The (un)perfect couple by Textfreak1 (list of e readers .TXT) 📕

We won’t bother you for long, there are just a few questions we have to ask you”, his partner got a tablet and a pen and began to write. “Have you been forced to kill yourself. Maybe by your husband? Did he tell you to or did he abuse you?”
“No, he has never abused me in any way. I guess you could have called us a perfect couple.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but you said you could have called us a perfect couple? What happened?”, Officer Mayfair questioned and stopped writing, for a while.
“Something happened, indeed. It’s just that I do not want to talk about it!”, answered Hannah in a dead serious tone, but officer Mayfair missed the undertone obviously.
“Well, if it’s important for the case you should tell us.”
“It’s none of your business. The only thing you should know is that I tried to commit suicide and nobody helped or forced me. Neither my husband nor anyone else”, Hannah said calmly, still smiling.
“To be honest Mrs. Miller there is something strange about your suicide-attempt”, mumbled officer Mayfair and began to write.
“And what would that be?”
“The suicide note is missing. And the scarf was tied in a French knot, which doesn’t strangulate the trachea properly. You could hang there for hours without dying. My question is: Did you really want to die?”, Officer Mayfair and Officer Jackson looked closely for a reaction in Hannah’s face. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single reaction.
“I think it’s enough, here. You may go now!”, Hannah said and if you listened carefully you could here the slight threat in her voice.
“I see. But we will come back, Mrs. Miller. There are still some questions and answers missing!”, Officer Jackson turned around and went out of the room. His colleague looked confused. Apparently he didn’t understand why his partner had given up so quickly, but in the end he left the room, too.
As soon as they were out of sight, the forced smile in Hannah’s face turned into an angry expression. ‘Naive policemen. Your thoughts are blinded by your eyes. Men are so fore-seeable’ she thought. ‘And there may be another meeting, but not the way you would expect it to be, Officer.’

* * *

As the policemen left the room, they looked at Daniel accusingly as though he had helped his wife to commit suicide. He didn’t know whether to go into the room again or not. But his problem to make a decision had vanished as soon as Hannah got out of her room, fully dressed (well, in her pajamas in which she had arrived). She had tied her hair together and buttoned up her pyjamas until it covered her neck. “Are you coming or what?”, she barked without looking at him, but going straight to the reception. “Yeah, hi!”, Hannah said and lost the nice tone in her voice. “My name is Hannah Miller. I should stay one more night, but I want to leave. Now!”, the cold look in her eyes would even turn the meanest person in world to a little crying baby.
“B-B-But”, the nurse stuttered, too frightened to gainsay Hannah. “If the doctor told you to stay for another night you should do so.”
‘Oh, Lord’, Adam thought, but it wasn’t god who stopped Hannah from jumping over the reception and going for the nurses throat. It was doctor Reed.
“May I help you?”, he said calmly.
“You may get the paper which I’ll sign to get out of here!”
“It would be better for your sake not to leave the hospital in your momentary condition.”
“I’m fine and I want to leave now!”, for Hannah the conversation was over and she would leave the building, whether with permission or without.
“If you insist on leaving the hospital, I think there’s nobody who can stop you”, said the doctor, still calm.
“No there isn’t”, and she signed a paper which the nurse just got out of a drawer. Stamping, she left the hospital and it was hard for Daniel to keep up with her. Outside, however, was waiting a cab and bewildered Daniel and furious Hannah got inside.
“What’s the matter with you? You were acting like a fury in there!”, Daniel whispered after a while. He didn’t want the cab-driver to hear anything about their conversation, because most of them are tattlers.
“Don’t bother me!”, Hannah replied sharply.
“Could you please tell me why you became so angry from one moment to the other?”
“I think my life has become stressful in the last few weeks and in some situation I may overreact”, and suddenly the tone of her voice became friendly, nearly sadly again. “Can’t you get a few weeks off? I believe vacation is the best solution for me right now.”
‘I don’t believe you a word’, Daniel thought full of doubt. Something in her voice sounded dishonest and she wanted to hide it. They were married for eight years though and Adam could easily tell when she was lying. ‘I wonder what the policemen said to her.’ One could see that her whole mood had changed and for Adam there was just no reason which seemed plausible. “Of course we can go on vacation. Just tell me where to go.”
The cab stopped in front of the tower building. It had stopped raining and the sun shone beggarly through the clouds. A usual day, one would say, but for Daniel it had been the worse day in his life and he was glad that everything turned out well. He couldn’t think of something else to happen. Unfortunately for him, it always gets worse.
They paid the cab driver, who looked quite familiar to Daniel on closer inspection, and entered the underground garage. They didn’t want to go through the entrance hall, because Hannah wasn’t in the mood for answering questions about what had happened. The creepy feeling overcame Daniel when they were walking in the direction of the elevator. Steps on the grey concrete floor, a clicking noise, a bullet hitting the wall next to them. Daniel and Hannah turned around, looking shockingly into the angry distorted face of the cab driver, aiming a gun at them.
“Chris Gordon”, Daniel whispered unconscious.
“Finally we are meeting each other”, shouted Chris through the garage. “You fool took everything I loved.”
“What is he taking about?”, Hannah asked as if no gun was pointed at them and they were just having a nice conversation with an old friend.
“His ex-wife was a client of mine”, said Daniel and remembered.
“YOU FORCED HER TO LEAVE ME!”, Chris screamed, holding the revolver in his hand shakily. “You confused her so that she would leave me. And then you took my kids.”
“She was afraid of you, Chris. She thought if she wouldn’t leave, you would hit her or worse your children. And apparently she was right to be afraid of you, doing something stupid”, Daniel tried to sound calmly and suppressed his frightened feelings.
“Nonsense!”
“I never made her to leave you. Last week, she told me how happy she is-“
“Shut up, Shut up, Shut up! I know what you did last week. Did you always sleep with your clients?”
Bam. That question was like a punch in Daniel’s face and took his breath away. He didn’t dare to look at his wife. Daniel had bitterly hoped, his wife wouldn’t come to know that he hadn’t stopped cheating on her. Heat rose inside, visible in his face. ‘Did he have to tell her? She went through enough today and now a stranger told her that I cheated on her, again’, Daniel thought desperately.
“I will hurt you, like you did to me! Die, bastard!”, a quiet clicking noise and the bullets flew through the air. Instantly Daniel went flat and pulled Hannah down. After a few seconds the clicking sound was audible again. Chris emptied the clip.
Both lay on the hard grey floor and listened. Fast steps, a door slam and the engine of the cab started and soon wasn’t audible any longer. Slowly he and Hannah stood up, still bewildered of what just exactly happened. They were still alive, but as a matter of fact Daniel didn’t feel happy about it. Now he could understand why his wife couldn’t see any solution than to kill herself. He had cost her so much pain and even he felt like rubbish. Daniel looked into Hannah’s eyes, but it seemed she banned every emotion from her face. She turned around and waited for the elevator to come.
Torn of what to do, Daniel closed the door to apartment number fifty-three. Silence. It creeps inside whenever it disturbs the most. No one bothered to turn on the lights. Hannah went on the small balcony and Daniel stood in the center of the living-room, watching her. The clouds covered the sky and shadows took place in the small apartment which had been furnished so tastefully. Now everything seemed grey and bleak and unimportant to Daniel. The only thing he had done right in his life, and he was sure about it, was to marry Hannah. His knees become weak and he sat onto the couch. Without knowing exactly what he was doing he turned on the TV.
“A twenty nine years old woman was found in her room, strangulated”, a news reporter spoke loudly and behind him a picture of the woman was shown. ‘Catherine Potter’, Daniel recognized her on the picture. She was one of his affairs. ‘Coincidence? Hannah acted strange the whole day and spoke of a mistake she had done and than she wanted to go on vacation.’ Daniel stood up, without turning off the television and stepped outside.
“You killed her?”, the words blurt out, before he could think about it.
“Yes”, Hannah said briefly and knew exactly what he was talking about, didn’t show any sign of guiltiness or regret though.
“Why?”
“She deserved it. She was a slut and didn’t deserve to live for what she had done.”
“Didn’t I deserve to be alive, too? Only because of one mistake?”
“Yes!”, Hannah turned around, her eyes bloody red, punched him in his face and hustled him over the banister. For a second Daniel tried to crap the banister with his hand, but it was too slippery and so he fell five floors and right onto the wet street. Dead.
Trance-like Hannah got a scarf and tied it around her neck. The living-room was flooded with darkened sunlight when she climbed on a chair and attached the scarf at the ceiling. She breathed heavily and made sure that the scarf was attached correctly. Then she stepped into nothing and her trachea got corded up. Unable to breathe she hang in the living-room, unconsciously hearing the ending of a soap opera in the television:
“Have you met the perfect couple? The two soulmates whose love never dies? The two lovers whose relationship is never threatened? The husband and wife who trust each other completely? If you haven’t met the perfect couple, let me introduce you. They stand atop of a layer of butter-cream frosting. The secret of their success? Well, for starters: They don’t have to look at each other.”