He kept calling me complicated, like it was a flaw I hadn’t yet apologized for. He said it in that tone people use when they’re tired but won’t admit they’re out of depth. The thing is, I’ve been called complicated before, just never by someone who actually took the time to stay long enough to understand me. And for a while, I believed it. I believed I was hard to love because I needed more than what most people were willing to give.

What he didn’t see was how many versions of myself I had already peeled back before I ever let him close. How many times I made myself quieter, lighter, more convenient. I learned early on that being easy to love meant being easy to leave. So I stopped handing out pieces of myself to people who only wanted the parts they could carry without effort. He wanted affection without responsibility. Intimacy without depth. He wanted the story without the chapters that required attention.

When I didn’t fold the way he expected, he labeled me instead. Complicated. Emotional. Guarded. But I wasn’t playing hard to get – I was holding what was left of me in both hands and waiting to see if someone would stop asking me to put it down just to make them feel stronger.

It took me a long time to stop apologizing for having depth. To stop mistaking emotional self-respect for being too much. I don’t think he ever realized that I wasn’t asking for anything extravagant. I just wanted to feel safe telling the truth and still be met with care. Not confusion. Not distance. Not blame.

So no, I’m not complicated. I’ve just lived enough to know what it costs to be easy in the wrong hands.