The elevator crept up the tall building taking what seemed like an eternity to Susan Hopewell. She watched the clock like device above the door as it slowly moved to the thirtieth floor. The ring, signaling that her destination had been reached, startled her. She pulled out a small credit card like key and slide it into the slot by the elevator door. The doors slide pen revealing an ill lit suite with an old mahogany desk up against a wall of windows. She stepped out of the elevator and on to the warm blue carpet. The doors slide shut.
Her heart was pounding. She began to sweat as if it were hundreds of degrees.
“Why did you do it Frank?” she asked, fearing the answer to her question. He did not respond right away, he just sat motionless in the office chair looking out the floor to ceiling window that gave view to a busy New York winter night.

“It’s a long fall from here isn’t it?” He said.

“What?” she responded to this random statement with shock and anger.

“I said,” he started to say.
“Of course it’s a long fall, we’re thirty floors up.” She kept her distance from him, but at the same time she wanted to run over and slap him.

“You want to know why I did what I did and yet you are the one that left me no other option.” His head sank between his knees while still keeping an eye on the busy cold night.

“You know something Frank,” she yelled at him mockingly. “You’re an idiot, and loser. You always will be too.” There was nothing, but silence that followed and a sinister smirk that grew on his face. He raised the bottle in his hand to his lips and let the medicine run down his throat. “Are you drunk?”

“Of course I am,” he shouted back.

“Don’t you dare yell at me, and answer me already!” she was losing her patience. She licked her dry lips and found them to be overly salty. She had not realized it just yet but she had tears rushing down her soft white cheeks.

“You left me no choice,” and without getting up from his chair or even much of a rotation he sent the bottle flying across the room smashing into the apartment wall almost hitting her. “What did you bloody hell expect me to do Susan! Did you think I wouldn’t care! Did you think that I would just let it go and watch! No Susan, you left me no other option.”

Once again silence had taken the room again, and this time it stayed for a while. He sat in his chair this time leaning back and rocking toward and away from the large window. He had a blank look on his face that should no fear, no remorse, it showed nothing. Susan stood fifteen feet away wanting to fall to the ground because her legs had grown weak, but she stood in anger…or was it fear?

“You knew this would happen,” he broke the silence in a dull almost whisper like voice. “You made the choice, not me.”

“No Frank, you didn’t have to.” She said in a voice that said she was on the brink of balling.

Frank stood up and looked into Susan’s eyes. “Come over here,” he said calmly. She walked toward him timidly. Her legs shaking, heart racing, head throbbing. He stretched his arms out to show good will, so Susan let down her guard and walked into his arms. She buried her head into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. “I couldn’t control myself when I saw him, I was so angry.”

“You didn’t have to kill him.”

“You betrayed me Susan, and for that-“she looked up into his cold blue eyes and saw a burning hate that only the devil himself could describe. He grabbed her tightly by the wrists and looked out the window down towards the street. “And for that Susan, you’re taking a long fall.”