Chapter 2 - NOTHING, I’M NOBODY
My car remained dead for eighteen days.
That was how Adrien became a habit.
Not a plan.
A habit.
The first week I used whatever taxi or rideshare appeared first. The second week, the same battered yellow cab began appearing outside St. Matthew’s with suspicious regularity.
I accused him on the third night.
“You’re stalking the emergency department.”
Adrien leaned across the passenger seat and pushed open the back door.
“I’m driving a taxi.”
“At exactly 11:55?”
“Coincidence.”
“Three times?”
“Philadelphia is a mysterious city.”
I got in anyway.
That should embarrass me.
It doesn’t.
At the time, what I knew about him was simple:
He drove nights.
He drank coffee black.
He had no wedding ring.
He disliked country music with a seriousness bordering on moral judgment.
He remembered Evan’s order at the diner.
He never asked questions when I came out of work looking wrecked.
Some nights we barely spoke.
Those were my favorite rides.
Emergency medicine had already used every word I possessed.
Adrien understood silence in a way most people did not.
He did not fill it because he was uncomfortable.
He let it exist.
---
Evan met him on ride four.
My nephew came outside wearing pajama pants, a Penn sweatshirt, and one sneaker because he had apparently lost the other while searching for his phone.
Adrien stared.
Evan stared back.
“So you’re Broken Heater.”
Adrien looked at me.
I shrugged.
“Private family nickname.”
Evan opened the passenger door.
“You can’t ride in front,” I said.
“I’m seventeen.”
“Exactly.”
Adrien said, “Seat works.”
Traitor.
Evan climbed in.
Within five minutes he had asked:
How old the taxi was.
Why the dash had an aftermarket switch.
Why the rear windows sounded “wrong” when they shut.
Whether the suspension had been upgraded.
Adrien answered:
Old.
Taxi stuff.
No.
Maybe.
Evan looked at him.
“You’re lying.”
“About what?”
“The windows.”
I leaned forward.
“What about the windows?”
Evan tapped the glass.
“Too thick.”
Adrien said:
“Sound insulation.”
Evan narrowed his eyes.
“On this thing?”
He gestured at the cracked vinyl dash.
Adrien’s mouth shifted.
“Selective maintenance.”
I laughed.
Evan did not.
He loved machines.
My sister Natalie used to say he inherited curiosity from the father who disappeared before he was born.
I never corrected her.
Natalie had made plenty of bad choices.
Evan’s father was simply one she never explained.
After she died, I stopped asking.
---
Natalie.
There.
Adrien learned the name one cold Tuesday.
We were parked outside my house because rain had turned to sleet and I did not want to get out.
He asked:
“Your sister?”
I looked at him.
He had waited almost three weeks.
That made me answer.
“Died six years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hit-and-run.”
His eyes changed slightly.
“Evan was eleven.”
“Did they find the driver?”
“No.”
No pity face.
Good.
He said:
“That is a long time to be angry.”
I stared.
“Who said I’m angry?”
“You did. Just not aloud.”
I should have been offended.
Instead I looked at the wet windshield.
“She was thirty-four. She worked two jobs. She was terrible at paying parking tickets. She sang too loudly in the car. Then someone hit her on Delaware Avenue at two in the morning and kept driving.”
Adrien was silent.
“I became Evan’s guardian three weeks later.”
“You were twenty-five.”
“Yes.”
“Were you ready?”
“No.”
“Did that matter?”
“No.”
He nodded.
That was all.
No inspirational line.
Good.
---
By week four, my car was fixed.
I kept taking the taxi.
That part is harder to explain.
Maybe because Adrien never charged me full fare.
I complained.
He said his meter was unreliable.
Lie.
Maybe because he waited after late shifts when public transit felt unsafe.
Maybe because I liked him.
There.
Simple.
Embarrassing.
True.
---
One Friday, my shift ended at nine instead of midnight.
Adrien was not outside.
I felt stupidly disappointed.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Twenty minutes late. Don’t leave without coffee.
I stared.
He had my number.
I had never given it to him.
My stomach tightened.
Then I remembered the taxi dispatch receipt from the first ride.
Phone number in booking system.
Still.
Boundary.
I called.
“You have my number.”
“Yes.”
“You used company records to get it.”
“Yes.”
“That’s creepy.”
“Yes.”
Good answer did not make it acceptable.
“Delete it.”
Silence.
Then:
“Okay.”
“Now.”
“I am driving.”
“Fine. At a red light.”
His mouth was probably doing that almost-smile.
I hated that I knew.
He deleted it.
Then asked:
“Can you give it to me?”
I paused.
That was different.
“Yes.”
I did.
Good.
---
We went to the diner after my shift.
Not a date.
I made that clear.
Adrien said:
“Of course.”
The waitress called him “honey” and did not seem afraid of him.
That made me like the place.
He ordered eggs.
I ordered pancakes.
We split fries because neither of us respected meal categories.
I asked:
“What do you do when you’re not driving?”
He looked at me over coffee.
“Nothing.”
“Nobody does nothing.”
“I read.”
“What?”
“History.”
“Boring.”
“It happened.”
“Still.”
I waited.
“What else?”
He stared at the coffee.
“Nothing. I’m nobody.”
Smallest lie.
The one I remembered later.
At the time, it sounded like shame.
A man embarrassed he drove a taxi.
I wanted to tell him work was work.
Instead I said:
“You bought a seventeen-year-old breakfast with money you apparently don’t have. That makes you somebody.”
His face changed.
I looked away first.
Dangerous.
---
After dinner, he walked me to the cab.
A black SUV idled across the street.
I noticed.
“Same friends?”
“What?”
“The mysterious cars.”
He went still.
“You’ve seen them before?”
“First night.”
“How many times?”
“Two. Maybe three.”
His jaw tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I assumed Philadelphia contains black SUVs.”
He looked at the vehicle.
It pulled away.
“Adrien.”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t.”
He looked at me.
Then:
“I have people I owe money.”
My chest tightened.
“What kind of money?”
“Old family obligations.”
That was technically true.
I did not know how much language can lie without becoming false.
“Are you in trouble?”
“Not the kind you can fix.”
I crossed my arms.
“That wasn’t the question.”
His eyes held mine.
“Yes.”
There.
I believed:
Debt.
Maybe bookies.
Maybe bad family.
Not organized crime.
Not a shipping empire.
Not men with guns.
He let me believe the smaller danger.
---
A week later, he came to my house for dinner.
Evan invited him.
Not me.
Traitor.
Adrien arrived with a grocery bag.
I opened it.
Tomatoes.
Bread.
Olive oil.
Cheese.
“This is too much.”
“It’s groceries.”
“Exactly.”
“I was told teenagers eat.”
Evan shouted from kitchen:
“Correct.”
Adrien cooked.
That was the first truly suspicious thing.
Not because taxi drivers cannot cook.
Because he moved through my cramped kitchen as if he had spent years around professional chefs.
Knife precise.
Sauce patient.
No recipe.
“You said you do nothing.”
“I eat.”
“Where did you learn this?”
“My mother.”
First personal fact.
I held still.
“What was she like?”
He smiled faintly.
“Loud.”
“Good.”
“She believed every problem improved if people sat at a table.”
“Was she right?”
“No.”
A shadow crossed his face.
I did not ask.
Good.
---
Evan asked about Adrien’s knuckles.
“Boxing?”
“Sometimes.”
“Army?”
“No.”
“Prison?”
I nearly dropped a plate.
“Evan.”
Adrien laughed.
Actual laugh.
“No.”
Good.
That one was true.
Then.
---
After dinner, Evan went upstairs to pretend homework existed.
Adrien helped wash dishes.
I said:
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
There.
He dried the same plate too long.
I noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re bad at nothing.”
He looked at me.
Then his hand lifted.
Stopped near my face.
“Can I?”
My heart slammed.
“What?”
“You have flour.”
I laughed nervously.
“Sure.”
His thumb brushed my cheek.
Too gentle.
I stopped breathing.
So did he.
The kitchen shrank.
Then headlights swept across the window.
Adrien’s hand dropped instantly.
He looked outside.
Black sedan.
Same shape.
His entire body changed.
Not fear.
Readiness.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Tessa.”
“Do not order me in my own kitchen.”
He looked at me.
Then nodded once.
“Lock the door.”
He went outside.
I watched through blinds.
The sedan never stopped.
Adrien stood on sidewalk until it disappeared.
When he came back, he was quiet.
I asked:
“Who are they?”
He said:
“People from my family.”
“Why follow you?”
“Because they worry.”
I laughed.
“That is a terrible family.”
“Yes.”
True again.
---
He left at eleven.
Evan came downstairs immediately.
“You like him.”
“Go to bed.”
“He likes you.”
“Go to bed.”
“He’s weird.”
“So are you.”
“The taxi has armored glass.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“I checked online. That thickness is ballistic laminate or some custom soundproofing nobody puts in a cab.”
My stomach tightened.
“You’re guessing.”
“Maybe.”
Then:
“And there’s a switch under the steering column that looks like a kill circuit.”
I stared at him.
“Why were you looking under his steering column?”
“He dropped his keys.”
“That does not answer.”
Evan grinned.
I did not.
---
The next day I texted Adrien:
IS YOUR TAXI ARMORED?
He answered six minutes later.
No.
Lie.
May you like
I know because three weeks afterward, someone fired a bullet into the passenger door.
The glass did not break.
