made his way to the edge, but he wasn’t bothered enough not to jump.
And that left two.
“Um…do you wanna go?” Zuko asked, gesturing towards the rest of the group sitting on the water’s edge, laughing and chattering.
“Um. Sure,” Katara didn’t meet his eyes as she pulled her tank top over her head and unzipped her shorts (she may have been mortified, but she wasn’t about to jump in fully-clothed as Toph had), cursing herself for choosing this bathing suit for today.
(If she’d known how awkward things would be, she’d hardly have chosen something as eye-catching as her ruffled periwinkle bikini when she laid out her clothes the day before, but there was little she could do about that right now.)
“Um…are you scared?” Zuko asked, pointedly looking away as she changed. “Because I can go first if you want.”
She turned back to him, gaping, because he’d removed his shirt now, and she’d been expecting it but –
Gaah, stupid brain! Katara wished she could shut it off for the moment, but, knowing that she couldn’t, she shook her head. “I’m okay-“
“Kat, I know you’re not.” He looked at her with so much tenderness that she almost wondered if she’d forgotten how awkwardly they’d left things off. “It’s okay to be nervous. Do you want me to jump with you?”
That would only make this worse, she wanted to say, but instead she found herself saying, “okay.”
Smiling for the first time that morning, Zuko grabbed her hand and began to run, pulling her along as they approached the edge. “Okay, jump!” he shouted as they reached the edge, not letting go of their hand as the land ran out beneath their feet and they felt themselves falling, falling, falling before they hit the surface and frigid, impossibly refreshing water.
Zuko’s hand was still in hers, and when she turned to look at him, all the awkwardness between them evaporating as they burst out laughing with leftover adrenaline and the sheer joy of it all, she almost, almost leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
But then she remembered what had happened last time she’d tried that, and she dropped his hand and swam to the edge.
Last Night – Mai’s Graduation Party
She was crumpled on the porch steps by the end of the night, Suki and Toph and even Ty Lee clustered around her, mumbling sympathetic platitudes as she cried her makeup into an early grave. She clutched her denim jacket around her shoulders though it was still seventy degrees, gasping for air and begging for answers, and she couldn’t even look at Zuko when he walked out the door.
“Katara?” he rushed to her the moment he saw her, crouching in front of the stairs to meet her eyes. The tenderness in them when she finally managed to raise her face only increased her desire to cry, knowing as she did how little it meant. Her friends tried to warn him off with glares on all sides, but it didn’t work. “What happened? Are you alright?”
Now she finally met his eyes. “Do I look alright?” she snapped. “Please just leave me alone.”
She wished for all the world that she could’ve run into his arms and begged him to answer her and cried until she ran out of tears, but she knew she couldn’t. He’d made himself clear no matter how sweet or how attentive he was being now.
That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when he reluctantly walked away, completely unaware that he’d been the reason for her tears.
- Stay up all night
“I think I liked your last idea more,” Sokka commented as he emptied the leftover citric acid from the bottom of his empty bag of gummy worms into his mouth.
“Like you wouldn’t still be up if you were home,” Zuko told him.
Katara smiled a little at that and he felt mildly ill, because her smiles were so rare around him now and he couldn’t figure out why. But he brushed it off, because there were a lot of reasons to lose sleep that would be more pleasant than that.
“I mean, you’re not wrong,” Sokka said, yawning. “But it’s harder when you have to stay up.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree,” Katara said. “We gotta find something to do before we all drift off.”
Zuko didn’t want to stick around for the heated debate about what activity to do that would inevitably follow, so he slipped out, stepping onto the Beifongs’ back deck for a breath of fresh air. Soon he heard footsteps behind him and, when he turned, Aang was leaning against the railing next to him.
“You okay?” he asked. “You’ve been off all night.”
“Yeah, I am.” Zuko knew he was a bad liar, but he wasn’t sure what else to say. “It’s just…Katara’s avoiding me, and I have no idea why.”
“Oh.” Aang looked at the ground and Zuko knew that expression, his telltale ‘I-know-something-I-shouldn’t-tell-you’ face. “Maybe you should talk to her.”
“Yeah, maybe I should,” he sighed, and Aang went back inside, satisfied with his results. But Zuko knew he wouldn’t.
What he and Katara had was like lightning in a bottle – always had been – and he’d always been afraid to open that bottle for fear of its power. But now that its contents were nothing more than a faint ember…
Zuko ran his hand through his hair. He was even less likely to uncork it now, knowing that being struck was a million times less painful than opening the bottle and realizing there was no warmth to be found in it.
- Test every flavor of Ben & Jerry’s and rank them all from worst to best
“I can’t,” Katara insisted, waving away the container of Vanilla Caramel Fudge ice cream that Aang was holding out to her. “Seriously. I’ve had the equivalent of, like, two whole cartons already.”
“But Katara,” he whined, “we all have to eat all the flavors or we can’t rank them!”
“C’mon, Katara, it’s the last one!” Sokka joined in, happily munching on the leftovers (the remaining half-carton of Cherry Garcia) after finishing his own rankings. “You can have one more bite, can’t you?”
“I had to eat them all, too. It’s only fair,” Zuko cut in.
“I’m with them. Am I gonna have to force-feed it to you?” Toph teased.
“But I-“
“Don’t even.” Zuko, grinning wickedly, had grabbed the container and a fresh spoon from Aang and wrestled its lid off, scooping out a modest bite and holding it out to her. He turned to her with a teasing smile that made every pint of blood in Katara’s body rush to her face. “Don’t ruin this for them. Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”
Katara’s heart was racing because she could see where this was going and, with a joyous rush she hadn’t felt in weeks, she shot to her feet, grinning. “Hard way!” she called, racing out of the living room (and trying not to skid on the hardwood floors of the hallway in her fuzzy socks) and as far away from Zuko as she could get.
(She felt light now, because this time, she knew he’d follow, and some insane part of her relished that, loved the idea of being chased the way she hadn’t been that night at the party while her head was buzzing with too much sugar and too much Zuko.)
“Seriously?” he called after her, and Katara felt a little jolt running up her spine when she heard his heavy footsteps following her into the hallway. She ducked into a coat closet, closing the door most of the way but not latching it. She pressed her back against the coats hanging up behind her, breathing hard. Zuko’s footsteps slowed and soon she heard the doorknob turning.
“Um. Hi,” she said, flustered in the extreme as she backed even further into the coats. Zuko was close now – his smirk only inches from her own nervous smile – and he was out of breath, too, still holding the ice cream carton. “You…caught me?”
If he’d been smirking before, he was beaming now, and he caught her wrist, trying to press the spoon into her hand. “I did,” he panted. “Now you’re gonna eat this or-“
“Nope!” Katara cackled, sidestepping to dodge him before he could finish his sentence and taking off down the hallway again. She’d nearly made it to the bathroom (at least that door had a lock on it) when he caught her arm; Katara could’ve pulled away, but she let him hold on. She was backed up against a wall now, and he gently used his grip on her forearm to maneuver her until her back was pressed to it, pinning her in place with his other arm. (Don’t think don’t think don’t think, she urged herself. She thought anyway.)
Time seemed to freeze as, with his free hand, he lifted the spoon with its half-melted bite of ice cream to her mouth.
She couldn’t believe she was allowing this, and her heart kicked frantically against her ribcage, but reluctantly, she shut her eyes and opened her mouth. That buzzy sensation hadn’t left her and she tried not to watch Zuko’s eyes as they followed her every movement with tender mirth, or his hand as it brought the offending scoop of ice cream to her lips.
When she did look back, she thought she might have a coronary on the spot.
She swallowed the ice cream and caught his eyes, noticing his triumphant smirk just inches away, but he unpinned her after a moment and offered his arm, which she waved off.
“That was a pretty underwhelming flavor,” she said after a moment, once she’d finally managed to clear some of the fog from her brain.
Zuko laughed, his eyes not leaving her for a second, and for a moment she dared to wonder if that night at Mai’s hadn’t been as telling as she’d taken it to be. “I agree.”
Last Week – Mai’s Graduation Party
Katara was so wrapped up in conversation with Aang when she walked into the party that she almost didn’t notice Zuko until she bumped into him. But then she did, of course, and when she met his eyes he was a blushing, stuttering mess.
“Katara! Uh. Hi,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “I, uh, um. You, uh…”
“Yes?” Katara couldn’t help but laugh, self-consciously straightening the hem of the red satin dress she’d worn, thinking a rich kid’s grad party was likely to call for something nice. It was a a little slinky, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about the dress– or the feeling of eyes following her that it brought – yet.
“You look nice,” he finally blurted out. “More than nice. You-“
But he couldn’t finish, because Ty Lee burst into the room right as he was about to tell her what exactly he thought of her tonight, and Katara wanted to scream because Zuko never gave her compliments, and she’d gone and interrupted one.
She shared a pointed look with Aang and walked away as the two conversed. Zuko barely seemed to notice that she’d gone, consumed as he was with whatever he and Ty Lee were talking about, and Katara sighed.
She’d really hoped that moment was a sign of things to come, but it didn’t look like it would be.
- Movie marathon – mute and make up our own dialogue
“Oh, but you know my heart will always be yours!”
Toph threw her arms around Aang’s neck with a smirk. Even without seeing his face, it was obvious that she knew that this was the moment when Aang began to question why he’d ever thought that suggesting this activity was a good idea.
He recovered quickly, though, and frowned at her exaggeratedly. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” he said in his best approximation of a posh British accent. “For I do not wish to possess it!”
“This is so painful,” Zuko muttered under his breath. The black-and-white rom-com playing in the background was barely a footnote now as Aang and Toph replaced its dialogue with their own improvised lines. Toph was a melodramatic lady of fashion, apparently, and Aang appeared to be playing a stuffy Brit (and those were his only two qualities); the group had been rotating out pairs to act out scenes, but they’d had the floor for at least twenty minutes now, and none of their friends wanted to step in.
“I think it’s kinda cute,” Suki replied. “They’re so invested.”
“Yeah, sure, but I gotta question why we picked this movie,” Sokka interjected. “I mean…it’s not even in color.”
“You know that Aang likes classic movies, Sokka,” Katara said. “And they’re having fun. Just look at them.”
“Okay, but I’m not-“
“Sokka! You take over, I’m gonna get us some of that leftover ice cream,” Aang told him.
“Can you not?” Sokka protested. “Isn’t there someone else who could go? Me and Suki already did a scene!”
“Oh yeah, you did,” Aang replied, stopping in the doorway. “Has anyone not?”
“Zuko hasn’t,” Katara said, grabbing his arm and raising it to volunteer him. His face went beet-red at the contact. The ice cream taste-test had melted a little of the ice between them, but he’d gone so long without the slightest contact with Katara (who touched everyone, for any reason) that it caught him off-guard.
Toph smirked. “Perfect. You’ll go together!”
Now it was Katara’s turn to blush, but she said nothing, obediently getting up and following Zuko to the middle of the room. The couple on-screen was in the midst of a passionate argument and Katara took a deep breath and began.
“I can’t believe you would do such a thing!” Katara cried, smacking Zuko’s arm as the leading lady hit her male counterpart with her purse onscreen. “How could you be so callous?”
“I don’t even know what I did!” Zuko found himself blurting out, immediately tensing when he realized that he wasn’t quite making up this dialogue anymore.
“You don’t even know?” Katara shouted, turning her back on him and crossing her arms as the actress did. “I don’t buy that for a minute.”
“You gotta tell me what’s wrong if you want me to apologize!” Zuko shot back, dimly aware that he was hashing out his frustrations instead of those of the character he was supposed to be playing. He didn’t care – this might be the only way he’d ever have to courage to speak his mind.
“You…you…led me on,” Katara said shakily, collapsing in on herself like the leading lady did. Following the leading man’s movements, Zuko moved to stand behind her, setting his hands on her shoulders. He couldn’t help but notice how she tensed at his touch even in this context.
“How?” he asked. “How did I ever make you think that-“
“When I tried to tell you how I felt, you ran from me,” Katara snapped, mimicking the leading lady’s confrontational posture. “You are a reprehensible knave, and you have no clue how to treat a woman, and yet…and yet…” she swooned along with the actress, visibly rolling her eyes. “And yet I can’t stay away from you!”
“Then why have you?” Zuko knew she was pulling her lines out of thin air, but it stung a little how close to home they hit. Glancing at the screen out of the corner of his eye, he saw the leading man cup the leading lady’s face and lean down to her; he copied the motion, his hand trembling against her flushed cheek. “Why don’t you know how I feel about you?”
Zuko was barely cognizant of the fact that the room had gone deathly silent around him. Katara was frozen, as if questioning something; the rest of the group was agape, staring at them as if with new eyes. Cringing, he pulled his hand away from her cheek, and she took a few steps away from him as the actress was doing.
“Because you make it hard for me,” Katara said softly.
He almost wished she knew how true the words he’d said when he was supposed to be acting were.
- Go tubing (Suki)
“Bank left!” Katara cried into the wind, catching her father’s eye with a triumphant smirk.
“You got it,” he said, pulling the wheel of the speedboat they’d all chipped in to rent hard to the left. In the moment, she was thankful that her dad had volunteered to take them out to the bay and that it was him driving the boat right now instead of Sokka, who’d kill someone for sure.
“Oh, they are so falling off now!” Katara crowed, watching the inner tube they were towing, dangling on a taut rope a hundred feet behind the boat, bounce across the surface of the water like a skipping rock. Soon she heard her friends’ shrieks of glee turn to terrified ones and grinned; Sokka, Suki, and Zuko hung on for dear life as the tube hit the boat’s wake and flew a few feet above the surface of the water.
Back in the boat, as Suki unintentionally body-slammed Sokka into the side of the tube as they flew, Aang looked a little bit green.
“Go easier on me when I go, okay?” he asked.
“Oh, of course. Dad and I just want to throw off Sokka,” Katara replied, grinning wickedly. “Bank right this time!” she called.
The sudden change in direction proved to be too much for them, as she’d expected, and she cackled as the three went flying out of the inner tube at the next bump. And she couldn’t stop laughing – as Sokka screamed something about “backstabbing traitors,” as Suki yelled at him for bumping her off the raft, as they swam back to the boat and Zuko climbed onto the deck dripping-wet and for all the world resembling a cat that had just received an unwanted bath.
He coughed up saltwater and met Katara’s mirthful eyes with a death-glare that only made her laugh harder.
Two Weeks Ago – Mai’s Grad Party
She thinks she’ll never forget the swooping feeling in her stomach when Zuko grabbed her hand out of nowhere and twirled her in the middle of the patio that’d been commandeered by guests using it as a dance floor. Her loose hair smacked his face as she spun, and they were both laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe by the time they were facing each other again. He took her hands then, and they danced for a little, just moving to the beat, and the ever-so-rare smile on his face seemed to Katara like the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
She wanted to kiss him more than she’d wanted almost anything in her life, but she remembered how quickly he’d forgotten she existed earlier, and she held back. Maybe this was just what it looked like: two friends having fun. That was okay. She could be okay with that. Because they were having fun. She always had fun with him. He made her feel alive even as she wanted more.
So instead of surging forwards to kiss him breathless like she wanted to, Katara threw back her head and laughed.
- Watch the sunrise (Suki)
Zuko wasn’t one to be moved often. He didn’t cry at movies. He rarely felt nostalgia. He almost never found himself longing for anything the way he knew his friends did, with one notable exception.
But here, watching the sun rise over the ocean from their vantage point atop Katara’s car, he was too awed to speak.
He wasn’t even really sure why. He’d seen plenty of beautiful views, and this was hardly the first time they’d driven up this mountain to watch the ocean and clear their heads. He couldn’t even count the number of important conversations he’d had up here, sitting in someone’s car. It was beautiful and it was full of memories, but neither of those things explained the way he was feeling now when beauty and sentimentality so rarely affected him.
Maybe it was the poignancy of the moment, watching the day dawn as their childhood came to a close and adulthood began. (But that metaphor didn’t quite fit, he decided. The crossroads they’d reached was more of a sunset kind of moment than a sunrise one.)
Or maybe it was the people he shared it with, the kind of friends he thought he’d never have, people who were unquestionably in his corner and who knew he’d do most anything for them. Maybe it was some subtle magic in the hush that fell over the group as the sun peeked above the distant horizon. All were silent: Sokka and Suki snuggled up against each other on the roof of Suki’s car, he and Katara seated a few feet apart atop hers, Aang and Toph leaning against a railing at the edge of the road. “Crumbling Rocks,” an obnoxiously yellow sign posted against the railing warned; they didn’t care, as if the moment would hold them together if the very earth gave way beneath their feet.
Maybe that was what this was – the feeling that a memory was taking root in his mind. The knowledge that absolutely nothing could rob him of this moment once he’d experienced it. Too deep in thought to realize what he was doing, he moved in close to Katara and wrapped an arm around her blanket-cloaked shoulders.
She looked at him, hurt flashing across her face, and moved out from under his arm.
- Rooftop Party at Haze! (Sokka)
“I can’t even hear myself think!” Toph shouted, and not a single head turned.
That was pretty indicative, Katara thought, of the atmosphere here.
Neither of Sokka’s activity choices had been her favorite, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been dreading this party just a little bit. Haze, a happening nightclub downtown, was famous for them: their outdoor Summer parties, held on their rooftop terrace every Friday and Saturday from June to August, were legendary, exclusive, and – now that all of them were eighteen – accessible to them. But they weren’t Katara’s idea of a good time.
It should’ve been fun, in theory: she loved to dance, and to dress up, and getting ready with Suki and Toph beforehand had been fun. She’d finally had a chance to wear the bronze sequined cocktail dress that she hadn’t put on since the homecoming dance in 11th grade again, and, with her hair in loose curls and a full face of expertly-applied makeup from Suki, she loved the way her look had come together. But here, on a surprisingly small rooftop terrace full of wasted twentysomethings with music so loud she couldn’t hear her friends unless they shouted, she realized that that was where the fun ended.
“I can’t either,” Katara agreed. “And I can’t even step outside because this is outside.”
“I hate parties,” Toph groused.
Watching Sokka and Suki dance their hearts out while Aang chatted with someone in the crowd and Zuko sulked at the edge of the floor with his hands in his pockets, Katara couldn’t help but remember another party and replied, “same, Toph. Same.”
Three Weeks Ago – Mai’s Graduation Party
Now they were sitting by the fireplace in Mai’s massive backyard, even though it wasn’t cold. The couch was large enough to allow both of them plenty of space but they were still sitting together in the middle, not quite touching but inches away from it. Katara was staring at her shoes, wishing Zuko would say something at the same time that she prayed he would stay quiet.
He had that effect on her: she was never sure whether she was afraid to break the silence or desperate to hear him say something, anything.
And this time, he did. “Sorry about earlier,” he told her. “I was going to tell you that you looked beautiful.”
Warmth bloomed in her chest and she wondered if it were possible to be any happier than this.
- Egg someone’s house (Sokka)
“I’m warning you now, this is a horrible idea,” Zuko said, crossing his arms. “It’s not my fault if anyone ends up in hot water here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“We would never,” Suki said sweetly, grabbing a carton of eggs.
“Yeah, Zuko, what are you saying?” Toph taunted, gladly accepting the egg that Suki handed her. “You think we’re going to get caught?”
“Yeah, why so little faith in us?” Katara stuck out her tongue at him. “You know you want to!”
She tossed him an egg and he felt his face heat up because even as things improved and the gulf between them that had grown all summer began to shrink, every step forward with Katara seemed to set him two steps back. He never knew what to expect from her anymore.
But this – fearlessly throwing the first egg at his father’s house, the one he hadn’t been back to since he was ten and Uncle took him in – was exactly the Katara he knew and had come to love.
Later, when they fled the scene with raucous laughter as the porch lights came on and his sister Azula stepped out into the yard to see what was going on (and Zuko would’ve given anything to see the look on her face when she saw the façade of their beautiful family home coated in eggy slime), she grabbed his hand as they ran and turned to him with the most genuine smile he’d seen from her in months, and he felt his heart lift.
He was still no closer to figuring out what it was he’d done to widen the distance between them, but it was receding, and he was grateful for that.
- Go to the theater (Zuko)
“Zuko, my man, I love you, but this has to be the worst bucket list item you possibly could’ve picked,” Sokka complained, taking a huge bite of the burger he’d picked up when he stopped to get the group dinner on the way.
Katara shushed him with a pointed look, because Shakespeare in the Park wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time either, but she knew how special this was to Zuko and she wasn’t not about to ruin it. “I’m sure you could find something to like if you’d actually watch,” she said sharply, shoving a few fries into her mouth vindictively.
She didn’t miss the grateful look that Zuko gave her as they settled in and Much Ado About Nothing began. In happier times, before things became the way they were now, Zuko had told her about this: “my mother loved Shakespeare,” he’d explained, “and she’d take us to these productions every summer. This play was her favorite.”
And it almost hurt her when Sokka so flippantly insulted his choice of activity, because even though Katara understood, it burnt her up a little to know that she was the only one here who truly knew what theater meant to Zuko. Who knew he was in stage crew in every high school play for a reason, not just because it counted as community service or looked good on a college application. Who understood why he’d choose an activity he knew everyone would probably hate as his bucket list item.
Who knew that he was trying to share something that the most beloved figure in his life imparted on him with the people he shared his life with now.
So as dorky as it is, she was spending one night of the most irreplaceable Summer of her night at a Shakespeare in the Park production, and she was glad to do it.
Her stomach clenched, realizing that. This is because of him, she thought, and it didn’t bother her. He was worth it. They were worth it.
Then her stomach fell, because she had never realized just how many things she’d rather not do that she’d do for Zuko with a smile on her face, no second thoughts. Not until tonight.
She looked over at him midway through Act 2, and found him engrossed. His golden eyes were wide, taking it all in; a tiny smile played at his lips. His whole face was open and relaxed, no doubt lost in memories of a simpler time.
He’s beautiful like this, Katara thought, and once again she was glad to be here if it made him feel this way.
Whatever was blooming in her chest as she watched him felt an awful lot like love, and that felt an awful lot like being hit by a bus.
She nearly took his hand but thought better of it – this night wasn’t about her.
A Month Earlier – Mai’s Graduation Party
“Zuko?”
He leaned in even more, if that were even possible in such a confined space. “Yeah, Katara?” he said. She could feel his breath against her throat, and a chill ran up her spine.
“I-“
She didn’t get a chance to finish as Mai strode over to them, sitting alone – clearly quite cozily – on the couch. “Hey, Zuko,” she said, authoritatively, as if she knew exactly what she was here to do and didn’t intend to leave before she did it. “We need to talk.”
Katara froze, because the idea of not finishing her sentence made her want to cry but so did the idea of getting on Zuko’s ex-girlfriend’s bad side. Zuko grabbed her hand as if to say “no, we’re a package deal,” and the gesture would’ve sent Katara’s heart into overdrive if she hadn’t been on the verge of a breakdown.
Mai didn’t move, standing in place with her arms crossed. “Privately,” she said.
With a regretful look back at Katara, he stood up and followed Mai back inside, leaving Katara alone, sinking into a couch far too big for one.
It was not a cold night, but as tears pooled in her eyes at a perfect opportunity lost, she felt a chill in the air.
- Camp out on the beach (Zuko)
Sleeping on sand was an odd feeling. Their tents seemed to shift underfoot as they moved through them, and Zuko couldn’t shake the feeling that he was sinking whenever he laid down in it.
But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Beach camping was another summer tradition, albeit a more recent one than theater. His uncle loved to camp (he’d always touted the “connection to nature” that it provided with alarming eagerness), and ever since he’d taken Zuko in, he’d made a point to take him out somewhere by the ocean where they could pitch a tent and enjoy the peace and calm of nature every summer. He’d hated them at first, unused to roughing it, but they’d grown to be a highlight of his summers, and an easy choice when he’d been asked to contribute two items to a bucket list.
And, unlike the theater idea, everyone seemed to be enjoying this trip. Katara and Aang were in the water as much as was humanly possible; Suki and Sokka seemed even more lost in each other’s eyes than usual; and Toph relished the chance to cut loose and lose the refined trappings her parents always forced on her. They’d been here two days, and they were happy. And Zuko, slipping out to watch the stars every night, finally felt just a little corner of peace in a summer that had, thus far, been so hectic and confusing that he’d had little time to enjoy any of it.
Apparently his nightly routine hadn’t gone unnoticed, though, because the third night, Katara slipped out of her tent to join him. She laid down beside him on the sand, not bothering to spread out a towel beneath her, and glanced over at him. “Stargazing?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he whispered, trying not to dwell on the fact that Katara bathed in starlight was something he hadn’t known he needed to see until he did. (It wasn’t working.) “It’s peaceful out here.”
“It really is,” she said softly, absentmindedly tracing patterns in the sand with her finger. “I wish I’d thought of this.”
“I’m glad you’re here now,” Zuko replied, turning to meet her eyes. She smiled softly, vulnerable and real – finally letting down the walls she’d put up at the beginning of the summer and never taken down. “Thank you.”
“For what?” she asked, a smile playing at her lips.
“Being here,” he said softly, setting his right hand beside her left one so they almost brushed. “Doing things I know you hate for me.”
“Zuko, this has been the best two days of my summer,” she said, faintly incredulous. “How could you think I hated this?”
“I…” he sighed, unsure how to proceed, and paused to get his bearings. “I guess I just…didn’t think you’d want to do stuff like this. You haven’t exactly been normal all summer.”
To his surprise, Katara didn’t deny the accusation, or ask why he’d ever think that, or frantically try to explain herself. “I know” was all she said in reply.
“Do you wanna tell me why?” he asked, covering her clammy hand with his own. “You can talk to me, Katara.”
“I know I can,” she admitted. The little quiver in her voice made it seem like it was difficult for her to get the words out. “You’re my best friend. I trust you.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” he asked gently, giving her hand a little squeeze.
“It’s just…what happened at Mai’s party,” she admitted. “I thought you and her were-"
"Oh, that?" Zuko shifts. "No, that was nothing. She was mad at me about something, actually."
"Oh." Katara's relief is palpable. "Anyway. I was going to-"
“Hey, sis, have you seen Suki?”
Sokka burst out of her tent, evidently having heard the sound of his sister’s voice and come for help. “I checked your tent, but I can’t find her.”
“She can’t have gone far, Sokka!” Katara snapped. She shoots an apologetic look to Zuko but he can’t help but notice that there’s relief on her face, too.
I’m not going to hear what she has to say tonight, am I?
- Night swim (Katara)
It was a balmy night in July when Katara finally got to take the group for her leg of the bucket list, and she was excited though she’d never really been able to let go of the fear that Zuko might ask what had happened at Mai’s party again.
“There’s something about swimming pools at night that just…makes them better,” she told Suki as they walked down the Beifongs’ hallway towards the back door in bathing suits and towels. Toph had volunteered her family’s pool when she heard that Katara wanted to go for a nighttime swim, and the sight of the ornate, manicured backyard drenched in the light of a full moon was magical. It was all Katara could do not to throw off her towel and dive into the inviting water on sight.
“If you say so,” Suki replied, not sounding entirely convinced.
They’d been the last two to change, so the rest of the group was already swimming by the time they reached the pool deck. Discarding her towel on the chair, Suki walked to the steps and climbed in with a contented sigh (like a normal person, Katara supposed). But Katara…
Well. She’d never been one to make a delicate entrance, and as soon as she’d dropped her towel, she shouted “incoming!” and made a mad dash for the water, jumping in with a satisfying splash as she felt the warm, chlorine-scented water wrap around her like a blanket. She was smiling when she surfaced, pushing her wet hair out of her face.
“Really, sis?” Sokka complained. “Do yah have to splash us?”
“You’re in a pool!” Katara protested. “You can’t seriously be telling me that you didn’t expect to get wet-“
“No, but I expected to get wet on my own terms,” he grumbled. “I wasn’t ready to get my hair wet yet.”
Katara shook her head. “Idiot,” she muttered, paddling to the other side of the pool to join Aang and Toph.
“Hey, Sugar Queen?” Toph asked as soon as she heard Katara approach.
“Mm-hm?” Katara asked, twisting her hair to wring it out a bit.
Toph took on a mock-innocent expression that Katara knew was anything but. “Wanna chicken fight?”
At first, Katara wanted to turn down the offer, but…
Well, it would be fun, and it would be more than worth it to take down Toph. (She was confident that she could – five years on the swim team gave her the edge.)
So she smiled and replied, “you’re on.”
“Great! Who’s your partner?” Toph asked. “I’m with Aang-“
“You are?” Aang looked extremely taken-aback. “Did I ever actually agree to that?”
“No, but I voluntold you,” Toph replied. Aang knew better than to argue. “Anyway, Sugar Queen needs a partner, so-“
“Partner?”
Zuko approached the group and Katara’s stomach dropped. Please, no, she begged. Please.
They still hadn’t talked out whatever was hanging in the air between them, and even if they had, chicken fighting with her longtime unrequited crush as a partner was one of the most awkward situations Katara could imagine finding herself in. But Zuko was undeterred.
“Chicken fight,” Toph explained. “Katara needs a partner. Wanna take us on?”
To her surprise, Zuko…smiled. “Yeah, actually, that sounds fun.” He turned to Katara. “What do you say, Katara?”
“Um…sure,” she said tightly, because there was little else she could do at this point and she did want to take Toph down. He sank below the water so she could sit on his shoulders and, though she tried not to think about the awkward position that put them in, it didn’t work.
She was so distracted that she barely noticed Toph’s first attempt to knock her from her perch. “Oh no you don’t!” she cried, pushing back and landing a blow against Toph’s shoulders.
“Oh, I think I do,” Toph cackled, aiming an elbow for Katara’s face.
“No head shots!” Katara cried. “Seriously, Toph?”
“All’s fair in love and chicken fights,” Toph teased, grabbing her forearm and attempting to twist it as Zuko moved away from her as quickly as he could, pursued by a rather annoyed Aang. (Knowing him, Katara figured he was probably as irritated by her blatant flaunting of the sacred rules of the chicken fight as she was.) “Now how’s this for a head shot?”
Toph grabbed Katara’s shoulders, yanked her forwards so quickly that her head spun, and then flung her backwards, and let the momentum knock her from her perch. She unwrapped her legs from Zuko’s shoulders as soon as she felt her back hit the water and surfaced, spitting out a mouthful of pool water.
“I demand a rematch!” she shouted, not even caring that it was midnight and the neighbors were asleep. “Zuko, what do you say?”
He grinned back at her. “I agree. But…we need an opponent who’s not going to fight dirty.”
Their eyes fell on Suki and Sokka at the same time and they shared a conspiratorial glance.
Five Weeks Ago – Mai’s Graduation Party
Katara ran to find Suki the moment Zuko left, her breath coming in short bursts now. She was standing near a table of snacks, chatting with a girl she knew from the volleyball team, but their conversation was forgotten the moment she saw Katara’s stricken expression.
“Katara? What’s wrong?” she asked, pulling her aside. “Should I get Sokka?”
“No, don’t,” Katara panted. “Can I talk to you? Outside?”
“Sugar Queen?” Toph approached them, obviously sensing the distress in Katara’s voice. “What happened?”
“We’re heading outside,” Suki told her, and Katara had never appreciated her friend more. “I’m not sure.”
“It’s Zuko,” she told them, gasping for breath now, as soon as they made it to the front porch.
Suki’s eyes darkened. “Did he do something to you? I swear, I’ll-“
“It’s more what he didn’t do,” she said miserably. “He’s been…really flirty all night. And I thought it was all going so well, but right when I’m about to tell him how I feel, he runs off with Mai, and I-I-“
She trailed off, breaking into sobs, and Suki pulled her into her arms. “Oh, Katara,” she mumbled into her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
Even Toph was more sympathetic than usual. “I know how long you’d been waiting for the right time,” she said. “Must’ve sucked.”
“I really thought he was over her,” Katara sniffled, the worst of her sobs abating after a moment, “but the minute she asked for him, he ran off with her. What am I supposed to make of that?”
“Total jerk move,” Toph agreed. “I mean, I saw how he was looking at you. He totally led you on.”
“I don’t think he meant to.”
A fourth voice cut in on their conversation, and Katara looked up to see Ty Lee approaching them.
“I agree,” Suki told Katara. “I mean, it really was a jerk move, that much is obvious. But it’s Zuko. I doubt he’d realize what a jerk move it was.”
“That really doesn’t help,” Katara said shakily. “I just…”
“Oh, sweetie,” Ty Lee says consolingly, kneeling down to join the two girls holding Katara tight on the porch. “I saw how he looked at you, and…well…”
“That’s just it!” Katara exploded. “Every single sign points to yes, and yet nothing ever happens! We’re running out of time here, and he still won’t say a word.” She bit back a fresh round of sobs. “And right when I was about to break the streak, even I don’t get to get it out before Mai shows up.”
“Things are going to be okay,” Suki tried to comfort her. Katara knew it was an empty platitude, but she leans into her friend’s arms anyway.
- Get caught in the rain (Katara)
“I feel cheated,” Sokka announced when they’d all piled into the van that he and Katara share and she’s pulled out of the driveway. From his place in the front passenger seat, Zuko could see Katara raise an eyebrow.
“And why is that?” she deadpanned.
“Because we’re going to get caught in the rain on purpose, and there are no piña coladas,” he replied.
Even Suki rolled her eyes.
“Please never make that joke again,” Katara said, squeezing the bridge of her nose. “Ever.”
“Well, most people I meet probably aren’t going to be crazy enough to be willing to drive thirty miles just to get caught in the rain, so I think we’re good,” Sokka replied, resting his feet against the headrest of Katara’s seat.
Katara glanced over at Zuko with the kind of aren’t-our-kids-insane look that made him feel like his entire body was on fire (and it had been a long time since she’d given him one; he took it as a good sign). But, as unconventional as her activity choice had been, the group soon grew to like it: they’d curated an extra-long playlist for the drive and most of them sang along at least a few times. Even Zuko joined in, and he couldn’t help but notice that Katara would glance over at him every so often with a soft, fond smile.
He’d all but accepted at this point that whatever had happened between them was probably irreparable before college, given how little time they had left, but if he squinted, this – friendship, a cozy sense of belonging whenever he was with her – almost looked like it was enough.
Because as much as he’d once thought he’d die if he never learned what her lips would feel like on his, he realized now that those may not have been the cards dealt him when they met.
So when they finally hit a patch of rain and Katara pulled off the highway to park in the nearest available spot (a typical small-town truck stop off the freeway fifty miles out of town), and she grabbed his hand and dragged him into the downpour with an expression of such pure happiness that his heart clenched, he barely thought about what it would feel like to kiss her with the rain beating down against their backs.
She opened her arms and twirled, a few times, letting the rain soak her linen sundress. The others just stood, willing to indulge Katara but clearly wondering when she’d let them get back in the dry car – but not Zuko.
He barely registered the growing dampness of his clothes as he watched Katara. Her face was upturned, most of the time, and her palms outstretched; she was wearing very little, a thin sleeveless sundress and sandals, and relishing the feel of the raindrops against her skin. Smiling to herself, she was in a world all her own, and it took Zuko’s breath away.
He thought that there was more beauty in her, in this one moment, than he’d seen in the whole of the rest of his life – that this moment would be one that he’d replay in his final moments if it were really true that people’s lives flashed before their eyes before they died.
And when she turned that beaming smile on him, her hair and dress now soaked through, Zuko swore his heart had cracked in half.
“Come on!” she called, her voice clear as a bell even in the howling wind of a strengthening storm. A peal of thunder cracked in the din, and she laughed, throwing her arms open once again. She ran to him, grabbed his hands, twirled under his arm the way she had back at Mai’s all those weeks ago.
And when she faced him again, the smile on her face was unmistakable.
“Katara,” he breathed, too stunned to remember that he’d been content with things the way they were just minutes ago. “You’re-“
“Soaked, I know,” she interrupted him. “What do you say we head back?”
- Do something you’re scared of (everyone)
Present
There’s not a doubt in Katara’s mind what she’s going to do for the last item on their bucket list.
It’s August now. She’ll be off to college in two weeks. This really is the last stand of the old guard, their group of six that has weathered so much. And hurt and confusion have no place in her mind now – she’s not waiting anymore.
So she asks Zuko to meet her at the beach, and as they walk together, she does what scares her most.
“I never told you what really happened at Mai’s,” she starts as they walk along the sand. Without a word, Zuko takes her hand.
“You didn’t need to,” he says. “I’ve been thinking and…I think I get it now.”
“You do?” Katara’s heartbeat quickens.
He nods. “You got scared,” he says. “You realized how I felt about you and it freaked you out, so you ran. Honestly, that was a fair reaction. I don’t blame you.”
Katara stops in her tracks, turning so she faces him head-on. “What?”
“I said-“
“No, I heard what you said!” Katara’s head is spinning. Did he just… “it’s just…where did you get that from?”
“Wait, I’m wrong?” Zuko looks genuinely shocked.
“I was upset because I was trying to tell you how I felt about you,” Katara blurts out, and though her heart is racing and every inch of her body is buzzing with adrenaline, it feels like the day she dropped her fifty-pound school backpack in the doorway for the last time and never had to put it back on. “But then you went off with Mai, and you didn’t even seem to realize that I had feelings for you, and I…”
Zuko’s entire face lights up, and though the day is cloudy, he is like the sun. “You mean you…you felt the same way?”
“You mean you felt the same way?” Katara is on the verge of tears. “Actually?”
“Katara,” he breathes, taking her hands almost forcefully. “I don’t say this lightly, but I’m in love with you.”
Now she’s dropping his hands and pressing one of hers to her mouth in shock like one of those women in marriage proposal YouTube videos who she’s always sworn she’ll never be like. “Zuko,” she replies, shock coloring her words, because all she can think of his him and she breathes his name like a prayer because this is it, this is the moment, this is everything. “I thought I’d lost my chance. I know it’s too late-“
“Never, Katara.” He cups her chin, his voice thick with ardor. “We get to decide when it’s too late.”
“But we only have two weeks left,” she says helplessly, starting to cry in earnest, and she’s shocked to see that he’s misty-eyed, too. Nevertheless, he brushes the first few tears from her cheeks with his thumbs, impossibly gentle. “What do we do?”
This entire time, he’s been gradually pulling her closer, and now she’s nearly flush against him. “What do you want to do?” he asks, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. They’re so close that she has to turn her face upwards to look at him, and when she does, the pure adoration in his eyes nearly makes her cry all over again.
This is right, she realizes. This is home.
“I want you,” she says, her voice small as a child’s begging for a second scoop of ice cream. “I want to make us work. I don’t want to give up.”
“Then we won’t,” Zuko says, running his thumbs along her jawline. They don’t say anything for a moment, drinking in the moment.
Then he mutters, “you’re so beautiful,” and Katara’s had enough of waiting, and she takes his face in her hands and pulls him down and presses her lips to hers, and it’s clumsy and awkward and sloppy but it’s him and her and it’s perfect.
“So are you,” she tells him, her hands threaded through his hair, and she thinks she’s never meant anything more in her life. “You know, this was my #13.”
“What?”
“On the bucket list,” she explains. “Item number 13 – do something that scares you.”
“Kissing me?” Zuko asks, a little confused. It’s adorable, this confusion on the heels of a kiss-induced haze, and Katara has half a mind to kiss him again, but she’s not done talking.
“No.” She presses her hand against his chest and he glances down at it as if to make sure it’s actually there and not a figment of his imagination. When he sees that it is, he presses his own on top of hers. “Telling you how I felt.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to hers. “I’m so sorry.”
“Shh,” she whispers, moving her hands to his back to rub comforting circles there with her flattened palms. “It’s okay. It turned out okay.”
“But we lost so much time,” he said mournfully. “And all because of-“
“No.” Katara shakes her head fervently. “This…this is the way things were supposed to be. Even if we took the long way here.”
They walk again, clinging to each other as best they can, basking in the knowledge that love is all they need to feel right now. Someday, sometime, they’ll worry, wondering how to make this work when they’re not a text away from each other anymore, but for now there is only them and the sea and the future stretching out ahead of them, boundless and endless as the horizon. Past runs into present into future as sand runs into sea into sky with no boundary, no divider, only wholeness. Only an overwhelming sense of supposed-to-be.
“I know it’s too early to say that I love you,” Katara says after a moment. “But Zuko…I do. I really do.”
He stops again so he can look at her. “Say it again?” he says, tugging at her hands. And she is undone.
“I love you, Zuko,” she says, her voice breathy and breaking with emotion. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I-“
His lips collide with hers, and she melts again.
The future can worry about itself; this is not its moment. No. This moment is theirs.