#ransomweek

Ransom Week Day 1 - primum non nocere - “first, to do no harm”

There’s something to be said about impulse decisions. There’s a certain thrill that rises in a person’s bloodstream and makes the brain all fuzzy-happy-feely. There’s also a lack of time to be stressed, concerned, or overwhelmed.

But the best thing Justin can figure about impulse decisions is that they’re made with the gut. Not the head, which works itself into such a frenzy it can sometimes paralyze the rest of the body. And not the heart, either, which tugs itself into so many different directions it’s hard to know if the final decision is in his own best interest, or that of one of the other dozens of important people in his life.

No; impulse decisions are made with the firmness and sincerity of pure intuition. There’s second guesses which can arise, sure. But there’s nothing like the clarity that comes after recklessly proclaiming a decision, even if you’re not sure if it’s the right one.

Set the timer and give yourself the 20 seconds to think it through and then blurt out the answer before the beep comes and in that one single moment after doing so your entire body will react and you will know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, if what just came out of your mouth was the right thing or not.

And then you’ll have your correct answer.

That’s why Justin said it out loud before he’d ever really given it any thought.

“I don’t wanna go to medical school.”

The attic was quiet, Holster having been in class at the time, and the rest of the Haus mates downstairs but not being overly obnoxious. There was an open notebook in his lap and a textbook resting on his knees and a weight lifted off his shoulders.

He didn’t wanna go to medical school.

Not yet, anyway. Maybe, not ever.

He put some more thought into it, shared it with Holster, argued about it with Holster, and then set plans into motion that would keep him moving in a forward direction without having to commit to throwing the idea of medical school out the window just yet.

And then he made another impulse decision and asked Holster to borrow the Jeep so he could drive the 9 hours back to Toronto to inform his parents.

“What do you mean you haven’t told your parents?” Holster had asked.

“I mean I haven’t told them,” Justin had replied, shoving some clothes into the overnight bag he used on roadies. “And I need to.”

“Well yeah, but-”

“Now.”

“Ok but-”

“Right now, Holtzy, I need to be in a car on my way home to tell them I’m not going.”

“Ok, ok, I got you, lemme just-”

“Alone.”

Justin Oluransi stares up at the wooden door that looms before him, heavy hockey bag resting on his shoulder. The skin aches where the weight presses down through his thin shirt, the bag stuffed full with anything and everything Justin thought he might need. He’d made a list last night after his parents moved him into his dorm room. They’d lingered longer than they needed to, his father trying to oil the squeaky window while his mother rearranged his bookshelf and organized and then reorganized the small box where he keeps his testosterone and syringes for his intramuscular injections (I just want you to be able to find everything, baby, and don’t you forget to massage your chest every day, don’t skip, oh, where’s your lotion? Do I need to run out and get more? Justin don’t you roll your eyes at me - ). He hadn’t forgotten his lotion, and he hadn’t forgotten to massage his chest. She always thinks he’ll forget, because she’s his mother and she loves him (she loved him before she knew he was, is, will continue to be, a him).

But Justin didn’t forget, because he’s ready for his new start. He’s completely recovered from his surgery, his new coaches have assured him that he’s welcome, he finally feels right, settled into his bones for the first time in his life, and best of all, nobody here knows him from before. They won’t call him the wrong name, because they don’t know it. He has a spot on the team, a major that’s been declared, and Justin is ready.

He just needs to open the locker room door, and it’s just a tiny bit more difficult than he’d anticipated, but practice doesn’t start for another thirty minutes so it’s fine if he just. Takes his time. Takes a breath.

Justin ends up taking forty two breaths before he finally manages to push open the door, but he does manage to open the door, and he thinks that’s what matters. When he steps inside his heart is hammering inside his chest. He’s never actually been in a men’s locker room before. He’s had the hockey dressing room experience - hell, he feels like he’s lived in dressing rooms throughout the years - and he may have played for the best secondary school hockey team in Toronto but he also played for the best secondary school women’s hockey team in Toronto, so yeah, this is his first men’s dressing room.

It’s pretty much the exact same as a women’s locker room. It’s nicer, yeah, because it houses a NCAA Division I team, but it’s the same cubbies, same equipment, same everything.

Justin hadn’t expected that.

3 more days til Day 1!!!

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“--so then I was saying, like, Ransom is a maniac at flash cards. Give him ten minutes and some markers and he’ll alphabetise the syllabus for you, no sweat.”

“Holster,” Rans hedges, feeling uncomfortable at the recount of Holster’s conversation with some of the new frogs.

Holster paces the floor of their attic while he talks. Ransom has to keep watch in case Holster’s long limbs shoot his hands out too close to Ransom’s face.

“Yeah, they were all just blinking, totally awed. I think they were confronted by how you are so boss at hockey but also life. I mean, it is phenomenal. You’re an inspiration. I was telling them that--”

“Holster,” Ransom tries again.

“--when it’s exams, and you get into coral reef mode, that they are not to disturb. But--”

“Adam!” Holster shuts up abruptly, coming to a stop in front of Ransom.

“I’m just... Like, it’s cool you’re so supportive, but we don’t know these dudes yet? And I’m just human, alright?”

Holster looks dejected, shoulders curving down.

“I don’t want--You don’t have to be telling them I’m some, like, study god. It’s too much."

“Okay, Rans,” Holster says softly.

“I’m just, like, doing the work,”  Ransom tacks on, less overwhelmed now that Holster isn’t in constant movement, but still wanting to make his point; that he feels strange to be talked about like he’s some miracle.

Holster sits down beside him. “I just want them to appreciate you like I do.”

“Yeah, well,” Ransom sighs out. Holster has good intentions. It’s just a more dramatic approach than Ransom would like. “Like I said, they don’t really know us yet. Give them time. Sometimes it’s a little... a little much when you’re talking about me like that to everyone before they’ve even met me.”

Holster frowns, looking dejected. Ransom puts an arm around Holster’s wide shoulders, and pulls him in closer.

“Holtzy, I love you, and it’s cool that you’re always so supportive. Just... it’s like you’re making me the study robot to Jack’s hockey robot, yeah?”

“Oh, wow.” Holster blinks. “I’ve never thought about it like that. Jack hates that term.“

“Yeah,” Ransom agrees. “That’s my point.”

Holster is alarmingly quiet for a moment, then slaps a hand to Ransom’s chest and brings his face right up close, like he does when he’s moving into D&M mode (no matter how many times Ransom has told him physical closeness does not necessarily equal emotional closeness). “You know I don’t think you’re a robot. You’re more in touch with your emotions than I am.”

“Says the man who cries at cereal commercials,” Ransom jokes, feeling Holster’s sincerity. (Also, a little bit of spittle.) “Not sure that’s a compliment.”

Holster shoves Ransom backwards with the hand on his chest, and Ransom lets himself fall back on the bed.

“I declare hypocrisy. Who cried when Bitty’s ceramic pie-tin fractured yesterday?”

“Hey!” Ransom reaches up to yank Holster down and shove his face into the quilt beside him. “You did too, man.”

"...knew you had my back.” “bro. you totally had mine.”

Ransom Week Day 3 - crisis - “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger”

warning for description of past internalized homophobia

Samwell University Application for Fall 2012 (page 5)

Short Answer Prompt 2: Describe a time in your life when you experienced a crisis (750 word limit)

When I was twelve, my 7th grade homeroom teacher made us keep a daily journal. He promised he’d never read them, only check to make sure we had an entry for each day, so we were free to write about anything we wanted - and I did.

I wrote about homework I wasn’t looking forward to, community hockey league try-outs that I was excited about, idle middle school gossip, and on one occasion, I wrote about how scared I was that I might be gay.

I was twelve, so most of my understanding of what it meant to be gay came from what the other kids at school talked about. My parents didn’t really bring up topics like that at home, but on the rare occasion when it did come up they’d passively state that they don’t judge others for whom they choose to love, and then move the conversation along.

So most of what I heard - positive or negative - happened in hushed tones at the back of the gym, or in mocking tones in the middle of the locker room, kids throwing around slurs like they cared half as much as they should about the history of those words, kids who clearly didn’t really understand what they were saying.

And I guess I internalized a lot of that as a kid, because at twelve years old I wrote in my journal about how terrifying I found the idea of me possibly being gay to be.

The page the entry is on is worn, ripped in the corner, rough and wavy in the way paper gets after it’s been wet and then dried pressed onto other pieces of paper - I was crying when I wrote it. The tears of my internalized homophobia are forever stained in blue ink on the inside of a blue composition notebook, the page ragged and - until only two months ago - forgotten in a bin in the back of my bedroom closet.

That page is loud - there are exclamation marks all over it and run-on sentences and so many capital letters. But it’s funny, see, because the first time I actually kissed a boy, the world went quiet.

We were kneeling in the soil of his grandmother’s garden, protected from any outside influences by the high fence around their backyard. We were covered in dirt, worms, and leaves, and he was really cute, kinda shy, and incredibly sweet.

When he leaned in to kiss me, all I could see were his lips, and when he pressed them to mine, I could have sworn the earth stopped spinning so as to give us as much time as we needed to hold that single moment.

The air smelled like flowers and freshly cut grass, the breeze fluttered around us, and not a single atom in the universe made a sound that wasn’t the slide of our lips over each other.

Unless you’ve experienced it, I don’t think you can understand just how painful it can be to invalidate yourself, torment yourself with your own reality, suppress it to the point you literally forget it because your brain is trying to protect you from the things that most hurt your heart and soul.

It is absolute, utter hell.

But kissing that boy had my brain releasing every possible chemical that had been suppressed out of fear of the pain, and funnelling them through every possible positive interaction, like an apology.

Later, I’d figure out that bisexuality was a real thing, and I’d take some time to come to terms with it and feel confident applying it to myself. But two months ago, when I found that journal and flipped through it only to be slapped in the face with the discovery of a memory I hadn’t known I’d lost at any point, I didn’t think to care about whether that twelve year old boy had the label right or not, because all I wanted to do was reach back in time and hold that boy close and let him feel the freedom that came with knowing.

1 more day!! We start tomorrow!!! :D

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