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There it was after a year of hiding why I would sometimes cringe when she touched me I had finally opened up and revealed the truth. But it had been a long hard road to that point and it had at times seemed that what had been hidden it would destroy us before it could ever be revealed.

You see I was like far too many people an abuse victim. Now it's such a simple thing for me to open my mouth and say. The fear and shame that once went hand in hand with it have faded now from my life. But not back then. Back then I was sure that in revealing that truth from my past I would be reduced in her eyes from her love to someone tainted, unclean, undeserving of her love.

The moment I told her I lowered every defense which I had spent the previous decade building in an instant. I risked everything I felt I had gained in that single moment. I knew she might indeed be repelled or her pity for my past suffering might become too consuming and eclipse her love for me. Any one of dozens of outcomes was possible. For one of the longest moments in my life nothing happened and I dwelt in fear of her response. Thankfully in the end none of the ones I feared came to pass.

It all happened when she decided we needed to experiment in bed. Not all that surprising we were young, in love and had energy to burn once we slipped between the sheets. But something in her touch sent my mind reeling back through the years to one of the moments of horror that still replayed over and over in the depths of my mind. I froze, everything in me derailed for several minutes while I relived in near perfect recall one of the worst moments from a period of my life which seemed to only comprise of worst moments.

When I came out of it I found myself lying in her arms sobbing. I'd ran out of time to tell her, it was time to either take the risk or end up losing her anyway. I took the risk. Haltingly I told her the parts of my story that were clear in my mind. I explained how sometimes the oddest things, a smell, a sound, a touch would send me back there. I explained that to me they were living memories which would always be with me, never to dull with time, always able to cut me to the bone in an instant.

She listened thought hard about what I had told her and then told me she loved me. Everything changed. Not overnight but gradually over time the fear and shame lifted. I found I could talk about what had happened to me and in time I even managed to overcome all of my physical hang ups. It wasn't easy, but then what truly worthwhile act is? It took months of much needed and long delayed counseling followed by a few years of soul searching and learning to rationalize my fears. But by the end of it I was finally for the first time since my early childhood a whole person.

We did eventually come to an end as the vast majority of relationships tend to do when we simply ran out of steam. But by the time we did come to and end that moment of total vulnerability had become the epicenter of a near total change for the better in most areas of my life. For that I am eternally thankful she for a short wonderful time was mine and that I found the courage to let her see me in that moment of being completely vulnerable.

Learn more about this author, Harper Gallagher.
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