One February afternoon, my phone is stolen while I’m working in a cubicle at a local library. Using my laptop, I try to track the phone without success. I lock the phone remotely with the screen displaying contact information with the vague hope that the device will make it back to me.

About six months go by and I’ve accepted that the phone is gone for good. It’s a blistering summer day when my mom tells me that someone just called saying they have my phone and want to return it. I get in contact with a man who tells me his name is Isaiah. We agree to meet downtown at a mutually convenient intersection.

I’m cautious and hesitant about meeting a stranger on a street corner, but I’m grateful that my phone has finally made it back. I approach the intersection and look around for someone wearing black pants, a maroon tank top and glasses. A tall, thin young man sees me from across the street and we exchange awkward hand gestures to communicate: Are you the person I’m looking for? Isaiah crosses over and we introduce ourselves. His glasses are wire-rimmed, he wears square cubic zirconia earrings, and his just-showered black hair is slicked back. He’s much more youthful than he sounded on the phone. Later, I’ll learn that he is only twenty, five years younger than me.

Isaiah explains how his mother had taken my phone from the library those months back and that it had sat in her house until today when his younger sister Rose decided to use it. Seeing the message on the screen, Isaiah refused to help her try to unlock it and instead wanted to return it. He pulls the phone from his pocket and hands it to me. I express gratitude and surprise that he’d go out of his way to do this.

Standing there in the shade of a high-rise, Isaiah tells me that he got out of jail the day before yesterday—his fourth time out, actually—and he’s now setting himself on a path to make things right. He says that he’s trying to set a better example for his sister and asks if I’d be willing to speak with her and thank her for her willingness to return the phone. He calls Rose and I talk to her briefly, expressing my genuine gratitude even though she seems hardly interested.

Isaiah asks me what I do for work and I tell him I’m a writer. He says that he got into writing music while in jail and asks if he can share one of his songs with me. I nod. Right there, amid the noisy traffic of the busy street, Isaiah taps a beat on his chest and raps. The song is called SAM. At first, it appears to be about a person with that name but as it continues, it becomes clear that SAM is an acronym for Something About Me. I find it beautiful, engaging and unique. We talk a little more about his music and when we’re about to part ways, I offer him a ride. At first, he doesn’t want to impose, but relents, saying he needs to use an ATM at a nearby gas station.

The conversation in the car is effortless. We talk about how people change over time and wax existential when he reiterates the new path he’s set himself on. At the gas station, I thank him again for setting out to return the phone to me. He thanks me for the ride and offers me gas money, which I decline. I lean out my window and we both wave before I drive away.

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Emilee can be found at her website emileepradoauthor.com