Andrea Harris was terrified that when she told her boyfriend about the most traumatic experience of her life, everything would change for the worse.

On our first date, he told me that he had wanted to ask me out since the first time he saw me, a year before. I called him on the obvious “line” and then asked what had taken him so long.

With complete sincerity, he replied, “You always seemed so together, so smart and classy. I didn’t think a woman like you would want anything to do with an average guy like me.”

Embarrassed by the compliment and the image he had of me, I laughingly accused him of calling me a snob. It was the “you always seemed so together” part that had embarrassed me so much on that first date and that now had me feeling nauseous as we drove to the park months later.

♦◊♦

Our dates had included fishing, camping, and boating, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary when I proposed lunch at the park by the river. He loved being outside, especially loved the water, and that’s why I chose the park to show him the news clipping. I was hoping that the setting would remind him how great the past four months had been and how cool a girlfriend I was.

But as we got closer to the park, that line, “You always seemed so together,” wouldn’t stop running through my head. If the reason he had found me so attractive was because I was so “together,” what would happen when he found out that I wasn’t together at all? I knew that showing him the news clipping would mean the end of his image of me.

He would ask questions, and my answers would reveal the real me. The real me still woke up screaming every few months, sometimes drank just to make the monsters go away, panicked when I couldn’t see an exit, was constantly conscious of men as potential aggressors, and instinctively felt like fighting every time my body was touched without asking.

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I didn’t want him to know what had happened because I knew that what had happened made me “damaged goods.” I knew that once he found out the real me, everything would change. He would see me differently. He would treat me differently. When I wanted to be alone or not be touched, he would get angry and think it was because I was confusing him with the bad guy. When I was angry or sad, he would wonder if it was because I was still damaged. When he touched me, he would hesitate and wonder if I was really OK with what he was doing, if I truly enjoyed his touch.

I didn’t want to show him the clipping, but I had to. We were honest with each other, and holding this back felt like a lie. And the edges of my contained nightmare were starting to blur; the ugliness was starting to leak out into my life and our relationship. I needed to tell him the truth, to explain, before he decided that I was crazy. I needed him to believe that I had been that together woman before and that I would be again. If he believed it, maybe I finally could, too.

♦◊♦

Only a few other people were at the park in the middle of a work day, so it was peaceful and quiet. I smiled as I watched him dive into the food. He combined foods seemingly at random, telling me to “Watch this” just before stuffing one of the combinations in his mouth. If the combination was good, he would mount a huge bite on the fork to share with me. I liked watching him eat because he fully enjoyed himself, without even a glimmer of self-consciousness.

Reaching for the folded news clipping in my pocket was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. But I had to do it because I already loved him and needed to know if he would still love me once he knew. I had never been completely open with anyone about what had happened to me and how it had affected me. I had the most to lose right now, with this relationship, but that’s why I had to tell him.

As I unfolded the clipping, I told myself to breathe, told myself that it would be okay. If he didn’t want to be with me after today, it would be fine. Easy come. Easy go. Right? I’d survived a lot worse.

He didn’t seem at all worried when I told him that I needed to show him something, and I remember dreading how the look on his face was going to change. As he read, I pretended to stare at the geese on the water, discretely watching him out of the corner of my eye.

When he seemed to have reached the highlighted portion in the front page article, I told him, “That’s me. Where it says his crimes also include the rape of a college student, the ‘college student’ is me.”

I was shocked when he calmly refolded the clipping and handed it back to me. He told me that he knew, not exactly what had happened, but that something bad had happened to me.

“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready,” he said.

I had been so sure of what he would say, so sure that I knew exactly how men reacted to rape disclosures from the women with whom they were involved. I was completely unprepared for his actual response.

“Don’t you have any questions?” I asked.

“Nope.”

He assured me that although I could tell him whatever I needed to tell him, he already knew everything he needed to know. When I persisted that he must see me differently now and couldn’t help but feel differently about me, he smiled and said, “I’ve always seen you, and I still feel the same.”

I thought I realized why he was so calm: he didn’t really get it. So I told him how much the rape still affected me, how I still showed signs of damage, but he never once wavered in his insistence that how he saw me that first time was not only how he still saw me but also how I really was—was the real me.

He never once confused what had happened to me with who I was. When I told him how worried I was about how my post-traumatic stress disorder might affect our relationship, he smiled again and brushed a stray hair from my face.

“If you tell me what you need, I’ll do my best to give you that,” he promised.

With that promise, my nausea and my doubt dissolved. I realized then that I was in my first post-rape relationship with an actual good guy. I had thought everything would change once he read the news clipping, but the only thing that had changed was that my faith in man’s goodness had been restored.

The past seven years haven’t been easy. Sometimes he’s been better at giving me what I need than at other times, and I’m sure he would say the same for me. However, I have never doubted his words in the park that day. I have never doubted that the one who loves me sees me for who I am and not what was done to me. And that is something we all need to know.

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—Photo gurdonark/Flickr