Intertwined: A Redemption Novel

by Sasha Brümmer

  Intertwined

  Copyright © 2016 Sasha-Lee Brümmer

  Published by Sasha-Lee Brümmer

  Editor:

  Lisa Aurello

  Cover Designer:

  Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Creative

  Interior Design & Formatting:

  Christine Borgford, Type A Formatting

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the copyright owner/author. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, places, characters, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The ideas, characters and situations presented in this story are strictly fictional and any unintentional likeness to real persons, living or dead, or real situations, is completely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language, and violent circumstances, and sexual situations. It is intended for adult readers.

  Table of Contents

  Intertwined

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Playlist

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue No. 1

  Epilogue No. 2

  Thank You

  I dedicate this novel to those who are afraid to let go and let love take over. Trust in those around you because a love like the one in this story doesn’t come by often.

  Have faith in yourself instead of pushing others away. In loving yourself, you’ll find yourself. Remember, those dark and challenging roads will lead to the most beautiful places and make perfect sense when you are able to look back at them.

  The number of people who have been supporting me while I’ve brought this story to life has truly been overwhelming. First, I’d like to thank my family, Andrew, Vanessa, and Tynan, for allowing me to hole up in my writing cave and bringing me caffeine at the drop of a hat. There’s nothing like family, and I wouldn’t want any other than the three of you.

  Belinda Brümmer, I will always be grateful for that random phone call. You helped steer me in the right direction with this book when I was lost and unsure where it needed to go. Thank you for having faith in me and my words.

  Lisa Aurello, I’m not even sure where to start. You are beyond kind and selfless. You’ve been with me since day one of writing, and I could not see myself working with anyone else. You’re one of a kind, and I’m ever so fortunate to know you. Thank you for the countless times that you’ve read through my works and helped me to better each and every word.

  Heather White, A.F. Crowell, and Audrey Carlan, goodness, the three of you are rays of light in the dark. You have each been so supportive of me and my work when I wasn’t sure of myself. Thank you for all that you do and for all of the support you each provide me with.

  Linda Russell, I’m not even sure where to begin when it comes to your unconditional support. I’m beyond blessed to have you on my team. You’re truly one of a kind, and I owe you the world. Thank you, Linda, for everything.

  Sharon Renee Goodman, I’m hereby revoking your rights to live anywhere else but in my pocket. I love your friendship and flair of sass that you bring into my world. Thank you for being you and for all of your support.

  Ashley Scales, Linda Russell, Heather White, Holly Main, and Kimberly Lucia, you ladies are phenomenal. I love your brutal honesty and all of the effort that you put into helping me achieve my dreams. Thank you for all that you do.

  Kimberly Lucia, I feel as if I’ve known you for years, and I probably have, but I’m delighted to have you on my side. You have the most beautiful soul, and I’m glad that I get to call you my friend. Thank you for all of your help in my chaotic world.

  Kristi Webster, thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to use the dark side of your mind when I was struggling. You’re a talented writer and genuine inspiration to me.

  Geneva Lee and Elise Lee, the two of you have the most beautiful souls. Thank you for your overpowering love and unconditional support. I will always remember being kidnapped in a taxi by the two of you. I adore you two hard!

  Sommer Stein, holy . . . where do I start? You are beyond talented and a delight to work with. I’m not sure how you put what I see in my head onto my covers, but you do, and I love you for it. Thank you for always answering my early-morning messages and for being so willing to go above and beyond.

  Lastly, I wanted to say the biggest thank-you to those bloggers, readers, and authors who have taken a chance on me. None of you will ever understand what it means to me for all of your help when we didn’t know a thing about each other. Words have brought so many people together, and I’m delighted to be part of this community of bookish love.

  Back to Me—Daya

  Blue Blood—Laurel

  Breathin’—EDX

  Closer—Chainsmokers feat. Halsey

  Cold Water—Major Lazer feat. Justin Bieber and MØ

  Coming Over (Filous Remix)—James Hersey

  Crush—Campsite Dream

  Don’t Let Me Down—The Chainsmokers feat. Daya

  Echoes—Revel in Romance

  Fast Car—Jonas Blue

  Feels—Kiiara

  Go Flex—Post Malone

  Gold—Kiiara

  Kiss Me—Rebel feat. Sophie Simmons

  Lost Boy—Ruth B

  Pity Party—Melanie Martinez

  Say It—Flume feat. Tove Lo

  Scars to Your Beautiful—Alessia Cara

  Sex—Cheat Codes

  Show Me Love—Sam Feldt

  So Alive—Goo Goo Dolls

  Sweet Lovin’—Sigala

  Unfold—Alina Baraz and Galimatias

  Wicked Games—Parra for Cuva feat. Anna Naklab

  A resilient depression has held me in a dense captive fog since I was able to understand the word abandoned. I carry the obscurities of my life around with me as I hang onto a thin thread. I know that the thread is too fragile to hold much more, and when it breaks, it may release the weight and free me of it, or it will pin me down and crush one meaningless bone at a time. It could make breathing difficult and screaming out for help an impossible feat as I watch a mirrored image of myself lose to a vehement and soundless internal war.

  I’ve been told that I’m defective while I’m in my black state of misery, but how can someone who has not experienced the tumbling, sinking, clawing, festering, smothered emotions that I have over the years have anything to say about it? I’ve also been told that it’s healthy to cry, but how can I force tears when I barely have the energy that it takes to sleep. Sleep has become more to me than just taking a moment of rest: it has become my escape from reality.r />
  There’s nothing tragically beautiful about depression. There’s not always a reason for it either, but today and every day I sit alone in a dark forest.

  I’m not living.

  I’m purely enduring.

  I consider myself to be a limited-edition empathetic target. Someone who manipulative people seem to latch onto and try to exploit in any which way they deem probable. I’ve been surrounded by toxic people for my entire life, ones who have consistently cast the blame in my direction in order to hold me back. Regardless of the boundaries that I put up, there’s always one asshole who manages to slip through and wreak havoc on my life. The ones that seem to know how to dowse my fires with a few drops of ice-cold water are always the ones that I don’t see coming.

  However, I’ve realized my potential since the last fucker barreled through my life, and no, I’m not talking about men taking advantage of me. I’m talking about spineless women who thrive on pushing another down instead of raising one up. Not only am I worried about my depression and anxiety suppressing me from being who I am supposed to be, but certain people have had the exact same effect on me as well.

  In the end, I know that I’ll be fine, but I still feel awful and weary all of the time. I’ve managed to fall in love with the pain, though, and it’s drawn me in so deep that I want to stay. I’m unsure of what else there is in life without the daily dose of medication that diminishes my life.

  I’ve begged more times than I’ll admit to anyone to just make all of this shit go away, but it chooses to linger around instead. I am not the sort of person who will sit on the bathroom floor and cry and then walk out into a crowded room as if nothing happened. No. I’m able to control the depression in a way that others have learned to control me. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have an abusive relationship with the disease: I am well aware of how unhealthy it is, but I feel as if I finally have it under control.

  In any woman, charm and beauty can be deceptive and not only to men but to other women as well. Most women will agree that they do not trust anything with a dick. However, I don’t trust a bitch in heels.

  Women are said to run the world because we have vaginas, but let’s be frank here: having a vagina opens the door to manipulation and preconceived notions of needing a man to survive. It’s all complete bullshit.

  I was brought into this life and raised by women who hustle and overcome obstacles by tackling them with their feet on the ground. Those women, though, turned out to be the most manipulative people I have come across. Those women destroyed me at a young age and never bothered to look back. Not even once. I’ve accepted them for the women they are, but I’ve rejected them too because I now know that I deserve more. I have more internal scars than can be seen with the naked eye and it’s all thanks to those who should have given me more in life than a padded room and restraints.

  Who are these self-absorbed bitches? Easy. My mother who abandoned me and my grandmother who betrayed me until her dying breath—both of whom handed me over to others who thought they knew how to get a better handle on me: my mother to my grandmother and my grandmother to an institution.

  Sure, I’ve accepted their faults, and I’ve moved on, but that doesn’t take away the residual bullshit that it left me with. I’m exhausted from fighting my way through every day due to the depression that settled itself in when all of the pieces of who these women were fell into place. They kept their true selves hidden from me, but I understood.

  I’ve always understood.

  When manipulation takes away one’s will to keep fighting, it’s harder to stay than to pick up the pieces of yourself that another so arbitrarily cast off. I assume that they loved me—at least I’d like to think that—but love that was so easily discarded was not a love that was worth holding onto to begin with. Nevertheless, being abandoned takes away one’s ability to realize that truth, as well as the ability to forget the instigators. The person that is left behind or handed over like a rag doll is never whole; that person won’t recover, but will fight to make their lives whole again.

  It’s what I’ve been doing since day one. I’ve been fighting to find myself through a haze. I’ve been adamant about overcoming the thought of being thrown away and hastily left to the devices of people I didn’t know.

  A part of me has been missing ever since I can remember, and because of it, I don’t believe that I’m living up to my life’s fullest potential. I’ve gotten over it, though. I’ve said fuck it and kept on going on more occasions than I can count, and it’s helped me to grow as a person.

  At the age of fifteen, seventeen years ago, I was institutionalized at a psychiatric hospital for three years. My grandmother claimed that I tried to end my life because of all of the mental issues I had. Little did the nurses and doctors know that she was the senseless one out of the two of us. She left wounds on me that will never show or bleed because they go much deeper than flesh.

  My grandmother made countless decisions to use her vile words against me. I don’t believe that she was able to love anyone other than herself. She knew that she was inflicting pain but didn’t care. She had a dark soul, one that if you listened closely, you could hear the laughter seep through the madness that resided inside of her. She drained me of my identity as a young girl and injected self-doubt into my already festering wounds.

  Life inside of white padded walls wasn’t one that I’d recommend or want anyone else to experience. At least when you go through the worst, it can be dimmed by a once-a-day pill. It was because I simply felt too much at a young age, too much of what I couldn’t understand.

  I stopped eating as the depression worsened because what was the point, right? They documented every aspect of my life, every noise I had made or word that I chose to share. I had no light that could possibly morph into rays of hope. I just had a mind that plummeted downward into an immeasurable darkness. When I stopped eating, I ceased speaking as well because I didn’t have anything to say while I was drowning in the bottomless gloom. Did I need help during those times? Undeniably. But did I require padded rooms, locked doors, and meals passed through a slot in those doors? No. Not at all.

  What did help was the compassion of the nurses, something that I’d never experienced before. I was locked up and defeated yet I never felt as loved as I did within those four walls.

  Through the process of healing, I saw a glimmer of my strength when I was told to look harder. I focused more on being released than I did on the illusion of my life, and because of that, I learned how to better myself instead of aimlessly wandering around in my own mind.

  I was released from the institution a few days after my eighteenth birthday. My grandmother took me back in as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t ignored my existence for three years during which I battled to keep hold of the woman I had become. I managed to get my GED while I was locked up, and I had applied to a few colleges, all of which were as far away from Portland, Maine, as possible.

  After that summer, I left without so much as a goodbye to travel by bus and train to get to Chicago, Illinois. I only took with me what I could fit into my old school backpack—a few changes of clothes, toiletries, and my identification. I left everything else that belonged to Isabelle Madden behind.

  I recall seeing the city for the first time, and I immediately knew that it was somewhere I needed to be. It’s as if it was calling to me as I stepped down from the coach bus and into an empty parking lot that was lit up from the overhead streetlights.

  I struggled for a week before my college classes started. I didn’t have anywhere to go until move-in day, but I somehow made it work. I paid for cheap motel rooms with the money that I took from my grandmother and managed to keep any monsters at bay until I could afford the medication that did it for me. The biggest decision that I made that week was to change my name. I went into a courthouse to have my name legally changed from Isabelle, something that never suited me, to Isla.

  I remember when I decided on Isla one night at a ricket
y bar. I was asked what I wanted to drink and wasn’t even asked for any identification, so I went for it. The only thing that came to mind was Scotch whiskey. I remember the old man huffing out a breath as he reached up and grabbed a bottle from the back of the bar before placing it in front of me. The whiskey came from Islay, Scotland, and right then, I knew that I’d come to the bar for more than just a drink.

  I’d come looking for a new identity, for a new me. For answers to who I am. Thanks to an old man and my request for whiskey, I found Isla Madden, the woman who has always been present inside me. The woman who kept pushing when everyone in her life decided that she wasn’t worth their time and effort. For the first time in years, I felt like I could breathe without the fear of suffocation.

  On freshman move-in day, I was delighted to have my own space. The roommate who I was assigned to live with eventually moved out because she couldn’t stand my silence. I was lucky enough to have the room to myself for the remainder of my freshman year. I didn’t have to worry myself about lining up outside of a nurse’s station to receive my medication or when I’d be allowed out in the daylight again. This was the first time that I had complete and utter control over my life, and I was thriving in it.

  I’ve since become accustomed to allowing people into my life, to let the love in if you will, even though I know that the moment you open the door is the moment that they destroy you. I have issues, and I’m aware of them, but that doesn’t take away what I was forced into. It doesn’t heal the aspects of life that I won’t get back. It doesn’t fix the fact that I’m not all that comfortable around other women unless they go out of their way to prove their loyalty to me. Nothing excuses the fact that pieces of my life were stolen, and I won’t be able to ever get those years back.

  I’ve let people control and consume me through the years, but over nine and a half years ago I met two men who have helped me see the potential in myself that wasn’t brought to light before. Ever since I met them, they have repeatedly pushed me to my breaking points, and just as I’m about to fall over the edge, each of them reaches out and makes sure that I’m secure enough on my own two feet to stand once more before they let go of me.