Refrain by Anne Mercier

As a child, I trusted no one.
Then I found my best friends.
They gave me a family and saved me from a life of abuse that still has me messed up.

Then one of those best friends captured my heart.
Lincoln, tough yet tender, a walking contradiction.
He loves me too—flaws and all.
He’s the most patient man on the earth and understands my PTSD.

What he doesn’t understand is why our being intimate makes me feel “dirty”.
He’s not one of the men who abused me and he’d never hurt me. I know this. I believe it.
Still, the “dirty” creeps in even though I know what we do together is anything but.

He’s here now and he’s going to stay.
It’s time for me to talk to someone professionally.
I need to shed my unhealthy past in order to have a healthy future with the man I love.
If I don’t, I just might lose the best thing that’s ever happened to me—and there’s not enough therapy in the world to get me through that.