His ID states he’s twenty-three. He has a picture of a young woman in the visor. His cell lights up with an image of the same girl. He’s missed three calls from Skylar already, and he promptly sends her to voicemail. I glance in the rearview mirror and note the dark circles under his eyes. He’s too young to carry so much stress.
On closer inspection, I catch a glimpse of an appointment card as he tucks it into the console. The emblazoned letters on the card read: OB-GYN.
The driver is about to embark on a new beginning in his life, and like most of us, he’s fighting the change.
As stolen children, London and I never knew our beginning. It was ripped away by monsters in the night. Thieves of innocence. Our precious first moments in this world tainted, erased.
Unlike London, I have a select number of memories of my life before. I suppose that makes me different in some way—not unique, but rather, conditioned. Less born to this world and more like I’ve adapted.
We were not born the day we took our first breath. We were born the moment we stole it.
I said these words to London, and the truth of that statement still haunts me as much as her darkly golden eyes.
London has been digging into my past.
In the same way that I’m prone to gather details of the driver’s life, London’s office harbors clues to her furtive dealings. Message logs to a forensics’ lab. Searches on her computer on my hometown. A genealogy report.
I could argue that, as a psychologist, London needs to examine and understand my beginning in a professional sense, but she’s mostly just curious. The scars on my body read like a roadmap to her—and she needs to follow those roads to my start. Discover the inciting incident that created the monster.
We were both casualties in a sense. The loss we suffered not mortal but a death of self. Our identities traumatized. Forced to rebuild our psyche with chipped and flawed fragments.
But we were gifted something else in the process.
Insight.
Have you ever received a present only to be disappointed once the shiny wrapping paper was torn away to reveal the contents? What if you never had to feel that disappointment again. Always having an understanding of the inner nature of how things work, of what to expect from others.
Sounds alluring. There’s a tradeoff, though. With this perception comes not just the prospect to never again be disappointed, but to never be surprised, either. That brief moment of astonishment when you get the unexpected.
People live for that shit.
My whole life, London has been my only surprise.
I tore off the wrapping paper and dove in with only a veiled idea of the contents…and she was so much more than I expected.
She’s the glossy present I never dreamed I’d receive.
I desperately want not to break her.
London needs to stop digging.
Muscles tense, I stare into the head beams reflected in the taxi’s side-view mirror. The same blue sedan has been tailing the cab since we left downtown.
“Let me out here,” I tell the driver.
He sends me a confused look in the mirror. “I can’t stop here.”
“Pull onto the median,” I say, growing impatient. I slide fifty dollars through the slat in the divider.
“All right, man. You got it.”
Parked on the side of the highway, I watch the blue sedan pass us. I get out of the cab and motion for the driver to roll the window down. “Marry the girl and get a better job. The choice between being a father and a cab driver should be a no-brainer.”
His eyes widen in alarm, but I pat the taxi’s rooftop and walk off before he finds the words to confront me. What can I say? Deep down, I’m a rather nice guy.
Eastbound, I head across the next highway over. I stop and wait along the side of the median. When I spot the sedan taking the exit up ahead, I curse.
I could run, evade the mystery man—but I’m curious. There’s no line of flashing blue and red lights barreling down the highway. If I’d been reported by someone, the cops would have shown up by now.