Not the Emotional Type by flYegurl

Fang was never the emotional type.

He didn't cry. He didn't smile all that often, and he laughed even less. The least rare showed of his emotions was anger, and that was to be expected. He was a boy, after all.

Boys are meant to be tough and masculine. Boys aren't supposed to be weak or emotional. Boys are supposed to express their feelings through violence and cruelty. Boys are supposed to be boys. And boys are supposed to like girls.

So emotionally-constrained, masculine Fang couldn't respond well when Iggy told him he loved him.

Because boys are supposed to be masculine, and boys are not supposed to like other boys.

But Iggy wasn't to know that. He grew up blind most of his life. No reading books. No watching television. He never saw the open biases people had against others. Iggy was never told that boys weren't supposed to like boys. Iggy didn't know boys were supposed to be masculine. He simply didn't know, and that was that. And so he told Fang he loved him.

But Fang knew. Fang knew how he was supposed to act. Fang knew what way boys were meant to be. Fang knew that he was supposed to be tough and strong. He knew, from witnessing the dirty glares cast to boys holding hands on the streets, that boys who liked other boys were bad.

So when Iggy told Fang that he loved him, Fang responded in the way he knew boys were supposed to respond. In the way boys were meant to be tough and determined and not spare feelings.

"No way. I don't love you. That's disgusting. That's wrong."

And so Fang watched Iggy's hopeful expression twist, and as pain filled Iggy's eyes, and as Iggy turned to dart away from the scene of his humiliation. And all he could think was that Iggy wasn't like normal boys. Because that's not how boys were supposed to act.

Fang was fifteen, and Iggy was fifteen, and they were boys. And Fang knew he was acting the way he was supposed to. He had to fit in with the rest.

And Iggy was bad. Because boys who liked other boys were bad. And Iggy was wrong. And Iggy was disgusting. And Fang would have no more to do with him.

So he ignored Iggy whenever they were in the same room. And he slapped Iggy's hand away whenever he went to grab his belt-loop. And he wouldn't listen to a word Iggy had to say, because anything he said was wrong. Because Iggy was wrong.

And Max couldn't understand Fang's actions. She tried to tell him he was being irrational. That he should accept how Iggy felt and be over with it. Because it was tearing Iggy up inside, being walked all over as it was, and not even able to see. Being alone.

But Fang couldn't accept how Iggy felt, because boys weren't supposed to feel anything but anger. And if Iggy couldn't do that, then he was wrong, and he was bad. And if Fang hung around with Iggy, he was afraid he would start to lose control of himself as well.

One night, Fang awoke in the middle of the night with a dry ache in his throat and the desperate need for water. So he stood, and walked silently out of his room, and down to the kitchen for a drink.

After Fang was finished, he turned to walk back to his room, but paused as he heard a noise outside of Iggy's. A sniff. A sob.

Iggy was crying, and he was all alone.

Fang felt a pang in his heart to know this, and there was a momentarily lapse in his control in which he suddenly wanted, desperately wanted to throw open the door, rush in there, and hug him, rock him, tell him everything was alright.

But Fang was never the emotional type. And he was never one to talk about emotional things. Because boys weren't supposed to do that sort of thing.

And he remembered, once again, that Iggy was wrong. And so he ignored the crying, and walked back to his room, and lay down to sleep.

And the next morning he awoke to the sound of Max screaming.

Fang bolted out of bed and ran to her, because that's what boys were supposed to do. Be strong for pretty girls. And he found Max, with her hand over her mouth, staring with watering eyes into Iggy's room.

And Iggy was lying on his bed, his eyes closed as if in sleep, his sheets dyed red with blood and looking for all the world like a corpse. Because he was a corpse.

Max rushed in to the room to take hold of the boy's hand and lift it to her face, ignoring the red blood that leaked from his wrist, staining her cheek. Fang walked forward into the room, his face expressionless, his eyes dry, and looked over the dead body. And he noticed a folded piece of paper that rested next to its head.

Fang silently took the paper in hand, unfolded it, and began to read.

The letters were sloppy and uneven, some backwards, and most of the words were spelled incorrectly. But that was to be expected from a boy with no sight.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I'm disgusting. I never meant to be. I never knew these things.

I really am sorry.

I tried as hard as I could to wash myself clean of everything disgusting about me, but no matter how hard I tried, I found it impossible. I'm stained, and I'm sorry.

Please don't think badly of me. I did this so that I wouldn't be wrong anymore. I didn't want to be disgusting. I hope that this has helped me become right.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I was me, and not what I was supposed to be.

I take full responsibility, and hope you can forgive me.

Fang was never the emotional type. But that morning, reading that letter, he cried like a baby. And all he could think was that he finally realized that Iggy was always right, and that he was never disgusting. And that he loved him, for all he was, and not for what he was supposed to be.

And that maybe if Fang was more the emotional type, Iggy wouldn't be dead.

And that… that wasn't a maybe.

If Fang was more the emotional type, Iggy would be alive and happy.

And it made him hurt just to know that. And it never got better. And it never went away. It was never expressed, and it was never spoken of.

Because boys were supposed to be masculine. And boys were supposed to be strong. And boys weren't supposed to fall in love with other boys.

Because boys weren't supposed to be emotional.

And because Fang wasn't the emotional type.