Trashley: Thirty-Nine

Cecelia, you're breaking my heart

My apartment became an evidence room, in which Kirsten and I sorted through Ashley’s belongings, trying to piece together a year's worth of lies. I was able to unlock one of Ashley’s secret burner phones, where I discovered a string of text messages between her and Cecelia, proving that Ashley had cheated on her with me, and also proving that Ashley’s family had helped cover up our affair. Even worse, Ashley was fully involved in the creation of baby number two. 

This is an active investigation.

I felt like a pedestrian, standing on the sidewalk waiting for the light to change when a dump truck backed into me and unloaded a huge pile of bullshit on my head. I barely had a chance to process the catfishing schemes before discovering Ashley was living a double life. 

Everything, even her family, disgusted me.

I couldn’t believe I had wasted a year dating such a villain. To lie, cheat, and gaslight a pregnant woman should earn Ashley and her family VIP seating at the devil’s table in Hell, where I imagine they’ll be forced to sit with each other for an eternity with no chance of parole.

My phone rang, it was Ashley. 

I had to play it cool for now. I needed time to sort her things and couldn’t risk arousing her suspicions and causing her to fly back early. I put the call on speaker so Kirsten could listen too.

“Hi baby, I miss you. Did you get my flowers?” she asked.

“Yeah, they’re nice. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know. I love you and want you to know that you are everything to me. I can’t wait to spend our lives together.”

Kirsten pointed her index finger at her mouth and mimicked throwing up.

“Let me call you back later. I was just about to jump on my Peloton.”

“Hurry up! I want to spend the night talking with you. I love you.”

“Okay! Bye.”

We hung up. I could barely stomach feigning interest in her.

I’d been messaging Michelle as I made my discoveries, she’d been acting as the middleman between me and Cecelia. She told Cecelia that I’d be breaking up with Ashley once she returned to LA.

“Did Ashley/Duncan ever get access to your bank account? Or take any money from you?” I asked.

“Duncan got my social security number, bank information, and passport details at different points of our relationship, but I think more so to drag things out and to make future vacation plans that never happened. Plus, I was young, and there wasn’t much for him to take.”

“Do you know anything about Ashley taking out loans under Cecelia’s name?” I asked.

“I know that when Ashley moved to LA to be with you, she took out a loan under Cecelia’s social security number, and I think she did it again in the fall.”

Jesus Christ, isn’t that illegal​​? 

“I hope you’re doing okay with all of this. I’m sorry that you’re in this situation.”

“Thanks. I’m okay. I just feel like I’m in shock. It's so much to process.”

“I know the feeling,” Michelle said. “The emotional toll and manipulation upended my life when I found out Duncan was Ashley. I really think you would benefit by talking to Cecelia. I know she has an e-mail she’s been writing all year that she wanted to get to you.”

“Can you give her my e-mail? I’ll read it tonight.”

“Yeah, right away,” she said.

Detective Reeves, reporting for duty.

It was getting late, and Kirsten went home. She said, “Fill me in as soon as anything happens.”

“Of course,” I told her.

I called Ashley back because I said I would, and I had to keep up the illusion that we were okay.

We didn’t talk long. And I’m sure she was already slipping into her edible-induced coma for the evening. I was emotionally, mentally, and physically drained. Finding out you’re dating a catfishing con-artist pathological liar takes a toll on you. 

When I got ready for bed, my phone lit up with a new e-mail. It was from Cecelia. The subject line was, “This is a lot, and I’m so sorry.” 

I was afraid to open it, fearful of what she would tell me about Ashley—and scared to learn what horrible things Ashley had done to her.

But I had to do it. So, as I got into bed, I opened my iPad, and dove in.

By the time I finished reading Cecelia’s e-mail, I was in tears and felt a heavy lump in my throat that I’d only experienced once before when my golden retriever, Madison, died in my arms. I couldn’t help but feel like I had caused all of this misery, or at least contributed to it significantly. Both Ashley and her family had taken what should have been a beautiful time in Cecelia’s life—her final pregnancy—and pissed all over it. 

There was so much I didn’t know. Cecelia had been gaslit, betrayed, lied to, and smeared by Ashley and her entire family. After reading her e-mail, I felt protective of Cecelia, like she was my own sister. I saw her, and I felt her pain deep in my bones. And I would do everything I could to help her navigate to the other side.

Over the course of our relationship, Ashley had love-bombed me with gifts, checks, jewelry, and expensive bottles of wine, but she treated Cecelia the opposite. She cut her off from all of their savings and changed the passwords to their banks. Ashley stopped paying the mortgage, which Cecelia didn’t learn until six months later. She abandoned Cecelia and the kids with only four thousand dollars to survive for the entire year that Ashley and I were dating. Ashley spent that much on Starbucks alone.

I felt dirty by association: Ashley had financially abused Cecelia and their children while treating me like money was endless and plentiful. Instead of buying her newborn diapers, she spent ten thousand dollars on a custom-made Zambian emerald ring for my birthday. Instead of buying groceries to feed her children, she spent six thousand dollars on camping gear at REI. Instead of paying the mortgage to keep a roof over her family's heads, she bought a Frame TV for my apartment.

Dis.gust.ing.

The email Cecelia sent provided many of the answers I sought. I finally learned what had happened last May when Ashley, her mom, and her sister went to Missouri to settle the fake dead grandparents' estate. They went to Minnesota under the guise of visiting Ashley’s daughter. While they were there, they cleaned out the family Subaru and drove off. I could picture Stacey cackling in the front seat as they sped away. Later, Cecelia found out they sold the car for fifteen grand.

It’s like Ashley told the Devil, “Hold my beer,” because the next thing she did was drain all of the money from her and Cecelia’s savings account: all twenty-thousand dollars, down to the last penny.

Ashley combined the money from the now-sold Subaru and savings account to put thirty-five thousand dollars down on a used Tesla, which she told me she had bought as a graduation gift for herself. 

Ashley had said, “My daughter loves the doors. When they open, she says, “So cool, mama!” 

But the thing is, her Tesla was never in Minnesota, and her daughter never saw it. And this explained why her car had paper plates when it arrived. Ashley told me the paper plates were because she had to register her car in California after shipping it from Colorado.

The lies were endless.

The day after Ashley put thirty-five grand down on the Tesla, she turned off all their cards. Cecelia was a grad student then, and she found this out when she couldn’t pay for her lunch that day. Jesus, I thought, and she was pregnant. When Cecelia didn’t eat, neither did the baby she had inside her.

Evil. Evil. Evil.

I thought back to around this same time. We went to Bakersfield after they returned from Minnesota. Ashley and her mom disappeared one morning, and when they came back, I asked Ashley where they had gone. She said, “My parents found out I paid for my sister’s college, so they gave me a check for fifteen thousand dollars to reimburse me.” 

How poetic, I thought, how selfless. 

The truth is, Ashley and Stacey did go to the bank, but the money they exchanged was from the shady theft of the Subaru. 

Pure. Evil.

Cecelia was very perceptive. I always wondered how she learned Ashley and I were dating, and I finally had an answer. Cecelia found out about me after Ashley’s mom followed me on Instagram—a sloppy move on their part—fucking slop-monsters. She discovered I lived in Silver Lake, which matched the Silver Lake Ramen charges on Ashley’s credit card statement, when she still had access to it. 

When I went through Ashley’s ho phone, I read a nasty text she sent Cecelia about this, saying she gave her credit card to her sisters and was never in LA, and to stand down.

When Cecelia told Ashley she found me, Ashley insisted I was just a friend of her mom's and was helping her mom with a podcast about the show Big Brother. Right, because a comedy writer in Los Angeles would be dying to have a friendship with a fifty-nine-year-old gaslighting thief who had stolen from her own grandchildren.

What Ashley and her family did to Cecelia and the children—one still an infant—was both heartbreaking and infuriating. And difficult to believe anyone could be so cruel. She’d proven herself an asshole with rage issues, but I always forgave her because the flip side could be so much fun. Now, I knew she was incredibly calculating and manipulative. She was also cold and abusive. Just horrible to Cecelia.

Cecelia closed the email by saying, “I want you to know the truth because if you’re anything like Michelle, Gina, Alice, Rebecca, myself, and the countless unknown women who came before, then you are a kind, empathic soul who sees the best in people.”

Ashley knew her demographic. 

She preyed on a specific type of woman: ones who wouldn’t question her, who only wanted the best for her, who wanted to help her, who made excuses for her behavior and put up with her abuse.

I still wanted to help Ashley. 

I wanted to help take her down.

I could hardly focus my thoughts because my head was filled with a year full of lies.

Cecelia had left her phone number at the bottom of her e-mail, so I texted her.

After a year of dancing around each other, it was time to connect.

Let’s dance.