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Out of all the people to bump into while he’s on his way to Zuko after his Grandmam’s wedding, Sokka did not think it would be Mai. The odds of seeing her in a small Fire Nation beach town on the very outskirts were so astronomically low he almost didn’t believe it before they made full eye contact.
“Sokka,” Mai said his name in the form of a greeting, but sounded like she was forcing herself to be cordial.
What could she possibly have against him?
Maybe that’s just how she was.
“Mai,” Sokka tried to lighten the mood by making sure his greeting lacked any sharpness.
“Where are you off to?” Mai asked as she crossed her arms across her chest, looking unimpressed even though she had asked the question herself.
Geez, toughest crowd, Sokka thought to himself. And in the forefront of his mind, which he would never admit or say out loud, he felt so sorry for Zuko.
“Well, first stopping just to buy supplies and then off to the Fire Nation for Harmony Restoration meetings,” he almost wanted to lie, knowing the mention of the Fire Nation would bring up Zuko, and if she was already mad now, he didn’t want to know what he would be getting himself into if they got into any type of argument.
But, to his surprise, her expression softened. There was a pause, she seemed to be thinking of what to say.
“How is he?” She seemed like the question came out before she processed it.
Last time he’d seen Zuko was three weeks ago when he’d kissed Zuko, and for lack of better words: had done everything except address his feelings for him. Then he’d left under the pretense of his Grandmam’s wedding. Which wasn’t a lie. He was going to go, but before everything that went down he meant to ask Zuko to come with him.
He focused back on Mai’s question.
How was Zuko?
Probably not good.
Probably not terrible.
At least that’s what Sokka has been trying to think to cope with his idiotic ways.
He felt terrible about how he’d left things, but he didn’t know how to leave them otherwise. The knowledge of all that Zuko had been through and being a perpetrator in his unhappiness ate away at him, but somehow the alternative was the same if not worse.
How could he define what he had with Zuko when his last relationship had defined everything he could possibly think of, yet in the end it didn’t matter?
No amount of certainty in his feelings for Suki stopped the ultimate retraction of them.
How could he tell Zuko how he felt, how he has probably felt for months, knowing that he could lose feelings?
He felt dangerous.
Zuko wanted stability. It’s all he ever wanted with Mai.
Sokka knew that. He wanted it too. He wanted that with Zuko. It was possibly the only thing he had been so sure of to this point in his life.
But what if Sokka wasn’t sure if he is stable, what if he never would be? What if he changed, and that changed the way Zuko felt about him? What if he made them both miserable by being too much, or being too complicated, or not having his emotions fully in order before asking more of Zuko than even he was ready to give?
Sokka felt himself inhale as he suddenly became overwhelmed with the spiral of thoughts.
Why was he even thinking of this in the context of reporting any of this to Mai?
Once he realized he didn’t owe Mai an answer, he spoke of something different, “We aren’t talking right now,” his answer was short prompting her to drop it, “Why are you here?”
“I work at my aunt’s flowershop in the town center. After my dad’s association with the New Ozai society just,” she breathed in, “Needed a new start.”
“Cool, well I will leave you to it,” Sokka smiled as he attempted to make his exit prompt.
“You make him really happy,” Mai suddenly declared, making Sokka turn back.
“Who?-“ Sokka began to respond, bewildered.
“Zuko. You make Zuko really happy. In ways I have never seen him, and I’ve known him almost his entire life.”
Sokka still looked bewildered, so she kept talking.
“I see the way he looks at you when I go with Ty Lee to Capital City. When he’s with you,” she said, “He just has never looked at anyone like that. So, whatever it is that happened, you guys should really figure it out because it’s disgustingly sweet to watch you together.”
After the shock settled, he suddenly pinpointed the irony in Mai’s words telling him how to deal with his relationship with Zuko. Suddenly, everything Zuko should have told her and everything Sokka’s been wanting to tell Mai came to the forefront of his mind.
“That’s rich coming from someone that literally left him,” Sokka said, “Do you have any idea how that affected him? He spiraled so badly he didn’t speak for days. He thought he was weak and worthless, and you did that to him. He trusted you and you left and broke him,” Sokka was fuming.
The townspeople along the shoreline were staring.
Mai chuckled dryly, “And how’s that different than what you did to Suki?” Sokka felt his heart drop, “Ty Lee said she couldn’t go more than an hour without crying for a whole week. She wouldn’t get out of bed. She was a shell of herself. You broke her.”
His words stung as they were reflected back on him.
Sokka felt his nose sting as he thought about it.
Having gone almost a whole year rewriting what had happened in his mind.
Having told Zuko that Suki was the one that broke up with him. Having repeated a false narrative for months on how he wasn’t the catalyst for months of her unhappiness.
“What do you want, Mai? You left him. Why do you care so much?”
“I left because I care so much, Sokka,” she said, “But you, whatever you are doing, you’re playing games with him by being here bumping into me rather than addressing whatever it is happened.”
“Nothing happened,” he hissed. He felt her inch in emotionally at him. She had such a way to peel you back layer by layer before you even realized you were almost laid emotionally bare in front of her.
“Then why are you here?”
Sokka felt cornered.
How was she doing this?
“I’m coming back from my grandmother’s wedding,” Sokka felt himself defensively say.
“Why isn’t Katara with you?”
“She went with Aang?”
“Why didn’t you all just go together?”
“They wanted to leave earlier?”
“And you didn’t?”
“I wanted to stay with my dad for longer, you know some of us were separated from our families during the war your nation started.”
“Don’t play that card.”
“Don’t keep edging me on, then.”
Mai eyed him before she said, “Why did you stay behind?”
Sokka felt the tension, the pace of the conversation was catching up to him. He just wanted for it to stop.
“I didn’t want to see Zuko so soon.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what the hell we are doing or what to do or what Zuko wants, because I ran away!” He finally shouted out and felt the release of emotion as he did so, panting as he finally caught his breath. Mai looked satisfied and it annoyed the hell out of Sokka.
How did Zuko do this?
Mai scoffed, “My advice, Sokka. Figure out what it is you want before you go make assumptions about what Zuko wants.”
They stayed in silence for a couple of minutes before Sokka felt lightheaded and needed to sit down at a makeshift picnic table made of stones nearby. As he recovered, Mai began to prepare to leave, not having sat down with him in the first place.
Sokka felt himself instinctively start speaking.
“I hurt him. I asked his Uncle how he got his scar, and I hurt him because I overstepped our boundaries. After we confronted it fully, he told me that I could never say or do anything to hurt him if I just stayed by his side. But now I’m not by his side and I lied about what happened with Suki. I told him she fell out of love with me instead of me falling out of love with her because I was ashamed. I’m so ashamed that I was capable of something like that, and I’ve let that taint everything with him.”
Mai processed it.
“You lied about Suki? This whole time?”
Sokka nodded, “And there’s no excuse. I’m an awful person, and I know how much it frames everything about us. I’m afraid of myself, of what I’m capable of. And you ask me how I feel about him? Mai, I love him in ways I didn’t know were possible. I feel like myself around him all the time, like there’s nothing to hide, but it’s all based on a lie. It was fucked form the start. I fucked it all up, and now we are fucked forever.”
“Why did you lie about Suki?” Mai sat down.
Sokka looked out into the ocean, thinking about his answer.
“It was easier.”
“Than what?” Mai genuinely started to seem interested and dare Sokka say a bit empathetic?
‘Than knowing that I’m capable of falling out of love. I’m terrified of myself because I scared off the person I thought I was going to marry and for the first time ever I was just on my own. And I should have stayed on my own for longer, but then I fell in love with Zuko before I could even process myself as a person on my own.”
“Why are you so scared of falling out of love with Zuko while you’re obviously infatuated with him right now? It sounds like you’re mourning a relationship that hasn’t even started.”
“Because how can I fall out of love with the love of my life? If I can do that, what is going to happen with Zuko? I can’t hurt him more than he already has been hurt. I don’t deserve him.”
Mai took a few moments to process his words.
“What if Suki wasn’t the love of your life?” Mai simply said.
Sokka took a moment to process. He felt a vacancy in his brain. He’d never considered this before. Mai just eyed him as he tried to cope with this new thought.
In the middle of his processing, someone called for Mai along the shore and she stood, still facing him as she thought of what to say in the middle of his epiphany.
“After everything that happened with Zuko, I learned something very valuable. You can’t deny the weight of your feelings or make them lighter because then the person you love will never know how heavy they are.”
Sokka tried to process what she said. Feeling the weight of the words on his shoulders.
“In my case I shoved everything down I was really feeling about my relationship with Zuko. What wasn’t working and then I expected him to understand the weight of everything I was thinking internally. We blew up because of the imbalance of it all.”
“He knows I like him. He just,” Sokka started, “I just am scared to show him how strongly I feel because what if something changes? What if it’s not what he expects one day, and I disappoint him? I know him. I know we would rather accept it will never be what we were expecting to just not let each other go.”
Sokka felt his lip go raw as he realized he had been biting its through layers as he put words to thoughts he’s repressed for months.
“You feel strongly about him, and you feel strongly about how complicated and messy it is. You can’t keep suppressing everything in hopes it just goes away and that the person you love understands the meaning behind what you are doing. Your love is heavy, and if you keep making him think it’s light, how is he supposed to think any differently?”
Sokka sat with the thought.
“Mai,” someone called again for her and drew both of their attention.
“I have to go,” she said as she started walking away.
“Thank you,” Sokka said.
All Mai did was simply nod and walk away, leaving Sokka to organize the pieces of all she had been able to uncover.