Chris turned the old metal key in the lock, securing Street inside his cell. Her hands were shaking as she pocketed the only key they had, knowing that he would be safe in there while she held onto it. She patted the outside of her pocket making sure it was in there, she needed him to be safe. She sucked in as much air as she could, trying to calm herself down. Their lips had been millimetres apart, maybe only a piece of paper would have fit between them, but they hadn't touched.
Yet she felt it. She felt their kiss. How their lips met. The fire that erupted in pit of her stomach. The way he cupped her face. It was so bold, so real, yet their lips never touched. The most meaningful moment of her life had just happened in that cell. She'd never experienced such intense feelings. She couldn't think, in that moment the only thing in the world was them. His lips; she had definitely felt his lips on hers. Was she going crazy? It felt like crazy; but it wasn't and she was terrified by what it meant.
The strange who her boyfriend had just finished torturing, was no longer a stranger. Even if it was just a couple of seconds of memory back it was enough to realise it had all gone very wrong. She couldn't pretend any longer that she was ok with the massive gaps in her memory. She had something to fill that gap in, the smallest moment of happiness and it was enough to change everything.
It had shaken her. She wanted those couple of seconds. That was the life she wanted, where her feelings were fierce and felt like they would explode out of her. She hadn't believed love like that was real until that moment; had she really forgotten that much? But that was also the moment she had to admit that it was already gone. She had totally ruined it, beyond repair.
'Sorry, he could barely walk. Took me ages to get him in there,' her words were hollow and she didn't care if Benz noticed. She had just lost the most important thing in the world.
He didn't notice, he'd got his mind set on other things. He'd approached her from behind lowering his lips to her neck wrapping his arms around her only to spin her on the spot and press her flush up against the cell door with his own body. His lips found hers, like that had done hundreds of times before. She let herself be comforted, because she knew it could never be Street.
Once she had felt real passion, real love for someone, being with Benz made her feel empty. Worse than empty, she knew she didn't want him, that she didn't want this; but she was stuck. She had done far too much in the last five months to return to her old life, no matter how much she felt for Street.
Part of her longed to remember her old life. The memories of the moments she'd shared with Street were treasures that she longed to reclaim. He had risked it all to find her, to get through to her. He was desperate, she had felt it. He loved her, his lips whispering those words would stay with her to her dying day. He wanted to bring her home. A warm feeling flooded her as she imagined her old home (she didn't know what it looked like) but she had the feeling of them. The couple of seconds she could remember of that kiss. She had no idea how amazing her life had been, but that kiss told her it had been a thousand times better than what she had here with Benz.
It was no good hoping for something that she couldn't never have back. If he knew what she had been up to for the past five months then he wouldn't be here. He wouldn't be declaring his love for her. He wouldn't be wasting his time trying to get her to go back with him. In fact he would leave her here to rot, where she deserved; and that was the best case scenario.
She felt even worse looking down at Benz curled up at her side. It would break Street's heart if he ever saw her like this, with Benz's head resting on her tummy, her hand running through his hair. The sheets around them askew and crumpled. A tear slide down her face as she looked down at them tangled together.
She hadn't wanted to sleep with him. She didn't know why she went through with it. She'd only started it to distract Benz from killing Street. She had been happy to sleep with him then; but then she had shared that moment with Street. She had to get over this. Benz was her boyfriend. She should want to sleep with him. He hadn't done anything wrong. She wished she'd never remembered what she was missing out on. She would have been happily ignorant to live the life she had, never knowing about the one she would never be able to return to.
Now she had to live in this hollow life and pretend it was what she wanted. She had to break Street's heart, let him go back to his life and he would take any hope of her happiness with him. She finally understood Street's motivation for his crazy behaviour. He wasn't stupid, he was desperate. Her heart physically ached as she thought of him down stairs alone, cold and injured. She would make this right, it was all her fault. Her actions that had brought them to this impasse. She needed to make sure he was ok. It was her turn to take care of him.
