They Pretended I Didn’t Exist for Twenty Years… So I Disappeared Chapter 08

They Pretended I Didn’t Exist for Twenty Years… So I Disappeared Chapter 08

They didn’t actually leave.

The next morning, Daniel went out to get breakfast and came back looking irritated.

“They’re downstairs. Looks like they’ve been out there freezing all night.”

I went to the window and looked down.

Four heads were crowded beside the flower bed outside the apartment building entrance,

shoulders hunched as they stamped their feet for warmth.

Ethan looked up and met my eyes.

He immediately stood and waved.

I closed the curtains.

“Let them stay there,” I said.

After that, Mason started sending things.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner–something different every time.

He left it all with building security.

I never let Daniel pick any of it up.

Then Ryan appeared downstairs holding a piece of cardboard with a crooked message written

across it.

“Claire, I’m sorry. Come home. You can hit me, scream at me, whatever you want.”

Neighbors passing by slowed down to stare.

Ryan had always been proud.

He led a team at a research institute and had always cared deeply about appearances.

Now he stood outside holding a cardboard sign while strangers gawked at him.

His eyes were dark, his lips cracked, and he barely looked like himself.

Then Lity started posting long emotional messages online.

She created a burner account and wrote a tearful post titled, “Twenty Years of Misunderstandings Between Me and My Best Friend.”

She didn’t mention the Invisible Game.

She didn’t mention the assault or the miscarriage.

She only wrote about how she’d been misunderstood and abandoned, while vaguely

suggesting that I was too sensitive and had blown everything out of proportion.

When Daniel tossed screenshots onto the table in front of me, I glanced at them and laughed.

“This is what she always does. Every time something happens, she gets ahead of it and plays

the victim. Ethan and the others always fell for it.”

Daniel frowned.

“Do you want me to—”

“No. Just wait.”

Sure enough, that evening Ethan and Mason both posted publicly on social media.

Ethan wrote only one sentence.

“Lily Foster, enough. Save the tears. Exploit Claire for sympathy one more time, and I’ll make sure no one in our circle wants anything to do with you.”

Mason was even more direct.

He posted an old childhood photo of Lily and me with the caption, “You know exactly who

owes whom.”

Lily deleted her post almost immediately.

Later, Ryan and Mason showed up at the apartment at the same time and nearly started

fighting outside the door.

Ryan forced his way inside and moved toward me, but Daniel caught him by the shoulder.

“Don’t touch her,” Daniel said coldly.

“I’m her brother! Who the hell are you?”

“You call yourself her brother?”

Daniel’s grip was strong.

Ryan struggled several times but couldn’t break free, his eyes horribly bloodshot.

Mason used the distraction to slip around them.

Then he dropped to his knees in front of me.

“Claire… I was wrong about everything when we were kids. I was jealous because you were better than me at everything, so I fought with you over anything I could. Then Lily came along, and she kept crying to me about how you bullied her. I… I believed her.”

“For twenty years?”

Mason’s mouth opened.

Tears poured down his face.

“I’ve regretted it every single day. I swear. These past few days, I’ve gone back over everything you endured for twenty years. I’m a fucking monster.”

Ryan finally tore himself free from Daniel and dropped to his knees beside Mason.

He reached for the hem of my pants.

I stepped back.

His hand froze in midair, fingers curling before he pulled it away.

“Claire, I’ve always been stubborn and lousy at saying anything decent. After Mom died, you were the only family I had left. The more afraid I was of losing you, the worse I got at showing it. Whenever things got tense, I ended up taking Lily’s side.”

“I kept thinking if I just kept her happy, you wouldn’t make a scene. And if you didn’t make a

scene, maybe all of us could stay together.”

I looked down at him and altnost laughed.

“What did you think I was? Just another problem you had to manage?”

“I was begging for help while you were making Lily laugh. I was on an operating table having a D&C after my miscarriage while you were taking pictures of her. And now you’re telling me you just wanted us all to stay together?”

Ryan’s sob caught in his throat.

His shoulders shook violently.

Then Lily suddenly rushed in.

Her hair was wild, her makeup streaked across her face.

For once, none of her usual carefully cultivated helplessness remained.

“Claire Bennett! What do you want? Do you know you’ve driven all of them crazy? Ethan hasn’t

eaten in three days. Ryan took so much time off because of you that it’s already hurt him at work. Mason won’t even go to work. Are you trying to destroy everyone?”

I looked at her and almost laughed.

“Lily Foster, you were the one who came up with the Invisible Game. You made the rules. You

played referee.”

I walked toward her one slow step at a time.

“You spent twenty years toying with me. And now you’re standing here asking what I want? What gives you the right?”

Lily’s lips trembled.

She couldn’t answer.

Daniel shoved Ryan and Mason back out into the hallway, then returned.

He stood behind Lily.

She glanced back at him and immediately edged away.

“I have a gift for you,” I said..

Lily’s face went pale.

“I recorded what Ryan and Mason just said. I saved screenshots of that post where you played

the victim. And there’s more.”

I opened the drawer, took out my old phone, and turned it on.

Then I found a saved voice note and played it.

Lily’s voice filled the room.

“Ethan, Claire has been giving me such a hard time lately. Maybe we should go harder with the Invisible Game this time and teach her a lesson. She always gives in eventually and gives me a gift anyway.”

The recording was from six months earlier.

Ethan had forwarded the voice note to me at the time.

He had told me Lily was only joking and that I shouldn’t take it seriously.

I had saved it without thinking and never deleted it.

Lily screamed and lunged for the phone.

Daniel knocked her to the floor before she could reach the phone.

“That’s defamation! You’re violating my privacy!”

“Then sue me.”

I put the phone away.

“I’m taking legal action too–for the harassment, the defamation, all of it. Lily, let’s see what a judge thinks when the whole twenty–year history comes out.”

She collapsed onto the floor, shaking.

Her makeup had smeared into a mess.

Daniel called building security.

Lily was still screaming when they escorted her away.

The elevator doors closed, cutting off her voice.

I leaned against the wall and slowly slid down to the floor.

Daniel crouched beside me and gently wiped a tear from the corner of my eye.

“Is it over?”

I looked at him, shook my head, then nodded.

“My part is over. Time can take care of the rest.