It was 3 a.m. and I was alone in the back of a taxi. The driver kept glancing at me through the rearview mirror. Silent. Intent. The moment we stopped outside my building, I bolted—straight up the stairs to my 8th-floor flat.
Then I heard footsteps behind me.
Terrified, I sprinted up faster, heart pounding. When I finally turned, the driver was right behind me.
He grabbed my wrist.
“Wait!” he gasped, out of breath. “You dropped this.”
In his hand: my wallet.
I froze, clutching my pepper spray, every alarm in my body blaring. But all he did was hold the wallet out gently, like a peace offering.
“Sorry if I scared you,” he said, stepping back. His accent was heavy—Middle Eastern maybe—but his eyes were soft, tired. “I didn’t want someone else to take it.”
I mumbled a thank you, cheeks burning. He nodded and jogged back down the stairs. Gone.
But I barely slept that night.
It wasn’t just the fear. It was the look on his face when I relaxed—like he recognized it. Like he’d seen that fear before. And maybe lived with people seeing it in him.
The next morning, I opened my wallet. Everything was there. But tucked inside was a sticky note:
“Be safe. The world is full of both kinds.”
I read it over and over. What did he mean—both kinds?
That note opened something up in me.
I was new in London, teaching creative writing at a community center in Hackney. My circle was small—just a few coworkers and my night-shift housemate, Anouk.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about the driver. About how quick I’d been to assume the worst, and how he’d gone out of his way to do the right thing.
So I called the taxi company.
I explained everything. The woman on the phone was hesitant at first, but when I said I just wanted to thank him—maybe buy him coffee—she softened.
“I think you mean Idris,” she said. “He’s the only one on that shift and route.”
She gave me his number.
It took hours to text him. But I finally did:
“Hi, I’m the woman from the other night—the wallet. Would love to treat you to coffee if you’re ever free.”
He responded quickly:
“Just did what was right. But yes, I’d like that. Tomorrow?”
We met at a little Algerian café near Finsbury Park.
He was quiet but thoughtful. Measured. Idris had been a high school philosophy teacher in Algeria. He moved to the UK five years ago, working nights to support his younger sister—she wanted to be a doctor.
“Why not teach here?” I asked.
He gave a small, tired laugh. “No UK degree. No papers that count.”
I didn’t know why, but I wanted to help. Or at least not walk away.
We kept meeting—sometimes for tea, sometimes for long walks through Clissold Park.
Eventually, I asked him if he missed teaching. He said, “Every day.”
So I offered him a guest spot at our center’s worldview unit. Just one class.
He hesitated. “Who would want to hear from me?”
“I do.”
He agreed. Nervous, but curious.
The teens loved him.
He opened with a quote from Rumi and led them into a discussion about misjudgment and identity. He asked them to write about a time they were misunderstood—or misunderstood someone else.
They were hooked.
One tough student came up after class and said, “You talk like my uncle. He’s in prison now. But he was smart. Like you.”
Idris smiled and said simply, “Then he still is.”
That day changed everything.
He became part of our world. Sitting in on classes. Mentoring students. Becoming someone the kids looked up to.
And for me… it became something more than gratitude.
We dated quietly. No declarations. Just slow mornings and late-night walks. He listened better than anyone I’d ever met—not just to words, but to the silences in between.
Then my wallet was stolen again—this time on the Tube.
Gone. Emptied.
I came home angry, ranting.
And Idris said, “Some people take. Some people return. Your job isn’t to guess which—just be the kind that returns.”
It stopped me in my tracks. I cried.
Weeks passed. We kept getting closer.
Then, suddenly, he disappeared.
No call. No text. He missed our café meet-up. I called the taxi company. The dispatcher’s voice was cautious.
“He’s… dealing with something,” she said. “I shouldn’t say more.”
The next day, I got a message from an unknown number:
“This is Lamis, Idris’s sister. He’s okay, just… in a holding center. Immigration.”
His visa had quietly expired. He’d been trying to renew it but got stopped in a random check.
I panicked. Then I got to work.
I called legal aid. Told my boss. We collected letters from students, teachers, anyone who had worked with him.
Two weeks later, he was released. On probation. Not allowed to work.
I ran to see him.
He was thinner. Tired. But smiled when he saw me.
“I told them about the class. About you. That helped.”
It did. He began volunteering at our center. Not paid, but official. The kids were thrilled.
Eventually, Idris qualified for a new visa—an “educational contribution” category. And a few months later, he got offered a teaching assistant role at another center that had seen him in action.
He almost turned it down.
“I don’t want to leave what we’ve built here,” he said.
“You’re not,” I told him. “You’re building forward.”
We still see each other. Still walk. Still sit quietly, just being.
And sometimes I think back to that stairwell.
The moment I thought was the scariest? It wasn’t.
The scariest part was how close I came to missing out on knowing him at all.
If I hadn’t texted. If he hadn’t climbed those stairs. If fear had won.
People talk about fate like thunder. But sometimes it’s just a sticky note in your wallet.
“Be safe. The world is full of both kinds.”
He was right.
And you get to choose which kind you’ll be.
So now, every time I find something lost—a scarf, a phone, a note—I return it. Always.
Because you never know who you’re returning it to.
Or what they might return to you.