It Wasn't That Way

Chapter 17

Cake's Country Drinking Depression Playlist - Companion Playlist for Chapter 17 (In comment)

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They say that alcohol is supposed to numb the pain, but the more that Cake drank, the worse he felt.

After his fight with Eiw, he called Aut. He hoped that Aut and his friends were still going out that night because he really needed a distraction.

Aut raucously confirmed that he was at a popular bar close to campus, and urged Cake to hurry and join him.

The party had already started by the time Cake made it over to the bar. It was a small little place that was a favorite amongst students for the proximity and the cheap drinks.

Almost the entire semester had gone by, and despite being invited out more times than he could count, Cake had never been. Eiw didn't like this kind of scene, so Cake made it a point to avoid it.

He broke that self-set taboo today.

The table that Aut and his friends had commandeered was entirely covered in food and drinks. The table was picnic style, long and wide with benches on either side. There was only one open spot at the very end of one of them, Cake made everyone scoot over so he could squeeze in. 

He flagged a waiter over and ordered whiskey for the very first time.

This was what people did when they got upset, right?

Drink the pain away?

Cake wasn't sure.

He'd only drank a couple of times in his life.

His first encounter with alcohol was when Ella stole a couple of wine coolers from her parents' fridge.

Sarah had silently disapproved the entire time of course, but Cake and Ella had sipped them together, half hoping half scared that they would get drunk. He could've gone and actually gotten wasted with the guys from the football team, but those parties always made Cake feel so lonely. Everyone was always paired up at those things, and he would be the only one without a person.

Of course it was the same with Ella and Sarah, but watching them find that connection in their best friend was oddly comforting to him back in those days.

The other time he drank, he'd half-heartedly sipped a beer with his gang from middle school while Eiw hung out with his friends from his club.

He hadn't really gotten drunk either time, but tonight, he was planning on rectifying that.

Cake copied the way his friends mixed their drinks until he got a palatable concoction of whiskey and water. With the first sip, he pulled a face, but with the second sip, his bouncing leg quieted; with his third sip, he drained the glass.

Anxiety inducing electronica pulsed through the speakers, heavy with the influence of house, but as the alcohol took a hold of him, Cake heard a different kind of music.

If he strained just hard enough, he could hear the familiar melodies of the playlist his coach used to play after grueling football practices in the increasingly freezing fall air.

The songs were slow and depressing with the melodious sounds of mandolins, fiddles, banjos, and deep southern twangs.

In hushed confidence, his teammates told him that their coach had been married to a woman who had gotten away. They'd been together for a long time, but one day, it just stopped working out. She'd left in the dead of the night without even a note. He was notorious for listening to heartbreak country ever since.