Zuko ran up towards the school the next Wednesday.  Katara had avoided him for more than a week and didn’t want to encounter Mai any sooner than necessary.  All her cooing about Jet’s eyebrows was driving him up the wall.  It was annoying him, and worrying him, actually.  

Zuko stopped by his locker, leaning against it to catch his breath.  He had run all the way from his house, with his fifteen-pound backpack.  He had Calculus first.  Thank God.  Unless Katara had it, too…

He straightened up and hauled his backpack to the center of the hallway. Someone in a white halter top with long dark brown hair walked breezily past him.  “Katara!” he said loudly.  She acted like she couldn’t hear him.  He jogged after her.  “You can hear me, Katara!” She walked faster.  

Zuko knew she wasn’t going to stop walking.  He slowed and turned around, towards Lit.  

He heard a scratchy laugh and a familiar high-heeled-boot-walk from behind him.  He whirled around to see Mai walking through the doors with Jet about three inches away from her.  They seemed a little too friendly.  Zuko ducked into the closest classroom with a red face to observe them.  

“Do it again, do it again,” Mai laughed breathlessly.  Jet made a wave with his eyebrows.  Mai burst out again in peals of rough laughter.  Zuko had seen Jack Black do that eyebrow trick in School of Rock.  

He turned around, not wanting to watch any more, and saw that he was in the American History room.  It was empty except for Gyatso, sitting at his desk wearing one of those rainbow striped beanies with the propellers on top, sorting through some papers.  

“Hello, Zuko.  I don’t think this is your class, though.”  

“Er, it’s not,” he said eagerly.  “Bye.”

“Wait, Zuko,” Gyatso commanded.  “I want to talk to you… about your project.  You and Katara seemed to have a rough time on Monday.  Would you like to switch partners?”  

Then something very strange happened.  An image conjured itself in Zuko’s mind – a girl with long dark hair. It must have been a few years ago - her face looked rounder; her blue eyes bigger.  Her long hair was blowing in a soft breeze.  Her face was blank, yet somehow torn with grief.  Tears crawled down her cheeks.  She gave a silent sob.  

Zuko, we have more in common than you might remember.  

It was as if a rock had been dropped in the pit of Zuko’s stomach.  “Um…” he stammered, “no, I think we can work this one out.”  

Gyatso smiled under his handlebar mustache.  “I hoped you would say that.  Now, your battle is the Battle of Iwo Jima.  This is an intense part of American history.  It will be a difficult piece to pull off.  Do you think you can play nice long enough to finish this?”

“I hope so,” Zuko murmured.  

Someone stepped into the room.  Zuko looked up – it was Mai.  She looked slightly shocked at the sight of Zuko, but smiled.  “Hey.”  

“Hi,” said Zuko softly.  The bell screamed.  He walked toward the door.  They faced each other awkwardly.  Zuko sidestepped her.  “See you later.”  He ran to Calculus.  
-------------------------------
At the end of the day, the bell was broken, so Katara thought she had another class left after Art.  When at last she realized that it was three thirty, Sokka was waiting by the school door, panicking.  

“There you are!” he screeched.  “I’ve been waiting forever – I swear, Katara, you are SO on crack brownies!”

“Sokka, Jun must be an urban myth, because it’s the second week of school and I haven’t even seen her!  I haven’t seen her in the past years I’ve been at this school!  I am NOT on crack brownies!  Besides, the bell broke, so I thought I had another class after my last one.  Chill out!”

“I will not chill out, Katara!  On your second week of high school, you come out twenty minutes late!  How do I know you weren’t with some guy?”  

“So what’s it to you?” Katara argued.  She hadn’t been with a boy at all, but it was fun pissing Sokka off.  He always spluttered like a candle.  

Sokka scowled.  “Nothing, but… um… let’s go home.”  

“Agreed.”  

Sokka started off briskly, but looked back every thirty seconds or so, making sure his little sister was still following him.

“Katara?”  It wasn’t Sokka’s voice.  She jumped.  

Zuko was sitting on the step of his front porch.  “Look… for our project, we have Iwo Jima.”  

She walked past his porch, ignoring him.  He stood up and started walking with her.  Katara turned to him and rolled her eyes.  “I don’t care, because if you aren’t going to do anything, we’re screwed!  I’m screwed, you’re screwed, American History is screwed.  There’s a reason I’ve been avoiding you all week.  Can you guess why?”  

“Because I’ve really been an asshole,” Zuko said.  “I know.  And I’m actually sorry.  I… was out of line.  I’m ready to do my part of the project.”  

“Well, I – wait, what?”  By this time, they had passed Katara’s house.  

“I said, I’m sorry, and I am going to do half of the project.  Our battle is Iwo Jima.”  

“When was this decided?” Katara said crossly.  

“During the week when we were avoiding each other and everyone else picked their battles.”

Katara closed her mouth.  “Um… oh.  Well…” She looked at her feet awkwardly and itched her cheek (the nervous habit).  

Zuko cleared his throat.  “Let’s go to the library on Friday,” he suggested.  

“Um…”  

“Katara!” Sokka called from a little ways down the sidewalk.  “What are you doing with Zuko?”  

“Your brother sure is nice,” Zuko said sarcastically, looking at Sokka from the corner of his eyes.  “So, you wanna come or are you going to bail on me?”  

“Sure, I’ll come,” Katara answered quickly, before running back towards her own house.  “Bye!”  She ran through the door Sokka was holding open expectantly, trying not to flash him the irrepressible grin spreading across her face.  
------------------------------------------
‘I was out of line’?  Come on, Zuko.  You know girls better than to use such lame lines.  Now she probably thinks you’re some nerd who thinks the height of romance is sharing an inhaler.  Ugh!  
Wait.  Why do I worry about the impression I’m giving a freshman?  

Back in his room, Zuko was scribbling his thoughts all over a CD.  It was a weird habit that had started a long time ago, but his substitute for a journal of any sort was a CD.  

He was done writing.  He dug around in the pocket of his black jeans, pulled out his black Razr and called his uncle.  “Uncle Iroh?  It’s Zuko.  Ok, here’s my problem. Um… Mai’s my girlfriend.  Of course you know that.  Now, she’s kind of flirting like crazy with a guy named Jet.  And I just kind of accidentally asked a girl out.  We have a sort of history… not a romantic one… well, yes a romantic one.  Kind of.  She and Jet have a history too, so there may be links.  Actually, no.  Forget I just said that.  And I think I may have a… I mean… screw what I just said.  Well, what do I do?  Mai’s one of Azula’s best friends, so I see her almost every day anyway.  If I break up with her, I’ll basically have to lock myself in my room every day after school.  So it really sucks, as you can plainly see.”  

“Hmm,” Iroh said.  “This is a complex dilemma.  What do you think you should do?”  

“I asked you,” Zuko pouted.  He hoped his whiney tone could be heard over his bad reception.  

“Well, what do you think is right?”  

“Uh… I don’t know, uncle!  I asked you!  You’re the school guidance counselor!  You’ve got to tell me!”

“Well, I think the answer is obvious,” Iroh said.    

“I was hoping it wouldn’t be,” Zuko sighed.  

“Well, you know what you have to do,” Iroh prompted.  “Goodbye.”  

“Bye.”  Zuko hung up, and took a deep breath.  “Dad?” he yelled.  “I’m going to Mai’s for a second!”  
----------------------------------------
Katara lay on her bed, staring at her ceiling.  She contemplated Friday.  She didn’t want to call it a date because it wasn’t one.  They were going to the library for a study session.  Maybe they would even ‘talk’ (she had some issues wrapping her mind around the concept of ‘talking’ to Zuko) and ‘get to know each other’ (even harder).  

Still, she couldn’t help thinking: I wonder how this date is going to go.  

She pulled out her journal again.  She felt like trying poetry.  
Moms always say, ‘Don’t pick at scabs.
They cover your tenderness.  
They protect your body from the outside.’
Today someone picked my scab
Almost hurting me inside
Almost like it got hurt a long time ago.  
But if you leave your scab for long enough
You’re healed underneath.  
Am I healed?  
I don’t know.  I don’t know how I feel.  
I might be ready.  But I have to be
Because soon, that scab might get picked.  

She ripped the page out and threw it under her bed.  That really, really sucked.  
-----------------------------------------
“Hi,” Zuko said.  “Is Mai here?”  

“Yeah, sure, Zuko,” her mom said pleasantly, Mai’s two-year-old brother Tom-Tom balanced on her hip.  “Just a sec.  Come on in!”  Zuko walked through the door, sat at the kitchen table and looked around.  

Mai’s parents were both very rich, so together they were worth over a million bucks.  It was a wonder that they wanted to live in such a poor, almost slummy neighborhood. But one could ask the same thing of Ozai – a rich lawyer in a poor neighborhood?  

Mai’s kitchen walls were dark red with white trim – the counter and table were black granite.  Red, white, and black prints hung on the wall.  Zuko had been to her house before, of course, and he always liked teasing Mai about her old school pictures.  They were all black and white, lined up on the wall in order.  It showed her from the age of six onward, and she had always been wearing red, white, or black.   

“Mai, Zuko’s here,” her mom said to Mai’s closed door.  

Zuko heard a soft murmur.  “Stay here, Jet.  Be right back.”  Mai walked into the kitchen with an atypical smile.  “Hey, Zuko!”

“Hi, Mai,” he said dully.  “Uh… want to sit on your porch?”  

Mai raised her eyebrows, higher than she used to.  Jet must have taught her a few tricks.  “Sure.”  They both walked to the top step of her porch and sat down.  

“Uh…” Zuko had lost all his courage.  “Um…” He looked around desperately for something to say.  

“‘Um’ what?” Mai laughed.  “Or were you just going to poke fun at the weather?”  

“Yeah,” he said quickly.  “I… uh… was sick of sitting inside, and today’s so hot.”  

“Ah,” she said shortly.  “I see.”  

There was a long, stiff silence.  “So… how’s school treating you?”

Mai looked over him as if silently saying, What’s wrong with you?  “Um… I like the Geometry dude.”  

“Is the Geometry dude the same as the Calc dude?”  

“I think so.  What’s his name?”

“Um… Pakku,” Zuko muttered, finally for some fairly worthy subject matter.  

“Yeah,” Mai agreed.  “Well, he’s my favorite.  What’s your favorite class?”

“American History,” he said, then almost slapped himself.  Why did I just say that?  

“Who teaches that?”

“Um… Gyatso.  What’s your battle?”

“I got Trenton,” Mai said, bored.  “With Jin.  Wouldn’t you know it?”  There was another long silence.  Zuko stood up, not wanting to stay.  

“I’ve got to go,” he said, trying to sound regretful.  He leaned forward and kissed her.  Then he straightened up and ran back home.