I Once Drowned

I Once DROWNED

LEANNA BRIGHT

I Once Drowned is published under Reverie, a sectionalized division under Di Angelo Publications, Inc.

REVERIE

Reverie is an imprint of Di Angelo Publications. Copyright @ 2022. All rights reserved. Printed in United States of America.

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Library of Congress I Once Drowned First Edition Paperback ISBN: 9781942549611

Words: Leanna Bright Cover Design: Savina Deinova Interior Design: Kimberly James Developmental Editor: Elizabeth Geeslin Zinn Editors: Ashley Crantas, Cody Wootton

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I Once DROWNED

LEANNA BRIGHT

This is a story told to me by a girl I once knew.

A Note from the Protagonist:

I was faced with a major choice in deciding to share my story. Would I keep the story to myself or would I reveal what I had done and been through? Relating my story meant I would sacrifice my pride and my need for approval from people. I may lose friends and family members, and experience judgments that I have lived without due to my silence. But that will also mean not hiding who I am. Most who know me do not know these truths of my past. But I realized this was a selfish act. I have decided that if my narrative might help others, it would be worth telling.

As much of a screw-up as I was, I am proud of the hope I kept and the urge to want to share something bigger than myself. That was a piece of authenticity shining through suppression.

And for this it is worth the sacrifice. -Holly

This book is dedicated to my little angel, in hopes that it will make the world a better place “even if just a little” so that you can dance freely upon the edges of the sea. Love, Mom and

For my deceased brother, Jeremy. I feed the pigeons in honor of you.

CHAPTER ONE THE LUCKY ONE

I once drowned, and it was quite peaceful. I was three years old.

My twin sister and I had crept through the backyard gate that was left ajar by the pool man. We were fighting over a bathing suit, and my sister pushed me into the pool. The icy water stung my skin as my arms floundered, trying to defy gravity. I breathed in deep, inhaling water and chlorine, and my panic lost the fight to my mortal limits. I surrendered to peace. I remember the silence of the water, the tiny air bubbles floating up, tickling the tip of my nose. I felt peaceful; all fear left me. Blotches of color filled my vision, and then there was nothing. Apparently, the maid saw me in the pool and pulled my lifeless body out of the water. In a frenzy, she sprinted to my mother, who was asleep inside the house, and woke her. Mom frantically ran to my side. Screaming, she called for the maid to bring her the phone, its long spiral extension cord winding out the door, and she held my lifeless body upside down with one hand around both of my ankles, draining the water from me as best as she could. With the phone lodged between her thighs, she called an ambulance. She did her best. She had once worked alongside paramedics and all of her previous knowledge superseded her distress.

During the scuffle to save me, my fraternal twin, Heather, was hysterical in the corner, completely beside herself.

While the paramedics revived me, my mom prayed to her own deceased mother to save me.

“Please, Mom, if you are here, don’t let me lose a baby. If you never do anything for me ever again but this one thing, don’t let me lose her, don’t let her go...”

I heard my mother’s prayer in the far distance. As my mouth dropped wide for air, my eyelids peeled open, fixed towards the sky just in time to witness a gust of wind pass through a tree, swaying its branches.

Her prayer was answered. I am here to tell the tale. Not many people can say they died and then came back to life.

From this point in my young life, a pattern began to emerge. I’ve been resuscitated several times: either by the grace of God, my instincts, or a form of love. My life has occurred in a series of cycles—constant rebirths—pressing the reset button until I got it right.

It began in Los Angeles, on a street called Sapphire Place. It suited us, as sapphire is not only mine and my sister’s birthstone, but our mother’s, as well. We were almost born on my mother’s birthday, but instead we arrived early the next day.

My father owned a highly successful clothing store, Brookvale Men’s Clothing, situated in Beverly Hills, California. Dad was the first person to sell unisex blue jeans in Los Angeles. It was a massive hit in the ‘70s, and by 1980 he was a booming success—even celebrities shopped at my father’s store in Beverly Hills.

He hired my mother as an employee. Shortly after, he was swept away by her beauty and Southern charm. It wasn’t long before my mom was his wife, and boss of the newly created women’s department of his business.

My parents were married at the Four Seasons Hotel in Santa Barbara, California, on Valentine’s Day. White doves were released, and Dom Pérignon champagne was on

every table. It was an elaborate wedding, appropriate for an elaborately successful man like my father. My parents owned seven motorcycles, a Ferrari, and a Rolls-Royce. Dad’s RollsRoyce also appeared in a movie starring Richard Gere.

I was told my mother went into labor in the middle of a sip of champagne, while she and my father were eating a divine meal at a lavish restaurant called Chasen’s. They rushed into their burgundy Royce and my father, unable to think straight, struggled to get the car into the right gear. My mother, while in labor, put the car in the right gear herself, and off they sped to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, where my twin and I took our first breaths. Three days after we were born, my grandmother walked in to see my mother bent down on hands and knees cleaning the kitchen floor as if it was like any other day. This just about sums up my mother and her resilience.

My parents were, independently of each other, powerful. Aesthetically, they resembled a beautiful Hollywood couple. Mom, with her jet-black hair, hourglass dancer’s figure, and high cheekbones from her Native American background, was stunning. Her pale skin beamed and was given to her from her Irish mother. Mom had almond-shaped eyes and a debutant’s smile that melted you with its warmth. My mother’s Southern accent was often embellished when she was excited or extremely angry; this added to her charm. My father was Mr. California, down to the bright blue eyes and tanned skin. He was polite and polished. He had a strong chin, thick curly light brown hair, and was lean figured. He was always seen with a perfectly shaven face. Dad was organized and logical: always flawlessly dressed, attentive to color, fabric, stitching, and texture. His closet was meticulously organized, and when you hugged him he smelled of fresh laundry detergent. My father was admired for his refined clothing expertise We had casual friendships with leading Hollywood families.

There is a tale of a Grammy Award-winning entertainer going after my father quite aggressively, jet-setting across countries while he went on trips to source material and fabrics for his store. They went on a date. However, when she walked into the restaurant, she asked, “Why aren’t you playing my music?” In that moment, my dad decided the woman had too big an ego, so she wasn’t for him.

He married my mother and took on her three children from previous relationships, my half-brothers, as his own. Despite being constantly overwhelmed, he was there. He took on the father role with gusto and became the coach for baseball and football games, made lunches, chauffeured school drop-offs, and bought clothing, food, and more. But there were also many lavish parties and passionate fights, and, frequently, long nights of both that changed lives forever for all of us.

CHAPTER TWO

KISSING EMPTY ROOMS

The first time I walked into my very own jail cell, I felt like I was sleepwalking and that soon I would wake up.

I remember the feeling vividly. Am I dreaming or is this really happening to me?

I looked down at my shoes, the shoes they had given me after I undressed bits of my body in front of forty other girls. They were three sizes too big, and no one I told seemed to care. In that moment, at the age of fifteen, I realized I no longer had a voice. Earlier, we had all been made to strip down naked in front of the guards. I had squatted and coughed to show I wasn’t physically hiding drugs.

“Your turn,” the guard said.

I was half-naked, freezing and exposed.

“Squat.”

I squatted.

“Cough.”

I coughed.

The officer forced me into the shower and dumped a bottle of lice treatment over my head. A waft of what smelled like a combination of licorice and alcohol violated my nostrils; the offensive liquid was sanitizing my scalp. My heavy eyelids wanted to succumb to gravity but I used all my energy in an effort to keep them open. I ached to sleep, to dream I was somewhere else far away from this atomic nightmare, and yet at the same time, I shut down within to protect myself from

this severe pain and the internal questions that would follow.

The humiliation of the strip search protocol, upon entering juvie, was another piece of my emotional death. The polarity of these concrete walls and shackles compared to only a few months earlier, when I was swimming in my father and stepmother’s pool in Los Angeles, was stark. The guard pushed me along a concrete hallway; I stumbled, almost dropping my towel, bed sheets, and pajamas. I passed a long row of cells and noticed the eyes and voices of many female inmates as they knocked on their doors, whistling and calling me a tweaker. I was immediately labeled as a meth addict. The inmates laughed and the guard chuckled under her breath as I lowered my head and my eyes to the ground.

Is this actually real? I asked myself over and over on the way to my cell.

The officer detached her large key ring from her belt, which was fitted with at least twenty different keys, all jangling into each other. They looked heavy. She unlocked the large steel door, swung it open, and said, “Go on.”

I took a few steps in, not knowing what to do with myself.

“Bitch, my name is Jones,” my cellmate introduced herself as the door slammed behind me. Strands of hair jutted out from her disheveled box-braid design. Her bottom lip was discolored, marked with blotches of dark brown and purple, and I wondered if she had been hit. The physical reminder of violence combined with the guards’ disregard for me, the inmates bull-baits from behind steel doors, and the depressing green walls etched with graffiti caused me to mumble to myself, “Where am I?”

I had posed this rhetorical question to myself, but Jones responded. “Bitch, you in jail!”

It hit me like a freight train. There I stood, frozen in front of my cellmate, still holding my bed sheets, my towel, and my

pajamas.

The awkward quiet was broken by Jones as she asked, “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do it,” I said quietly.

She looked at me skeptically, almost with pity. “I didn’t either, girl; neither did the girl next door; neither did the girl across the hall. Hell, the guards didn’t either.”

Quietly I realized my truth would fall on deaf ears. If I wanted to survive here, I had to play the part.

My mother raised six children in her household. She and my father split when I was six years old. It was only a few years after my mother had given birth to my little brother Dustin that the marriage ended. I was left feeling split in two myself. I have often reflected on the fact I wasn’t the easiest child to raise; I’m inclined to believe my parents would agree.

After my parents divorced, frequently adapting to new homes, neighborhoods, and schools became a common theme in our household. I presume it was due to my mother’s lack of money after the divorce, but each new house was always smaller than the last. I can remember my mom hauling all of us and our belongings to a series of new neighborhoods, new homes. No matter how familiar, the pain of leaving each home always stung. I had a ritual that I didn’t dare tell anyone about.

As my mother’s hands clenched the steering wheel, moments from departure, I blurted out: “One last thing! I forgot something in my room.” Then I pushed the car door open and ran into the vacant home. I bolted up the stairs to my barren room. By then, the silence had taken on its own voice; it was startling. The house and its space, once filled with bustling

life and noise, now was silenced with void space in what felt like its twilight years. I placed my hand on the hard wall and, with a little kiss, I said goodbye to the house as if it was alive. I stood in the middle of the empty room to let the walls speak to me. I wanted each house to know it meant something to me; that even though we only stayed there a short while, I wouldn’t forget it. You are not meaningless, house. You protected us and will forever be with us–well, me. Thank you, house, for holding my family. I see you. You are not overlooked. Look after the next family, and goodbye.

I don’t know where I came up with these words; all I knew was I had to be alone to say them. Living with so many people, at times it was a struggle to hear my own thoughts or when the house spoke to me. But I believe the house said thank you.

And then, we’d dash off to a new world, and I always held a jitter within me, fearing we would never settle. New schools often meant shifting personas. I was forced to transform and change, pieces of what I knew dying and being reborn again. I was being prepared for my future. If I had seen into a crystal ball, I would have trusted that these experiences were teaching me to readily accept change.

The golden days of my childhood beautifully prepared me to be adaptable to anything. At least, that’s how I choose to see it.