Devi couldn’t help but chuckle as she settled into her chair in front of the webcam. “So, there’s something I’ve realised.” She began. “It would seem I’m best at pouring my heart out in front of a camera as opposed to directly in front of you, in person, to your face. In that original video, I didn’t have an option. But now, I do have a choice, and I’m still here, coming to you from a screen. Maybe it’s cause this feels important, just like last time, and I want to make sure I get this across right. Maybe it’s cause doing it this way, I can have as many takes as I need.” She stopped for breath.
“So, like I said, this feels important. It’s kind of an ‘I want you to know’…” Devi held her fingers up to air quote the last part. “Except, it’s also a bit ‘you know… right?’” She couldn’t help laughing again. “No pressure.”
At all… Devi imagined one of her friends finishing, and struggled to keep a straight face. Until, a second later, a grin cracked her straight lips. “Alright, alright. Let me put y’all out of your misery.” She says, pretending she’d meant it all along.
“I know I can be kinda intense sometimes. I’m an ‘all in’ type o’ gal.” The smile stays fixed on Devi’s face, while inside, she feels like hyperventilating. This was important, and it felt like there was tons of pressure.
“But what I want you to know… what I want to make sure you know, is that it’s because of how deep my love and care for all of you goes. Because of everything I said in that last video, and everything I wrote in the envelopes.” Devi felt her shoulders drop a fraction as a little tension was eased with the memory of the first video and the individualised envelopes that had gone with it. “That’s a good example of the intensity I’m talking about. But also the depth.” Devi sighed, the anxieties that had been buried below starting to rise to the surface. “The intensity is because of the depth. Maybe I care and love too much, if that’s possible? I don’t know. The point is that there is an abundance of love and care. Like, way more than I can figure out how to quantify. What can I say, y’all are important to me. Like, really important.”
Whether the laughter had something to do with hysteria or was more something of an attempt to ease more tension that had built back up, or maybe it was a mixture of both? “More of the intensity I was talking about…” she tells the camera, and her friends. “I know that could be a bit… confronting sometimes, which is why I wanted to make sure you know kinda where it comes from. It’s all outta a whole lot o’ love, and care, but mostly love. Purely platonic love that is.” Devi started to ramble before taking a breath to help rein herself back in. “But love all the same.”
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This story follows on from I Want You To Know, which you can read here.
