Platonic Love Story Begun at CHNY

On Valentine’s Day, the world tries to convince us love only counts if it comes with candles, captions, and a “we.” But some of the realest love stories simply exist in a phone call answered on the first ring, a shoulder offered without asking, and two people choosing each other again and again, long after a crisis has passed.  

Mark and Marcelle are that kind of love story.  

If you meet them together, it’s almost comedic: Marcelle is 6'7”, a full presence before they even speak. Mark is the opposite, steady and contained, the kind of person who doesn’t need the room but can quietly hold it. Marcelle is a big personality. Mark is reserved. Marcelle is the sparkler. Mark is the match, kept safe until it matters.  

And yet, wherever Marcelle is, Mark is there. As Mark put it, people have asked them for years: Is that your boyfriend? Are y’all together? And Mark always comes back with the same stubborn truth: “Can two people love each other and not be a couple?” For them, the answer has always been yes.  

Because instead of romance, the two built refuge.   

Two unlikely people, one relentless matchmaker  

Their story began at Covenant House New York in 2015. Mark remembers seeing Marcelle first and feeling conflicted. Not dislike, exactly, but distance. Marcelle represented a freedom Mark wasn’t ready to claim out loud.  

Mark had come from a background where identity was narrow, where the world offered only boxes and consequences. Marcelle was living in a way that felt … uncontained. At the time, Mark couldn’t be that, openly, himself. Not yet.  

Marcelle, on the other hand, was surviving a climate that wasn’t always safe for someone queer-presenting to simply exist. They carried an “air of queerness,” they said, that came with “a target and a label.” The world talked about community, but for LGBTQIA+ young people, that sense of safety and belonging didn’t always show up in practice.  

Then came the late, great, Brian Bob, staff member at Covenant House New York.  

“If you knew him, you already know how this part goes,” said Marcelle. “Brian Bob cared. He committed. He noticed who was isolated. He clocked who was drowning quietly. And he had a gift for placing the right people in each other’s path.”  

Mark remembers Brian Bob looking at them both and basically declaring, “You two would be a force.” Marcelle remembers resisting at first, convinced there was “no way” they’d connect. They were “polar opposites,” Marcelle said. Marcelle was extroverted. Mark was introverted. Marcelle jokes they looked Mark “up and down” and thought: No.  

Brian thought: Watch. So he did what Brian Bob did best: he orchestrated proximity with purpose.  

A meeting here, a show there. “Brian’s making us sit next to each other,” Marcelle laughed. “And you don’t ever say no to Brian Bob.”  

Slowly, irritation turned into familiarity. Familiarity turned into conversation. Conversation turned into trust.  

Marcelle says Mark “grew on me like a rash.” Mark doesn’t deny it.  

And then the moment came that shifted everything.   

The night the room finally felt like theirs  

Marcelle invited Mark to the bar where they worked, a queer space. Mark walked in carrying all the caution he’d learned to wear. Marcelle watched him arrive closed off, but then watched him open up.  

That night, Mark felt something he’d been missing. Community. Not just proximity to other LGBTQIA+ people, but the feeling of being able to breathe without bracing for impact. In that room, nobody demanded he perform a version of himself that fit someone else’s comfort.  

He felt accepted.  

It wasn’t just that Marcelle introduced him to a new scene, to a new language of joy. It was that Marcelle introduced him to the truth that he didn’t have to earn belonging by shrinking.  

So their bond deepened fast.  

They started doing things because they wanted to see each other, not because staff told them to. Breakfast. Daily check-ins. Real laughter instead of eye rolls. Over time, the world that had felt wide and dangerous got smaller and more navigable because they weren’t walking it alone.  

Marcelle describes their connection as a “rare love,” built from “struggle, pain, and hardship.” Struggle, because of what they lived through. Pain, because they both had to lose what they once thought were “forever families.” Hardship, because building a new family is hard work.   

Still, more than a decade later, they’re here, holding each other up, correcting the world when it gets them wrong, and calling each other back to reality when life gets too loud.  

Marcelle put it plainly. They don’t coddle each other, because the world isn’t going to. They “slap each other down to reality” when needed, and then they get moving again, together.   

CovLove: the love that makes room  

At Covenant House, we talk about love in a specific way.   

CovLove is the kind of love Brian Bob lived: protective, practical, and consistent. The kind that notices a young person slipping under and says, not on my watch. The kind that doesn’t just tell you you belong, but proves it through action.  

Mark and Marcelle’s friendship is a continuation of that legacy.  

It’s also a reminder, especially for LGBTQIA+ young people facing homelessness, that family can be found. Not perfectly or instantly. Sometimes your person won’t look like you, talk like you, or come from what you come from. Sometimes the person who saves your life will be the one you were sure you’d never understand.  

But as Marcelle said, when you’re drowning, you need at least one person who gets it. Someone you can hold on to when things get tough. Sometimes, love shows up as a staff member who refuses to let you be alone. Sometimes, love shows up as the “unlikeliest” friend, placed beside you on purpose.  

And sometimes, the love story is simply this:  

Two people. Still standing. Still choosing each other. Still proof that healing can be shared.  

This Valentine’s Day, we’re celebrating Mark and Marcelle, and the Brian Bob kind of love that made their friendship possible.  

Because romance is lovely.  

But a love that helps you survive is sacred.