Trashley: Twenty-Eight
The Guardrail
My relationship with Ashley was nosediving. She existed on the couch as if she’d run out of steam, unable to sustain life as the person she claimed to be. She told me she burned through books, but I’d never seen it. She said she was a nature lover, but she refused to go on walks or hikes with me and Perci. She claimed she was always scribbling math equations on whiteboards, which would be true if you replaced “scribbling math equations on a whiteboard” with “getting high and playing her PlayStation.”
It sucked.
It felt like a bait-and-switch.
Ashley bought me a new laptop after turning her location off and disappearing for half the day. It was a pattern: whenever she took her location off, she’d always return with a gift. And not just a gay little gift like a box of chocolates and a teddy bear, but an expensive gift like an iPad or a laptop. She bought me things I didn’t need, but her love-bombs worked. It felt like that was her way of apologizing instead of saying sorry like a normal person.
But Ashley was anything but normal.
I set up the new MacBook Pro Ashley gave me, which she said was an early Christmas present. She held out a USB drive so I could transfer all of my files from my old computer before wiping it clean and sending it to my nephew. This is not my realm of expertise, but Ashley was a computer whiz who also acted like she didn’t know how social media worked.
“Here, let me help you transfer your files,” Ashley said while walking towards my computer with a USB drive in her hands.
“No, not yet,” I told her. “I don’t want to back everything up right now. It’s too overwhelming. I have to go through my computer and make sure I know what’s on there before you stick that drive in it without consent.”
I don’t know why I told her I wasn’t ready to back up my computer, but something felt off about it, and I sensed danger.
“Okay, well, let me know when you’re serious about backing everything up. It’s not a big deal, and I know how to do it, so you won’t have to worry about losing anything.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know.” I closed my old laptop and put it in the new laptop’s box.
“I was thinking about Thanksgiving,” Ashley said. “I think it’s time you meet my daughter. After you Facetimed with her, she kept saying I wuv wowwen.”
This sounded like a lie.
She said, “And I was thinking about renting a cabin in the woods that week in Minnesota. Would you want to come meet her and spend the week there with us?”
“Oh, and that would be okay with Cecelia?” I asked, not wanting to cause any drama.
“Who cares about Cecelia? That’s my daughter, too,” Ashley shot back.
“Well, I’m happy to go, but I feel like Cecelia should meet me in person so she knows she’s not handing her daughter off to a psychopath for a week.”
“Let me get one thing straight with you: you can never meet Cecelia. Ever. She would make my life a living hell if she knew you met the kids, and she would use it against me when I fight for full custody.”
“Don’t you think we can all handle this like adults? She already knows we’re dating, so I’m sure she knows I’ll meet the kids eventually.”
Ashley shook her head like I was talking nonsense, but I thought I sounded *Larry David voice* pretty, pretty, pretty reasonable.
“Do you just not want to meet my daughter? Is that what this is?”
“What? No, of course I want to meet her. I just feel like it’s shady to pretend like I’m not there. And I don’t want to be implicated in some elaborate lie.”
“It’s not elaborate. It’s simple. There’s a Starbucks thirty minutes from the house. I’ll drop you off there, and then I’ll pick up my daughter. I’m sure Cecelia will try to follow me, so if that happens, I’ll have to lose her on the interstate. I’ll rent an SUV with snow tires so she can’t keep up. And we’ll get you on the way back to the cabin. But you can’t post photos of the cabin or share anything about where you are. She will lose it.”
“Okay, so you’re proposing a high-speed chase with a two-year-old in the car? This isn’t simple, it’s insane.”
“Trust me, it’s for the best. The last time I tried to leave, Cecelia stood behind the Uber and blocked the driveway even though she had just given birth two days before.”
Jesus. I didn’t want to be kept a secret—that’s not me—I’m both loud and proud and here and queer.
But I also didn’t want to get involved in their custody battle, and I didn’t think Ashley would drive that way with her daughter in the car.
“Fine,” I said, “I’ll go.”
Ashley booked a six-bedroom log cabin on Airbnb. It had seven bathrooms, elk and black bear heads mounted on every wall, and I counted at least four fireplaces, including one in the bathroom next to a black bathtub. When she brought up renting a cabin, I pictured a two-bedroom A-Frame, like the ones I salivated over in Sunset Magazine. I asked Ashley why she got such a massive place, and she said it was because she was flying her entire family out from Bakersfield. Not just her parents and her two younger sisters but also her sisters’ boyfriends. Until then, I thought we were doing a small and cozy Thanksgiving with her daughter. Now, it was turning into the Minnesota Met Gala.
I was excited to travel more with the Pandemic dying down, even if it was just to Minnesota. And I was equally excited to meet Ashley’s daughter, although I hated that we had to be sneaky about it. Her daughter was incredibly cute, which isn’t something I think of most children. I started buying cute winter clothes leading up to our trip since I got rid of mine when I moved to Los Angeles. I scoured the Beverly Center for a winter jacket that was both chic and impractical for cold temperatures, in case I did a photoshoot holding an Axe in front of the cabin, like a real lesbian.
I didn’t find any good jackets at the mall, so I walked back to the car. Right before I turned the corner to the parking garage, I caught a light shining down from the glass ceiling above in my peripheral vision. I turned to see what was calling me from on high to find a children’s clothing store named Bunny Hills. A supernatural entity took over my body and I floated into the store. I had an out-of-body experience as I hovered from above and watched myself as the store clerk helped pull together outfits for a two-year-old girl. I watched myself pick out several sweaters and a pink tutu. Then I handed the woman my credit card and left the store smiling and telling the sales lady I’d be back soon, and not because I was going to be returning anything, but because I would be buying more. When I returned to the car, I shook my head and fell out of my trance.
I had purchased Ashley’s daughter an entire wardrobe.
When I got home, the entity must have still been inside me because I found myself looking at wallpaper for Ashley’s daughter’s bedroom. I needed professional help, like an exorcism. Who was this person? I don’t know her.
The next day, I drove to Venice because I had been aggressively targeted on Instagram by the AYR store, and I knew that’s where I’d find my light jackets. Ashley joined me. I tried on two coats named “The Robe,” one in camel and one in oatmeal, and bought both of them cause I think it’s important to treat yo’self.
“Those jackets aren’t gonna be warm enough for the cabin, just FYI,” Ashley said on the drive home.
“Oh, I know. But they’re stylish, and that’s all I care about in a jacket.”
“You should get something from Cotopaxi. My friend founded the company, so pick a coat from their website, and I’ll give her the shipping information.”
“Really?” I asked, “Who’s this friend?”
“It’s a girl I worked with on my robotics team at Denver University.”
“Sweet! And it’s free?”
“Yep.”
Ashley had never mentioned this friend before, and I thought it was weird that she knew the founder of Cotopaxi and had never mentioned it until now. Out of curiosity, I Googled the founder. Her robotics teammate was a man named David Smith, who grew up in Latin America. Also, he never went to DU. It was easier to keep these inconsistencies to myself than to call her out on them. Plus, free practical jacket.
It was the beginning of November, and Ashley had a lot of travel that month. She was going to Minnesota again to see her kids for a few days before flying to Chicago for a work conference and then returning to LA. Then, we had an unfortunate trip to Bakersfield lined up for her stepdad’s birthday before Thanksgiving.
Ashley’s flight to Minnesota left at six a.m. I was still in bed when she got ready to leave. She woke me up and said, “Don’t miss me too much. I’m gonna see my other girlfriend. It’s not cheating if she’s in another state.”
I’m sorry, the fuck? I sat up in bed. “Did you really just say that?”
“Yeah, I did. Jesus, it was a joke, calm down.”
“Don’t you think you should be establishing trust? I already think you’re lying about so many things.”
“Oh yeah? When have I ever lied to you?”
I bit my tongue. I looked at the clock; it was four in the morning, and it wasn’t the right time to mention the laundry list of things I suspected she was lying about. Plus, my head hurt just imagining her slamming my door. “I’m not doing this right now. It’s too early. Go, be with your imaginary girlfriends, Ashley. I’m going back to sleep.”
Ashley kept calling me from her Uber on the way to LAX. On the tenth call, I finally picked up.
“You need to learn how to take a joke,” she said. “I can’t say anything funny to you, or you’ll take it seriously.”
“Ashley, what if I had said that to you right before I went to Spain? I can’t imagine you’d think that was funny, especially with how easily you get jealous.”
“I do not get jealous, ever.”
“Whatever, I’m going back to sleep. Sorry, you feel so insecure about yourself.”
I hung up and turned off my phone. When I turned it on a few hours later, Ashley was mid-spiral. “I can’t believe I had to get on a plane, not knowing where we stand. It was just a joke. I would never cheat on you. Promise me you won’t cheat on me, either. I need to feel secure about this. Right now, you feel hot and cold. It’s making me feel depressed.”
I didn’t return her calls or texts for the rest of the day. She was such an energy and time suck. She kept calling, and I kept ignoring her. I went to bed that night with my phone silenced.
The next morning, I was finally ready to talk to her, so I called her back as she was driving her daughter to get ice cream.
“We need to talk when you get back because I think you’re lying to me,” I said.
“I’m not lying about anything. I have never lied to you. I can prove it. Let me prove how much I love you. I would never do anything to break your trust.” Her voice quivered. At least she wasn’t acting cocky. Just pathetic.
“Great, we can have a conversation when you’re back. I don’t want to take away any more time you have with your kids.”
When we got off the phone, I started writing down everything I thought she was lying about so I wouldn’t forget anything. Then my phone buzzed. She was still spiraling.
And she had her daughter in the car.
Fuck.
She texted that maybe she should just drive the car into a guardrail. My Spidey Senses were suddenly awakened.
She would never do something dangerous with her child in the car, right?
I thought about her high-speed chase comment about Thanksgiving. I tried to press for more information to see if she was having a real crisis or a fake one.
Fuck fuck.
Was I going to have to contact Cecelia and let her know what Ashley had said? Or her Mom? Or the cops? I was starting to panic. I couldn’t picture her driving her car into something, and I didn’t want to scare Cecelia.
My finger hovered over the message button on Cecelia’s Twitter, what would I even send her– Hi, it’s your ex-wife’s girlfriend, Ashley made a disturbing comment- here’s a screenshot, sorry about everything you seem cool bye. No, that would just cause more drama. Instead, I tried to de-escalate things by speaking to her as if I was a negotiator talking a woman off the ledge. I waited to see how Ashley followed up with her texts.
“Forget I said anything,” Ashley said, “This entire exchange has been very upsetting for me and I think I just need to reset.”
“Okay,” I said.
I paced my apartment, wondering if I did the right thing by letting Ashley’s guardrail comment go or if I should have told Cecelia. Ashley said outrageous things in the past but never acted on them. I picked up my phone and thought about calling Ashley’s Mom, but I put it back down. That wasn’t it.
I looked at Perci, who was sleeping on the kitchen floor. What if Ashley had Perci in the car and said this to me? I would never allow her to drive with him again. He is my son.
I was torn and felt a lot of anxiety. What was my duty here? I thought about what my therapist said in our last session— if Ashley were a man what would I do? I would reach out to his ex-wife and call the cops. But for some reason, I gave Ashley a pass, over and over and over again. I realized I was empathetic towards her because I saw her as the victim of abuse. I suspected she had trauma from her past she never dealt with. And I always hoped she would address it, or at least go to therapy. Before she moved in, she told me she did therapy every week, but that was a lie. I saw how she spent her time with my own eyes.
Later that night, when Ashley called, she seemed back to normal.
Meanwhile, I was a nervous wreck all day. I told her that her comment scared me, and she promised she would never do anything to harm her children.
The next morning, Ashley flew to Chicago for work. She sent a photo with one of her coworkers in Nordstrom, where she was buying a winter jacket because hers wasn’t warm enough. Ten minutes later, a receipt from Norstrom landed in my inbox: Ashley had purchased a fourteen-hundred-dollar pea coat and used my phone number to rack up points. It was a weird move, considering Ashley didn’t care about clothes or appearances and wore MIT shirts ninety percent of the time.
It was like she was copying me. After all, I had just spent that much money on my jackets. Interesting. I remembered what my co-worker and reality TV producing god LM said when we were flying to Spain: that Ashley would Single White Female me.
I thought about the USB drive. I got a weird feeling about letting Ashley transfer all of my photos and videos onto it. Some might call this feeling an instinct.
There was no fucking way she would pretend to be me.
Right?
i went to Google what happens next. please just let me fast forward I don't have patience
These cliffhangers!!!