The Price We Pay

 “This one is more for me. I don’t think anyone else will see it really, but I need to do it for myself anyway. To get it out if nothing else.” Devi blinked at herself on the screen, then took a deep breath. “So I… I have lost two people recently who were really important to me in different ways, though both were somewhat unexpected and painful. As all losses are, I suppose.”

 

She blinked again in an attempt to ward off the tears waiting just behind her eyes, remembering those she had loved, and now lost. The first was someone she’d known her whole life. He was a close confidant and a cheerleader. Maybe at a distance, but he’d been there the whole way at every step, walking alongside Devi as she navigated the path of life. His loss had been like a punch to the gut and the heart.

 

The other person Devi had lost felt like a knife to the heart, and an extra knife or two in the back for good measure. They had been someone else Devi had considered close. But, little had she known, for her so called ‘friend’, the feeling had been far from mutual… As it turned out, Devi’s kindness, thoughtfulness and generosity in particular, all qualities she’d thought of as assets, were apparently, some kind of burdensome imposition.

 

Knowing that no one else would see this recording was the only thing that kept the embarrassment at bay as a tear fell from her eye. “It feels particularly stupid with them…” The loss was painful in a different way to that of Devi’s lifelong friend. The emotions caught up in that loss made sense. Someone died, you grieved. But with the other friend she’d lost, it was a different kind of loss. A different kind of pain and hurt that she struggled to make much sense of.

 

“Either way,” she concluded, as much as she could, for the camera and herself. “I guess this is a price of sorts. This hurt and this pain, as odd as it feels... It’s the price I pay for having had that relationship, that love that I’ve now lost.” 

It's grief, the voice of a wise friend echoed in Devi's mind. 

"Grief," Devi repeated out loud. "The price we pay for love."  

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This story continues that of Devi. You can read previous instalments here and here.