Member-only story
Trashley: Twenty-Nine
Hanks-giving
In the short time Ashley spent in Minnesota and Chicago, she told me had visited her other girlfriend, but it wasn’t cheating because it was across state lines. A bad joke? Most definitely. She went on a spending spree and bought a fourteen-hundred-dollar peacoat from Nordstrom, mirroring my jacket purchase a few days earlier. Imitation? Possibly. She also texted that she wanted to drive into a guardrail while her daughter was in the back seat. A horrific violation that had left me reeling and made me realize she had no business being around children.
Wherever Ashley went, chaos followed, as if it were a parasitic twin she had absorbed in utero.
For weeks, I was convinced Ashley was lying to me about a plethora of things from her upbringing, to schooling, her career, her grandparents death, her dog, and a nut allergy.
I kept a list of possible lies that was now three pages long, which I hid in a secret notebook in an unmarked box in my neighbor Kirsten’s garage, where I hid all of my journals. I was determined to confront her when she returned. I needed her to come clean about everything, and I hoped for my sanity, she would, even though I knew asking Ashley to be honest was like asking an earthworm to run a marathon.
