The Game They Played, The Life I Lost Chapter 01

The Game They Played, The Life I Lost Chapter 01

During a camping trip, my older sister supposedly lost her prized necklace. She cried and begged me to go find it.

I turned back into the deep woods to search. That’s when I stepped in a bear trap.

As it turned out, she was laughing so hard she doubled over in the video, showing off the necklace she’d supposedly lost.

“I was just messing with you, you idiot. I was bored.”

“The Invisible Game starts now. None of us are allowed to save you.”

My parents’ disgusted faces flashed across the screen, followed by laughter.

“You’re a grown woman and you still haven’t learned. You deserve to be played.”

“Don’t bother calling us. We can’t hear invisible people.”

They stopped paying attention to me after that. They were too busy grilling fish for my sister.

Blood soaked through my jeans, inch by inch.

Heartbroken, I called my boyfriend, Ethan Cooper, the boy I’d grown up with.

The phone rang sixty-six times before he picked up. He sounded unhurried.

“Serena already said the game started. Don’t break the rules.”

“Be my sweet girl and wait there. I’m going to watch fireflies with her first. I’ll come get you when the game’s over.”

The cold dial tone echoed in my ear.

I knew then I’d been completely abandoned.

Ever since I was little, my sister worried that a second child would steal our parents’ attention.

So she invented the Invisible Game.

When I was eight, she said “game on,” and our parents ignored me while my fever hit 104.

When I was eighteen, she said “game on,” and Ethan left me stranded on the side of the road the morning of my SATs.

But now, I didn’t want to play anymore.

I stopped struggling and called the local rescue team.

If they chose not to see me, then they’d never see me again.

***

By the time the rescue team arrived, I was already hypothermic.

My limbs were so stiff I couldn’t move.

In the dark, I stared at the family photo on my phone’s lock screen. My sister sat right in the middle, surrounded by everyone.

I stood in the far-left corner, looking scared.

Because even during the photo, she was playing her little game. And Mom and Dad were happy to play along.

It took me three seconds to change that lock screen.

“Over here! Bring the stretcher!”

“Don’t wander into the woods alone at night. You could’ve died. Where’s your family?”

The pain from the wound made my scalp prickle.

I stayed silent.

How could I explain that my own family stood by and watched me nearly die over a childish game?

It was too ridiculous.

The stretcher retraced the path back through the woods.

Fifteen minutes later, we passed our campsite.

Not far away, Mom and Dad were fully absorbed in prepping food around the fire.

The smell drifted over. Fish. My sister’s favorite.

I’m allergic to seafood.

“Go easy on the salt. Serena doesn’t like it too heavy.”

Ethan was crouched on the ground, finding the perfect angle to photograph her.

No trace of impatience.

“You look beautiful, Serena. Try another pose. I’ll get the shot.”

On the ring finger of his right hand—the one pressing the shutter—was the couple’s ring I’d made for him last year.

I instinctively wanted to call out. “Mom, Dad, Ethan—”

But the words died in my throat.

Because my sister spoke first.

“The Invisible Game continues until tomorrow morning. No one is allowed to talk to Tara.”

“Otherwise, it means you’re picking favorites and don’t love me.”

Mom and Dad immediately put down their things to comfort her.

“How could we ever be biased? We’ll do exactly as Serena says. No one goes near that girl.”

“She owes you anyway, sweetheart. We know that.”

Owes.

They’d held that word over my head my entire life.

That’s why I deserved to nearly fry my brain with fever and end up in a coma for two weeks with moderate pneumonia.

They never visited. They left me with a nurse.

While they took my sister to an amusement park.

If I owed them that much, I’d already paid in full.