After delivering the last takeout order of the night, I slumped against a wall and scrolled through my phone. A trending thread caught my eye.
*"Confess a secret you'll take to the grave."*
The comment section was a cesspool of gossip—stories about playboys juggling multiple women or confessions of near-manslaughter. But then, a familiar profile picture stopped my thumb dead.
He wrote: *"I won a family, friendship, and love with a single, well-intentioned lie."*
*"He was the senior mentor who brought me into the field. During a polar expedition, we were trapped in a white hell. After sustaining serious injuries, he fell into an ice cave."*
*"I couldn't let him drag the rescue team down. So, I told the rescuers he had deserted us, taking the supplies with him."*
*"He went down in history as a sinner to the scientific community and was stripped of all honors."*
The comments below were vicious. Strangers cursed the "mentor," and some were clamoring to dox him.
*"If I had to choose again, I would do the exact same thing."*
A smiling emoji followed the sentence.
It felt like a needle stabbing straight into my pupil.
His reply blew up instantly.
——
Joseph Cobb defended himself, claiming he prioritized the greater good: *"You don't understand. Every extra minute the rescue team stayed on that ice was a gamble with their lives."*
*"Call me selfish, but it was a choice between survival and sentiment."*
He claimed that as long as those closest to him understood, he had no regrets.
*"His parents have accepted me as their godson. For years, they've confided in me, saying my senior dragged me down, claiming that expedition was supposed to be my breakthrough, not his."*
*"The professionals on the team are all on my side. I'm about to receive the Medal of Merit—why are you all so narrow-minded?"*
*"Yes, I married his wife. We truly love each other. He's dead—should Camila remain a widow for a ghost?"*
*"Besides, I raised his child as my own. What right do you have to judge me?"*
My chest seized. Each breath scraped like shards of glass. I traced the stump on my left hand where my finger used to be.
When Joseph Cobb kicked me into that ice cave, I had clung to the edge for dear life.
He used a knife to sever my finger.
I am that senior mentor. I am the one who brought him into the field.
I survived three days and three nights, frozen and starving, before a passing expedition team pulled me out. Then I fell into a coma, lingering in a vegetative state for years.
Sheer spite and the desperate need to see my family again dragged me back from the brink. But when I finally woke up three years later, the world had moved on without me.
I returned to my parents' home expecting tears of joy.
Instead, I was met with eyes as cold as the polar ice.
"Why did you come back?" my dad spat. "You should have died out there."
"I don't have a son like you. You're a disgrace to this family."
They called me selfish. They claimed they couldn't lift their heads in public because of my scandal. I tried to explain. I told them Joseph Cobb set me up, that he wanted to steal the resources and credit, that *he* was the one who pushed me into the pit.
But before I could finish, my wife stepped out of the house.
Camila Bradley. Her gaze was filled with nothing but disappointment.
"Do you know that for years, only Joseph kept looking for you? The unit gave up on you. Only he fought to keep your name on those merits."
Camila said my honors should have been stripped long ago. She claimed Joseph ran himself ragged for my sake, yet here I was—a parasite slandering his savior.
They drove me out. No matter how much I pleaded, my words hit a wall of disbelief.
For days, they treated me like I was invisible.
It wasn't until I missed my son so much that I secretly followed him to school that Camila finally exploded.
Her eyes were red with fury as she cornered me. "Do you have to let Joel's classmates know he has a father like you?"
She accused me of stealing Joseph's research, of using my seniority to oppress him, and of dealing him a ruthless blow when I allegedly ran off with the supplies.
"Joseph suffers from severe chronic hypothermia because of you," she hissed. "I'm begging you—leave us alone. He is Joel's father now."
