I was alone in a taxi at 3 a.m. The driver kept silently making eye contact. When I arrived, I rushed out and into my building, climbing to my 8th-floor flat.
Then, I heard footsteps behind me—it was the driver. Panicked, I started sprinting up the stairs, but he got closer. I turn, and to my horror, he grabs my wrist.
“Wait!” he gasps, panting. “You dropped this.”
In his hand: my wallet. I just stood there like a fool, my heart pounding in my ears.
I’d been clutching my pepper spray, thumb on the nozzle, ready to scream. But now I just felt… dumb. He held the wallet out like it was some peace offering.
“Sorry if I scared you,” he said, stepping back, giving me space. His accent was thick, something Middle Eastern, but his eyes were kind. Tired.
“You left it on the seat. I didn’t want someone else to take it.”
I muttered thanks, cheeks burning. He nodded and turned to head back down, taking the stairs two at a time.
I didn’t sleep much that night. Something about the whole thing stuck with me—not just the scare, but the look on his face when I finally relaxed. Like he’d seen that fear before.
Like he was used to being feared. The next morning, I opened the wallet. Nothing was missing.
In fact, there was a small sticky note tucked inside:
“Be safe. The world is full of both kinds.”
I stared at it, rereading it like ten times. What did he mean by both kinds?
That one sentence opened something up in me. I was living in London, relatively new in the city. Moved here for a job at a community art center in Hackney, teaching creative writing.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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