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. I didn’t know many people yet, just a few colleagues and my housemate, Anouk, who worked night shifts at the hospital.

I started thinking about him a lot, that driver. I’d been so ready to assume the worst. He had no idea who I was, but he still came all the way up eight flights to return something I didn’t even know I’d lost.

So a few days later, I did something that surprised even me.

I called the taxi company and asked if there was any way to identify the driver from that night. At first, the dispatcher hesitated—privacy rules, they said. But when I explained I just wanted to thank him, and maybe buy him a coffee, she warmed up.

“I think you mean Idris,” she said. “He’s the only one on the 2 a.m.–4 a.m. shift who drives that route.”

She gave me a number.

I stared at it for hours before texting:

“Hi, this is the woman from the other night—the wallet. Would love to treat you to coffee if you’re ever free.”

He replied within minutes.

“Was just doing the right thing. But yes, I’d like that. Tomorrow?”

We met at a tiny Algerian café near Finsbury Park. I expected it to be awkward. It wasn’t.

Idris was… quiet, but not cold. He spoke slowly, carefully, like every word had weight. He’d come to the UK five years ago. Used to be a teacher back in Algeria. Taught high school philosophy, if you can believe that.

“Why not teach here?” I asked, sipping my mint tea.

He laughed, a little bitter. “You think they’ll let me? No UK degree. No paperwork that counts.”

He told me he worked nights to send money home to his younger sister, who wanted to study biology. “She wants to be a doctor. I believe she can.”

Something cracked open in me again. I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted to help. Or at least… not walk away.

Over the next few weeks, we kept meeting up. Sometimes at that same café. Other times just walking through Clissold Park, watching the foxes dart across empty paths.

One night I asked if he ever missed teaching.

“Every day,” he said.

Then, half-joking, I asked if he wanted to teach a guest session at the center—just to the older teens. We ran a “worldview” unit, exploring different philosophies through storytelling.

He blinked. “Me? No one would want that.”

“I do,” I said.

He eventually agreed, nervous but curious. I pulled some strings with my supervisor, who was surprisingly on board.

The kids loved him.

He opened with a quote from Rumi and ended with a discussion on identity, asking every student to write a story about a moment they were misjudged—or misjudged someone else.

They were glued to every word.

Afterward, one of our most difficult students—Tariq—came up and shook his hand. “You talk like my uncle. He’s in prison now. But he was smart. Like you.”

Idris just nodded and said, “Then he still is.”

That day changed something for both of us.

We started seeing each other outside the context of gratitude or favors. There were still complications—he worked nights, I worked days. He didn’t drink, I did (occasionally). He carried a quiet sadness, like he’d aged faster than the years on his face.

But he also had this gentleness that I didn’t realize I’d been craving. He listened like nobody else. Not just to words, but to pauses, sighs, looks.

And then—because life is funny like this—my wallet got stolen again.

On the Tube this time. I was careless.

Except this time, it was emptied.

I came home angry, pacing. I couldn’t stop thinking of the irony. The man I feared brought it back. And now some stranger took it for real.

Idris listened quietly while I ranted, then said something that stuck:

“Some people take. Some people return. Your job isn’t to guess which—just be the kind that returns.”

It made me cry. I didn’t know why exactly, but it cracked something else open. Again.

We kept getting closer. He started sitting in on some of the writing classes when he had time. Students started asking for him. He even got a small gig mentoring one of our scholarship kids.

Then came the twist.

One night, Idris didn’t show up to our café meeting. I waited over an hour. No call. No text. Nothing.

I worried. I called the taxi company. The dispatcher sounded hesitant.

“Idris isn’t on tonight. He might be… dealing with something. I don’t think it’s my place to say.”

I didn’t sleep.

The next morning, I got a text—from a number I didn’t recognize.

“This is Lamis, Idris’s sister. He asked me to message you. He’s okay, just… in a holding center. Immigration.”

My heart dropped.

Turns out, Idris’s work visa had expired a month ago. He’d been trying to renew it quietly. Avoiding stress. He didn’t want me involved.

He got stopped during a random check while dropping off a fare near Paddington. Taken in.

I went into action mode.

I called every legal aid number I could find. I told my boss. I gathered letters from students, colleagues, anyone who had met him through the center.

We compiled a package. Stories. Testimonials. Evidence of his contributions.

Two weeks passed. Nothing.

Then one morning, I got another text from Lamis:

“They released him. On probation. But he’s not allowed to work for now.”

I ran to his place.

He looked thinner. Tired. But when he saw me, he smiled—just barely.

“I told them about you,” he said. “About the class. The kids. Everything. I think that helped.”

It did. In fact, it helped so much that someone from our center suggested we bring him on as a volunteer until things cleared legally. Not paid. But official.

We did.

The kids were over the moon.

Eventually, Idris got a new visa. A special one tied to “educational contribution.” Not permanent, but renewable.

And the biggest twist?

Six months later, he was offered a full teaching assistant position. Not from us—but from another center that had seen him in action during a student workshop we co-hosted.

He almost didn’t take it.

“You helped me build all this here,” he said. “I don’t want to leave it behind.”

“You’re not,” I told him. “You’re building forward.”

We still saw each other, of course. Dated quietly. Not flashy. No Instagram posts. Just slow coffee mornings, park walks, late-night talks.

We didn’t need to define it for the world. We just knew.

And here’s the thing I keep coming back to:

I thought that night in the stairwell was the scariest part of the story.

It wasn’t.

The scariest part was how close I came to not knowing him at all.

If I hadn’t texted. If he hadn’t returned the wallet. If either of us had leaned into the fear instead of the reach.

People talk about fate like it’s some dramatic thunderclap moment. But sometimes, it’s just a sticky note in your wallet.

Be safe. The world is full of both kinds.

He was right.

But the world also lets you choose which kind you’ll be.

So now, every time I find something lost—a dropped phone, a forgotten scarf, even a half-written note in the library—I return it. Always.

Because you never know who you’re returning it to. Or what they’ll return to you.

If this reminded you of someone who changed your path, tag them. And share this—someone might need the reminder.