I started with my voice. I lowered it, made it gentler, less passionate, less sharp around the edges. I watched his body language like a map, trying to land in the version of me that wouldn’t make him sigh or look away.

Then it was my laugh. Too loud. Too full. I tucked it into silence. Every time he rolled his eyes, I heard a warning – even when he didn’t say a word.

I stopped speaking in my native language around his friends. I filtered out parts of my childhood, my culture, the things that made me whole. I told myself it was just compromise, but deep down I knew it was erasure.

I wore what he liked. I acted how he preferred. I bent and molded myself until I barely recognized the girl who used to take up space without apology.

And still, he seemed irritated. Still, I wasn’t soft enough. Still, I was too much in ways I didn’t even know how to name.

That was the heartbreak. Not that he didn’t love me – but that I gave up pieces of myself trying to be lovable to someone who had no intention of holding me with care.