There is no way to explain it except to say that it was an instant attraction, almost electrifying, like the ones you only read in romantic novels. You are probably thinking I’m exaggerating and you might be right. It’s been seventeen years after all, and countless of romantic novels since that first encounter. But I have to say he made a damn good impression for me to pour out thousands of words on paper about him. So bare with me please!
I remember he had this air of superiority about him. Like, he was someone important. Now looking back after so many years, he appeared more like a leader to an affluent philanthropist group ready to make a change in the world and I was ready to follow. You get what I’m saying, he made an impact on my life. A big one! And changed my perception of men and love for life, which set a standard or a pattern if you will, to what future men have been up against ever since.
I was sixteen going on seventeen when we met. It was 1998 and I was blessed with a rare beauty that didn’t go unnoticed to the people around me, least of all, boys. I had long curly hair, that I wore straight most times. Curls weren’t a trend back then. Not like today where everywhere I turned whether its on youtube , facebook or on the streets girls are rocking their curls. Besides, having long hair in itself was seen as an out of the ordinary beauty. Back then, people in the black community saw that as having good hair. To add to all of that beauty, I was kissed by the sun and had this golden cafe-au-lait complexion, big dark brown eyes that I’ve been teased for when I was younger, but by the time I was a teenager those eyes did nothing but complemented my heart-shaped face. The fact that my womanly shaped developed at an early age didn’t hurt at all either. My aunt, my dad’s only sister, was a tailor and created dresses mold to the shaped of me and my cousins bodies. We were always dressed in our best whenever we were in public. And that particular day in 1998, I was in a new orange lycra and black lace backless dress that screamed attention when I walked into a room. And attention I got. His attention in particular.
We couldn’t take our eyes off each other. It was the engagement party of my dad’s cousin, Patrick, whom we all refer to as Coco. There were guests from both his and his fiancés side of the family. Everyone was busy socializing and dancing to the music. I was sitting in a corner of the room and he was helping with refilling the drinks. We didn’t say a word to each other for a long time. Our eyes were doing the talking for a long while until he approached me, extending his hands for a dance. I put my hand in his and I felt a warmth radiated through my body and tingled my palm binding my hand with his. At that moment, I knew. He was mine and I was his.
We didn’t talk during the dance. We didn’t even look into each others’ eye. We just merged our bodies together into a slow dance. I could feel his breath tickling the skin around my ears swaying to the rhymes of his heart beating against my chest. My palm were sweaty in his hand and his other hand burning the spot where it laid on my lower back.
«Meet me in the hall» he said and released me, which left me confused until I noticed the song had ended.
I went into the hall, he held my hands in his and we talked. I can’t remember everything that were said, but I remember him telling me his name and that he was the soon to be brother -in-law of my cousin Coco. And the last thing I remember was him pulling me close and our lips met and merged into the perfect kiss. A kiss, I would remember on and off during theses sixteen years.
In the room near the hall, I heard my dad calling my name. I jumped and broke our kiss. My hands slipped from his just as my dad rounded the corner and appeared in the hall. He looked at me confused, but I ignored the look and turned to my dad.
«We are leaving. Go say goodbye to the family.» Dad said and went back to the main hall.
« I have to go!» I said
«Ok» he said and gave me his number which I committed to memory since I didn’t have a cellphone. «Call me» and little did I know at the time that this day had marked the beginning of a seventeen-years long love triangle, not you typical love triangle. But one between a father and his daughter and a girlfriend and his boyfriend. Little did I know that this love triangle would bring about tears, lost, despair, anger and the destruction of families.
