I keep replaying that night on the highway, searching for some hidden detail I might have missed, some shadow in his voice or flicker in his eyes that could have warned me who he would one day become in the public imagination. But all I find is the same memory: a stranger in the dark, hands steady, voice calm, refusing to leave until he knew we were safe. It’s unnerving how two truths can exist side by side without ever touching.

The world will decide what to believe about him. Courts, headlines, and hashtags will pin him to a single story, because that’s what we do to people we fear. I don’t know if he is innocent or guilty. I only know that, on the night we needed someone, he stopped. He stayed. And that small, inconvenient kindness will haunt me longer than any headline.