by LaTasha Durrett

Golden. That is how he is. Well, not really. He is more like a deep shade of tan with a shock of black waves that transforms into curls all too quickly in the summer heat. He is impish in every way, like a curious child who lives to prove his mother wrong. But this is no child, this is a man. This is a 24-year-old man, that I have watched grow from a child into a man that I have helped form.

I am now realizing that meeting at age 14 is nothing to be proud of 10 years later when at the age of 24 I am sitting in this golden deep tan man’s SUV headed to dinner with no strings attached. See that is how 24-year-old men are; free. Free to go and come as they please, free to be concerned with everything besides women, free to pay student loans without worrying about putting food on a table and most importantly free to love whomever they wish.

Now I do not know who this man loves. Why would I care to discuss him loving anyone but me? I have no clue who he wishes to love. For years I thought he loved me. Perhaps now he loves me as he would a sister, or a favorite cousin or some random person one passes in the subway everyday and feels a pang of love for every now and then.

This was not always the case, once I was so sure of this golden tan man’s love.

From the beginning I called him nothing but the truth. I spoke his name with authority, as if I’d known him in past lives. As if we had escaped from slavery hand in hand.

To love for so long and then suddenly be kicked out of it is devastating. When it ended I looked at him, saying to him without speaking, “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you remember me?” And then he was gone. Like that. This golden tan man whose name I spoke as if I’d known it forever was gone. He was no longer only the truth, he was reality, and he was a man, nothing more.

I refused to hear him saying without speaking, “I know who you are. I remember you. I remember every curve of you.” I refused to hear him saying without speaking, “I’m sorry. I have to leave.” I refused it because now, this golden tan reality is no longer a man to me. He is no longer the man I knew. He is no longer a man child. He is a man, like every other man.

There is no longer anything extraordinary about him. He is ordinary. I ask though, did I transform him? I couldn’t have. You see, I was this man’s No. 1 fan. I said, “Yes, travel the world.” I screamed, “You are extraordinary.” I whispered, “You are like Malcolm and Martin and you will lead.”

I am afraid I made this once extraordinary golden tan man child, the ordinary, real man he is today. Did my small clever hands transform this once granite man into clay? How could I have done that? I did not mean to do that. I have convinced myself that I did not do that.

You see, I have convinced myself that he was always this real; that he was never my truth. He was never extraordinary. The curve of his lips was never perfect and surely the wave of his coal black hair was never exciting.

I have convinced myself of this. I have not dulled this golden tan man.

At age 24, I am riding in his SUV to a restaurant for dinner with no strings attached because I respect this ordinary man’s freedom. I no longer pretend he is anything more than a man.

I do not feel his hand on my hand, which is why I jerk mine away. I do not feel his hot, beautiful summer breath on my neck as he whispers to me as we wait at the crowded bar, that is why I step back. I do not see and hear this man looking and saying to me without speaking, “I am sorry, but I’m here now.”