Page 1 of Matchmaking for Psychopaths

The wedding was the end of the story. That was true in romantic comedies and classic novels alike. There was a woman (overworked and undersexed) and a man (rich and hot) who underwent a series of trials and tribulations until they finally found their way together.

I grew up on stories like that. My mother loved romantic comedies.

It was a facet of her personality that might have been surprising for people who were familiar with her only from tabloid stories or podcasts that described her as someone who was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

We would spend evenings together in front of the television—just the two of us—curled up on the couch with a pile of snacks, watching the hilarious escapades of people falling for one another.

I’d never bought into the moral panic surrounding television consumption, whether it was in response to too much violence or to too much sex.

People were more than their viewing habits.

Still, those nights with my mother were some of the most influential times of my life, impacting not only my romantic dreams but my career aspirations as well.

“Was it like that when you and Dad met?” I asked her once after we finished watching When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle . After a while, all the films started to run together. Two people met; they fell in love; the end.

She smiled. For most people, smiling was a friendly gesture, but there was a viciousness to my mother’s grin.

“What your father and I have can never be captured,” she told me.

I’d idolized the two of them, their love, even as I’d witnessed the brutal conclusion of their relationship.

My own wedding took place on the kind of perfect spring day that looked like it had been orchestrated by a production crew.

Like in the romantic comedies that my mother and I were so fond of watching, the pathway to the altar had been circuitous.

There was drama, heartbreak, and even a little death, but it was all worth it, because I’d landed exactly where I was supposed to be.

“Do you want another mimosa?” the maid of honor asked.

“I’d love another one,” I told her. “Go light on the orange juice. Very light.”

Downstairs, I could hear guests filtering into the chapel.

It was exhilarating to consider that not only did a man love me enough to legally declare his devotion to me but there was a whole crowd of people who wanted to witness it happening.

I’d experienced an enormous amount of loneliness in my youth, isolation that I worried marked my skin like smallpox.

The sound of chatter below served as reassurance that all of that was behind me.

I’d witnessed things that were horrific, had been mocked and terrorized by my peers, and I’d come out the other side of everything as a bride in her wedding gown.

Neither of my parents were in attendance, for obvious reasons.

“Are you nervous?” the maid of honor asked as she handed me my drink.

“No.”

It wasn’t exactly true. I wasn’t nervous about the groom, as there had never been two people who were more right for each other than us.

The issue was more that I was eager to get the ceremony over with.

The wedding was the end of the story, but only once the couple said I do . Before that, anything could happen.

For the first time that day, I was left alone in the room, and I examined my reflection in the mirror, admiring the way the dress flattered my curves.

Generally, I considered myself to be an attractive person.

My face was nice enough, with deep brown eyes that men liked to call “mysterious,” and I had brown hair that refused to be categorized as either curly or straight.

My body was passable as well, though I’d never been one of those people who threw themselves into strenuous fitness routines.

I preferred to spend my free time on the couch, reading books or watching reality television.

My real strength was my ability to read people.

I could look at someone and understand what it was they wanted, a skill that came in handy both in the workplace and in personal relationships.

Despite that skill, finding true love hadn’t been an easy venture.

If I saw others as transparent panes of glass, I was a brick wall.

I didn’t know how to open up, let people in, and as a result, most of my connections remained at surface level.

It was the rare person who could breach my boundaries to become a friend, and even rarer to find someone worthy of romance.

The events that ultimately led to my wedding day were so tragic, so comic, that no screenwriter could’ve plucked them out of their head.

Then again, that was how a romantic comedy functioned—a series of increasingly embarrassing escapades until two people realized they were in love.

There was a knock on the door. I opened it with a smile, expecting to be greeted by a friend or my future mother-in-law. Instead, there was a box.

The box was the same shade of white as my dress, and secured with a pink bow on top.

I looked around to see who had left it, and found the hallway empty.

I pulled it into the room with me, noting that my hands had begun to shake.

It was possible that I was nervous after all.

It was probably better to cut back on the champagne until the ceremony was completed.

The box was awkwardly large, and I sat down, then placed it across my legs, untied the bow, and slowly removed the top.

I reassured myself that everything was still good.

It was ordinary for a bride to receive gifts on her wedding day—or at least that’s what I’d gleaned from dating shows that I’d watched.

Maybe the groom had written me a poem or gotten me a monogrammed keepsake.

However, as I rooted through the tissue paper inside, it became apparent that the question was not so much what was in the box but who .

A shriek came out of my throat as my fingers touched something hard that revealed itself to be bone.

The distance between a romantic comedy and a horror film was never as great as people wanted it to be.