Chapter 4Ask Not the Wine of Lost Years

After leaving the Sanders' family home, I headed straight to my house. This time, I packed my luggage faster than I did last night and threw out anything I did not plan to take with me. I did not have many clothes. All I had were a few sets of working clothes.

I did not hesitate to get rid of the items on the table that were associated with Jake. I took down our picture from the wall and slammed it face down on the table. There were even trinkets in the drawer that he had brought home while on a business trip, and a few notes he had written.

My heart remained calm as I looked at everything. That was when I realized it was difficult to pull yourself out of a long-term relationship when both parties had gone through so much together. Even so, throwing materialistic objects away was an easy thing to do.

The sky slowly turned dark. I was halfway through my stuff when Nina texted me: [Have you gone home, Cassie? They're having another rowdy night on the mountains. I can't believe that Jake is actually going to spend the night with that woman.]

I read the text slowly.

According to old customs, after a man drank the marriage wine and prayed at the church, the relationship between him and the woman would be set in stone after sleeping with the woman on the same night. However, it was a custom that few would bring up nowadays.

Yet, Jake was being coerced by his group of friends to go ahead with it. They kept convincing him by saying that Jake had drunk the wine and prayed at the church. It would make sense if he completed the entire course.

Nina started cursing in her texts, and she asked if I wanted to head up the mountains to stop this from continuing. I stared at her text for a long time before replying: [Got it.]

I placed my phone by the side, surprised that I was not angered by what was about to happen. I suddenly felt lucky that I did not place all my hopes on Jake coming back to me.

Even as the night got longer, there was still no knock on the door. All I could hear outside the house was the wind and rain. I packed up the last of my things and zipped up my luggage. After that, I informed my family about where I was going.

While I was waiting for the taxi, I turned back to give the house a last glance. I was reminded of how Jake and I lived in a basement years ago, not long after we left town. The corner of the basement was damp, and in winter, I could not sleep because of the freezing weather.

Jake would hold me in his arms and tell me that there would come a day when he would bring me back to our hometown in glory. He wanted everyone to know that I was his pride and joy, and I believed him then.

Now that I thought about it, he might not have been lying back then. He had just changed along the way, and nothing was the same as it had been. As for me, I was too busy getting drunk in my own dreams of the future, and it took me a long time to finally sober up.

I took out the wine vat from my luggage.

It was drizzling outside the window. I opened up the vat slowly. The scent of the wine filled the air, mingling with the smell of rain and hitting me right in the face.

This was supposed to be the moment I had been waiting for all my life, but the scent of the wine only seemed to make my situation even more ironic. I did not hesitate as I turned the wine vat over and poured everything onto the ground.

That was when a strong pair of hands reached out to stop me.

…

Meanwhile, inside a private room, a group of people started coercing Jake by pushing Erica and him into the room, claiming that Jake should accept Erica for drinking her wine.

Jake berated them at the beginning for taking the joke too far, but Erica quickly used the excuse of being drunk and pretending to be scared to convince him to stay with her in the room for a while. They could hear laughter and teasing outside the room.

The lights were dim, and the scent of wine and a nice fragrance mingled in the air. The atmosphere started becoming steamy, and under such circumstances, the lines of morality started to blur.

Jake was supposed to keep his distance, but he did not push Erica away in the end. That was also how he missed the text from his friend, reading: [Hurry over, Jake! Someone is proposing to Cassie at her house!]