“You don’t have to stay,” I told him twice.
“I know,” he said both times. But he didn’t leave.
When my roommate finally arrived, Marcus walked us to her car. Made sure we got in safely. Then he nodded and walked away.
I thought that was the end of it. A random act of kindness. A stranger who saved me and disappeared back into his life.
But the next night, when I came in for my shift, Marcus was there. Sitting in the waiting room on a chair too small for him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Making sure you get to your car safe.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
He followed me at a distance when my shift ended. Walked three steps behind until I got to my car. Watched me get in and drive away.
The next night, he was there again.
And the night after that.
For two weeks, Marcus showed up every night I worked. Never asked for anything. Never got too close. Just made sure I was safe.
Other nurses noticed. Asked who he was. I said a friend. It felt true, even though I barely knew him.
On the fifteenth night, I finally confronted him.
“Marcus, why are you doing this? Why do you keep coming back?”
He looked uncomfortable, like he’d been hoping I wouldn’t ask.
“Because I should’ve been here sooner,” he said.
Two years later, Kate—my younger coworker who had been attacked that night—got a part-time job at a nonprofit that helped assault survivors. She wanted to turn what happened to her into something that could help other people.
She called me the day she got the job. “I couldn’t have done this without you. Without Marcus. You both showed me that surviving isn’t enough. You have to find a way to live.”
“I’m so proud of you, Kate.”
“Come to the office sometime. I want to show you what we’re building.”
I visited the next week. The office was small but bright. Posters on the walls about resources, healing, hope. Kate gave me a tour, introduced me to coworkers, showed me the crisis line they’d set up.
“We’ve already helped thirty women in the first month,” she said. “Women who thought they were alone. We’re showing them they’re not.”
“And I want you to be part of it,” she said. “You’re a nurse. We need medical advocates. People who understand trauma from a clinical perspective. Would you consider volunteering?”
“Yes. Absolutely yes.”
Three years after my attack, I stopped looking over my shoulder in parking garages.
Three years after Kate’s attack, she moved into her own apartment.
Three years after Marcus heard screaming and ran toward it instead of away, he stopped blaming himself.
We had dinner together once a month: me, Kate, Helen, Marcus, and Linda. An accidental family formed from tragedy and survival and people who chose to show up.
At one dinner, Kate raised her glass. “I want to make a toast. To second chances. To people who run toward trouble instead of away from it. To healing. And to friends who became family.”
We clinked glasses. Ate too much food. Laughed at Marcus’s terrible jokes.
And I thought about that night in the parking garage. How scared I’d been. How hopeless it felt.
But then a motorcycle appeared. And a man who could have kept driving chose to stop.
That choice changed everything.
It saved me. It helped catch a predator. It gave Kate a chance to heal. It gave Marcus a purpose.
All because one person decided that someone else’s safety mattered more than his own convenience.
That’s what heroes do. Not the big dramatic gestures, but the small choice to pay attention. To stay. To care.
Marcus pulled my attacker off me, then stayed all night to make sure I was okay.
But more than that, he stayed for three years.
Because some people don’t just save you once. They keep saving you. Every day. In small ways.
By showing up. By caring. By refusing to let you face darkness alone.
That’s the kind of hero Marcus is.
And that’s the kind of person I want to be.