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Trashley: Thirty-Three
The Last Hurrah
We were a few days away from our big European adventure when Ashley told me it would be impossible to go due to heightened Covid restrictions, and I was surprised at how relieved I felt. I’d been looking forward to this trip for months, but the thought of Ashley having a meltdown in a foreign country scared the absolute fuck out of me. I took the canceled trip as a sign that it was time to untangle myself from her web of lies and move on with my life. There’s never a good time to break up, but I promised myself that once the holidays and her birthday were over, I was out.
Before heading to Bakersfield we celebrated our own mini-Christmas at my apartment. I had been collecting gifts throughout the year and I gave Ashley a two-person canoe, some camping supplies she miraculously didn’t already own, a solar charger, a weighted blanket, and a custom-made foam mattress that had been cut to perfectly fit her Tesla. I had purchased the mattress thinking we’d use it for car camping, but now the only way I pictured it being used was when I evicted her.
Ashley got me a quartz ring and an Australian Opal bracelet from Jaime Joseph, a new iPhone I didn’t need, and a Remarkable tablet, which I loved. Shiny expensive things weren’t holding me like they used to, and her love bombing had lost its allure. What once felt like generous gifts now…
