Trashley: Forty-Two

The USB Drive

Ashley cut her trip to see her children short when I told her I wanted to break up, and called her out on some of her lies. She didn’t know I’d been talking with her wife, who confirmed that everything Ashley had told me over the year we dated was untrue. I felt like I was watching a meteor shower, and every passing star was a lie. 

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Alien. Lie.

As I watched Ashley’s location get closer to my apartment, I prayed to my personal god, Dolly Parton, that Ashley would accept the breakup and leave without causing too much of a scene. But the chances of that happening were negative zero percent, so I prepped my apartment for the incoming storm. I hid all of my knives and weapons in case Ashley tried to hurt herself. The night before, she told me she bought a gun at a thrift store, and I didn’t know if that was real or a lie. But if I were a betting man, which I am, I’d say lie.

Will you be my knifey?

The Uber pulled up, and Ashley’s footsteps plodded up my stairs. 

“Stay calm and keep a clear head, Lauren,” My former Karate teacher, Mr. Scott, whispered in my ear. “Don’t make decisions out of fear, and don’t panic. When you panic, you fuck up.”

Thank you, Sensei.

“I want to know what I’m walking into right now,” Ashley said as she entered my apartment.

“I packed all of your things into your car. I didn’t know how to unhook your PlayStation, so you can unplug it and take it with you, but this is over, and you need to leave.”

Ashley’s body started wobbling like her bones were made of tapioca, and she stumbled towards me. 

“I… I… I took four Xanax when I landed. They’re all hitting me now.”

I caught her before she fell to the floor and guided her to the couch.

Welp, there goes my entire day.

“I can’t drive like this. I just need to be here, please.”

“This is frustrating. You can’t stay here,” I said.

Her eyes appeared vacant and black, her pupils giant, as if I was looking at them through a magnifying glass. She was definitely on drugs. 

Her words blurred together, “Jus lemme sleep here, I’ll leavewhenIwaup.”

“I hate this,” I said, “You can nap on the couch, but as soon as you wake up, you need to leave.”

This nap is brought to you by Xanax.

I took some pillows from my bed and threw a blanket on her before texting Cecelia with an update.

“She’s here. She told me she took four Xanax, which probably means she took ten, and she needed to sleep it off but will go to Bakersfield as soon as she’s up.”

I hoped Ashley wouldn’t pull some Rip Van Winkle shit and sleep on my couch for the next twenty years.

“Okay, make sure she leaves. She’ll try everything to talk you out of it.”

Cecelia knew Ashley much better than I did, and I immediately regretted not listening to her when she said the best thing to do was not to let Ashley come inside my apartment at all.

While Ashley was knocked out on my couch, I opened her wallet to take back the spare key to my Tesla. I looked over to make sure she was still unconscious, and then I took out her cash to see how much she had. Eighty-four dollars. Something within the money fell out and fluttered to the floor. I picked it up. It was my passport photo.

I put it to the side, on top of my car key. 

What else was in there?

I rifled through her wallet: credit cards, driver’s license, a couple of receipts. I felt something hard buried under her Discover card. I pulled it out.

The missing USB drive.

My thoughts raced with possibilities: she stole my identity… she used my photos for dating apps… she sent my scripts to Paramount and put her name on them, and they gave her a deal… she made a shrine of my photos and worshiped in front of it every morning…

I shook my head to clear those thoughts away.

I removed my things and stored them in a coffee cup in the cupboard before returning everything else to her wallet.

I spent the next four hours writing at my dining room table while keeping a watchful eye on Ashley. I was still working my MTV job for Ex On the Beach, but I’d been so distracted by Ashley’s chaos that I’d fallen behind.

I was also in a group text with Cecelia and Michelle since we all had so much to share. When I took a break, I asked Cecelia about her burner Instagram. I told her I knew the gardening one was hers and wondered if the coop account was hers too, since they were usually the first two profiles to watch my stories.

Burner accounts.

Cecelia said the gardening account was hers but not the Coop account. When she looked Coop up, she realized she was blocked by it, and so was Michelle. Meaning Coop was Ashley’s burner account. She’d been watching my stories under a fake Instagram all along.

I sent Cecelia geo-tagged photos I had seen on Ashley’s personal Instagram when she briefly followed me last summer.

“She tagged these photos MIT.”

That geo-tag tho.

“Nope. Those are from when we lived in Utah. That was our driveway.”

Ashley’s deception ran so deep. What an exhausting way to live.

The lump under the blanket moved.

I closed my laptop.

“Okay, Ashley, it’s time for you to go,” I looked at my Apple Watch. It was already three o’clock. “Unhook your Play Station. I’m not spending the rest of my day doing this.”

Ashley sat up and looked at me with big tears in her eyes. “No. You’re making a mistake. I’m not leaving. You can’t break up with me!”

“Everything you’ve told me about yourself is a lie. I don’t even know who you are. You’re a stranger to me.”

“You know everything about me,” she sobbed.

“I know nothing about you,” I said, “It’s all made up.”

Her face turned red and she raised her voice, “I don’t know anything about YOU! Everything YOU told me is a LIE!”

Okay.

“I’ve been nothing but honest with you the entire relationship. Everything I’ve told you is true and real. You know me, and I don’t know you. You have to go. I’m done.”

“Please don’t do this. Please let me stay. Give me another chance. I’ll prove to you how much I love you. I’ll never lie to you again.”

“What did you do with that SIM card I found in your wallet? The one with all of my life on it?”

“Nothing, I was gonna give it back to you.”

“I don’t trust you, and I think you made a copy. I want to know what you’re doing with it.”

“I would never do anything with that, never!”

Ashley got up and walked towards me. I held my hand out like a traffic cop.

“Stop. You are not allowed to touch me ever again.”

Ashley walked through my hand, grabbed my head, and pulled me in for a kiss. As if this moment would lead to some wild sex. As if we were so mad, the only thing left to do was rip each other’s clothes off and spend the rest of the day fight-fucking.

“What are you doing? STOP.” I backed up. “I can’t be with you anymore. I don’t know you, and I need you to leave.”

Ashley started screaming like she had been torched on a cross by an angry mob.

She ran to my kitchen and yanked open the knife drawer. Her hands hovered above it, looking for something stabby.

“WHERE ARE THE KNIVES?” she screamed.

They’re everywhere, I thought. 

I wouldn’t have hidden my knives if Kirsten hadn’t suggested it. Dammit, she had just earned herself a bonus I told you so.

Ashley picked up a butter knife. I hadn’t hidden them because they’re weak—the twinks of cutlery.

Ashley pointed the knife at me. 

“What’s your plan here, to smear me with goat cheese like I’m a French baguette? 

“Put that down right now,” I said.

She held the knife towards her wrist. I could’ve pulled up a chair and sat there for hours watching her try to break the skin.

Instead, I wrestled it out of her hands. Once I had the knife, Ashley fell to the kitchen floor and started screaming.

“It’s time for you to go, Ashley.”

I put her shoes, wallet, and backpack in front of the door. I’d have to bring a nice bottle of wine and a gift basket of edibles to my downstairs neighbors after she left to apologize for the noise.

I pulled Ashley off the floor and walked her to my front door.

“Tell me this is not over. Tell me this is just a break. We can fix this.”

“No. We can’t, this is not fixable.”

She wailed and wriggled out of my grip, “I’m going to kill myself!” She ran back to the kitchen and opened other drawers.

“I’m calling the police. This is enough.”

She screamed. “No! Don’t call the police. Stop, stop saying you’ll call them!”

“I don’t want to call the fucking police either, but I don’t know what else to do.”

“I just want to die. I can’t take it anymore.”

“I’m calling the suicide hotline then.” 

I googled the number and put it on speakerphone. I sat at my dining table while Ashley rocked on the floor.

“Hi, I’m calling because I’m going through a breakup with my girlfriend, and she is threatening to kill herself, and I don’t know what else to do.”

“Is she with you right now?”

“Yes. She just waved a knife around, and she’s refusing to leave my apartment.”

“Oh, this sounds like you should call the police instead. Their number is 9-1-1.”

“I was gonna call the police, but she won’t let me.”

I handed the phone over to Ashley. The operator went through a list of questions with her. Ashley seemed to calm down from a level ten to a level six. By the time she got off the phone, another hour had passed. I was drained. I needed to get back to work, and I wanted her gone.

“Please, this is only a break. This is not over. It’s just a time-out,” Ashley said.

After talking in circles and going deaf from her screams, I had to give in. I needed her to leave, so I told her, “Fine, it’s just a break. But you need to go up to Bakersfield.”

“Okay, I can deal with that. It’s just a break. It’s not forever.” She took some deep breaths and started gathering her things.

This is the problem with being a gay Virgo: my compassion has always been my worst enemy. I felt sorry for Ashley. She wasn’t born this way. She was made this way. I hoped she would try to get better so she didn’t think she had to lie her way into relationships. Life shouldn’t be a constant challenge, and it wouldn’t be if she could just be herself.

Ashley finally put on her shoes and picked up her bag.

“Just a break?” she said as she opened the door.

“For now, just a break.”

I watched Ashley walk to her car from my living room window. She got in the driver’s seat and drove away.

I updated Cecelia and Michelle about what had happened. I was lucky to have our little support group because no one else would understand the lengths Ashley would go to get her way.

Later that evening, my neighbors Hope and Bob hosted a dog party. While all the dogs were playing, I took advantage of having all my neighbors in the same place. I clinked Perci’s leash against my water bottle filled with wine.

“Attention—Friends, neighbors, enemies—I have an announcement to make.”

My neighbors-turned-friends gathered around the yard and looked at me.

“I broke up with Ashley today after finding out she was not a real Physicist or professor,” I turned to Dr. Bob. “Bob, I know you’ll miss Dr. Ashley more than anyone, and I’m sorry for your loss. And if anyone sees her lurking around the neighborhood, please let me know.”

Everyone exhaled a sigh of relief. 

My neighbor Judy linked arms and said, “Oh, Lauren, we’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. Cheers.” She clinked her can of wine with my water bottle.

It turned out that everyone had an Ashley story. She had alienated nearly half of Silver Lake. I would have to date someone incredible next to make-up for Ashley, like an A-list actress. I wondered if Lily Gladstone was single.

The next night, I gathered my friends to process my story. It was so elaborate and long that I only wanted to say it once. I didn’t want to compromise anything by summarizing it because every detail was important. And I was still discovering new information by talking with Cecelia and Michelle.

I ordered several pizzas from Tomato Pie and loaded up on various wines. My friends came over at seven, and I started talking from the beginning when Ashley and I met.

Story-time.

We took a brief intermission halfway through the story to refill our wines.

My friends were half shocked and half not. 

Crazy things had happened to me in the past, so being catfished by a pathological lying lesbian during quarantine felt pretty on-brand for me. I continued my story up to that point.

“So I finally got her to leave, and I hope she’s either in Bakersfield or moves back to Minnesota. I will now open the floor up for questions.”

My friend Kerry raised her hand, “Yes, Kerry in the back, what’s your question?”

“What do you think happened when she told you she was trying to find a woman who was catfishing her friend in Santa Barbara?”

“Great question. I don’t think she was trying to find a woman catfishing her friend. I believe that she was the one catfishing a woman in Santa Barbara.”

“Do you think they met in person?” Kerry asked.

“I think so because when Ashley took her Tesla to Santa Barbara to ‘get the tire fixed,’ she was there all day. And she could’ve easily made an appointment in LA. Plus, who drives one hundred miles to get their tire fixed? I wouldn’t even drive two miles on a broken tire. Next question.”

My friend Jess raised her hand, “When I had dinner with you guys at the Meatball Shoppe in Brooklyn, she brought up Bumble as soon as you left the table. She tried to convince me she was on there to make friends, but do you think that was true?”

“I believe she used Bumble to find dates, not friends, the entire time I was in the Canary Islands, and most likely the entire time we dated. She uses Bumble like people use Candy Crush, it’s like a game inside her phone.” 

I walked over to my living room windows. “If you look here, you’ll see Ashley put black velcro strips behind the bar holding my curtains. She put up blackout curtains while I was gone and said it was because it was too bright to see the TV screen during the day. But I think she put them up so that my neighbors wouldn’t see her in here with another woman. I also bet she pretended my apartment was hers for the six weeks I was gone.”

“Yikes,” Jess said.

“And she told me she was going on a date the night before I got home from Spain. It was one of those lies where it’s the truth in disguise.”

My phone started vibrating on the table. It was Ashley. I answered and put it on speaker.

“Why are you calling me?” I asked.

“I just want you back, baby. I love you so much. I miss you, and I miss talking to you.”

“Well, I’m busy and I don’t want to talk.”

I looked around my table of friends. Every single person was recording my conversation. Kirsten got an establishing shot. Jess filmed a medium close-up, and Rachel and Kerry got a two-shot of my profile.

“I was just thinking,” Ashley said. “Wouldn’t it be tragic if I sent your photos to Alki David? I’m sure he’d love them. You should really consider taking me back.”

My heart jumped. I couldn’t believe what she had just said. She was threatening to send whatever photos she had of me to the man who sexually assaulted me.

“You would be making a big mistake, Ashley, if you did that.”

I looked around at my friend’s faces. Jaws were on the floor, eyes were on me. Every single person in that room went to my trial to support me. And they knew the excruciating pain Alki David had caused me in the years leading up to my trial, during my trial, and after I won. 

And now, a person who had a copy of a USB drive of all of my everything, was threatening to blackmail me with it to the man who assaulted me.

I lost it. And I never lose it. I unleashed on Ashley like a demon was using me as a ventriloquist doll. I was not in control of my words. I. Went. Off.

Threat level red.

“You fucking evil cunt, you are nothing but a liar who steals time and energy from people. You stole a year from my FUCKING life, and for that, you will pay.”

My tirade lasted for at least ten minutes, and I’m pretty sure I scared all of my friends. I called Ashley and her mom cunts in twenty different languages. And I believe I hit a world record for most consecutive use of the word.

“Isn’t it funny?” Ashley asked, “That you have to trust me now? With all of your pictures? I mean, it’s a little ironic. Don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think it’s funny. And I don’t trust you.”

I went off on her for another twenty minutes until I finally hung up and cried.

All I had wanted was to meet the woman of my dreams. Instead, I got Ashley.

All of my friends sent me their videos of the exchange. I had solid evidence that Ashley was threatening to blackmail me. So I did what anyone would do in my situation: I messaged the best revenge porn attorney in the world. Ashley had fucked with someone who had the personal phone numbers to the kind of lawyers who shrank down the most vile, evil people on the planet into little nothings. Within no time, I had a call set up with Lisa Bloom. 

I barely slept that night. The thought of Alki having anything of mine triggered me into a PTSD spiral.

The next morning, Lisa advised me to start by kindly and gently telling Ashley that it would be hurtful if she sent my things to Alki and that I did not consent to her using my photos or videos for anything. 

Lisa gave me tips for filing a domestic violence restraining order after telling her about the incident with the butter knife. I was terrified of Ashley doing something insane with my pictures. I texted her, pleading for her not to go down that road. And if she did, I’d lawyer up so fucking hard that she would feel like she was drowning two inches below the surface of the water for the rest of her life.

Firing off a warning shot.

I wasn’t sure if Ashley told her parents we’d broken up, but I needed them to know it was getting serious.

So I texted her parents, telling them exactly what happened—pleading with them to do the right thing and get Ashley help. She was unwell. And she was about to destroy her own life by threatening to blackmail me.

I have this crazy idea, it’s called: Help your fucking daughter before she ruins her entire life.

I waited for her parents to respond, but they didn’t.

No, “That sounds serious, we’ll talk to her,” or, “Thanks for letting us know so we can get her help.” They could’ve at least hit the thumbs-up reaction.

But no. Nothing.

The only people who cared about getting help for Ashley were the ones she hurt the most—Cecelia and me.