Lahat ng Kabanata ng Five Men, One Tent, Her Parents: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

Alyssa went white. She nearly lost her footing.She couldn't believe I'd raised my voice, let alone ended it.But at the word lawyers, her eyes cleared right up.“Jason. You — you're saying you want to break up?“You're angry. It doesn't count.”I didn't give her room to talk her way back in.“I canceled the wedding photos. The card on my account gets reported lost within the hour.“If the money isn't back in a week, the collection letters go to your parents' address. Don't put them through that.”Alyssa started to panic.Then her phone lit up with a number she hadn't saved, and I watched her decide she wasn't giving up the camping trip either.She wrapped both hands around my arm and let her voice go sweet.“Jason, let's both calm down. Fine, I lied. I'm meeting friends.“Girls. My girlfriends. I didn't bring you because it would've been awkward for them.“They're all single. What am I supposed to do, walk in with my fiancé?“Three days! Just give me three days, and I pr

“Jason, tell me what's happened. Quickly!”“Diane, I think Alyssa's run into the wrong people. A man with bleached hair picked her up, and since then I can't get through to her.”Diane Bell's voice shook.“Then we call the police.”“We can't. It's only been a few hours. They'll tell us to keep trying her number.“But I think I know roughly where they are. I'll drive over and get you.”On the way to the Bells' house, Tyler put two more videos in the group.The first was a celebration. The drone had gone up far enough to bring back a wide, cold, beautiful view — and a commercial airliner passing not far off.That was flatly illegal, and yet in writing he played it down.“Twenty-six hundred feet, challenge complete. Those who know, know.”Twenty-six hundred feet does not put you level with an airliner. He'd gone five times that and he knew it.The second video was a different kind of problem.“Here! Right here! You nearly had it!”“Blind man's bluff. Whoever gets caught takes

I let the smile sit on my face.One word about police and they turned on each other.The important part was that Diane thought calling them was right. One woman, five men, and a yard full of relatives who weren't blind — you can't talk your way out of that.The gossip was coming either way. Better to get paid.Her face set hard, and she waved the relatives in around the tent.“That's right! You've broken the law, all of you. Nobody leaves until the police get here.”Alyssa was caught between them and tried one more time.“Jason, this is too much. I wronged you, I know that, but a marriage is decades long. Isn't a person allowed to make a mistake and fix it? I promise you, there won't be another time.”I couldn't be bothered answering her. Arguing any further would only have made me look slower than I am.“There's no room left to fix anything.“Your parents bought their new place with the seventy-five thousand I lent them. If you don't get compensation out of these men, what e

I hadn't been idle either. I spent those days finding out how Alyssa had settled with the men from the campsite.A friend brought me the answer.Roy Kessler, the one in his forties, sold his car to buy forgiveness.Once one man moved, the rest dug into their own pockets for a signed statement. Between them it came to a little over eighty thousand, and that's what paid me back.Her parents kept the house.But the house was near their hometown, and Alyssa's name had traveled ahead of it.The Bells couldn't buy groceries without hearing it in the aisles.“That's them. That's the daughter. Quite the girl, apparently. Five men.”“And they just bought a new place. Wonder what paid for it.”“Keep your voice down.”“What for? If she can do it, she can stand hearing about it.”Alyssa and I had swapped positions exactly.I didn't have a care in the world. Her family was frightened of the shops.She was fired, which surprised no one. After years of getting by on the least she could d

Everyone who'd been at the campsite that day was taken in.The manufacturer filed formally against the whole group.They had endangered public safety, and the case went forward as a criminal matter.Alyssa's parents came to my parents' house, and my parents saw them off the property.What I'd said came true to the word: the story went everywhere.Alyssa's name became something people passed around over dinner.Someone posted proof of how little she'd done at work.Someone else posted messages where she'd run down her colleagues.A relative back home told the camping story with just enough left out to be repeatable.Once she was down, everybody wanted a turn.Everything Alyssa had wanted to put me through, she got, in full.All that effort between the five of them, and every one of them was sentenced.Tyler took the worst of it: three years.The others came in somewhere around one.I was in the room on sentencing day, as the man who first reported it.Alyssa's eyes had su