Page 15 of Matchmaking for Psychopaths

I had no plans to attend the Children of Murdered Parents support group. That’s what I told myself on Thursday morning, as I sipped my coffee and sent Rebecca her first match.

When I was a teenager, my aunt repeatedly tried to get me to attend therapy.

“Anyone who has gone through what you have needs some support,” she’d insisted.

I wasn’t opposed to therapy as a concept.

After all, I had aspirations to become a therapist myself.

The issue that I had was that I felt therapy wouldn’t work for me specifically—not because I was special or some kind of unknowable being but because what I’d gone through was so awful that the run-of-the-mill psychologist wouldn’t know what to do with me.

In an attempt to placate my aunt, I went to a few sessions, during which I’d sat in utter silence until the hour was up. In my experience, nothing good could come from bringing up the past. Eventually my aunt agreed that it was a waste of money and allowed me to stop going.

The thing that appealed to me about Children of Murdered Parents was that I would have something in common with the other attendees.

To my knowledge, I’d never before interacted with anyone who also had a murdered parent—aside from my meeting with Rebecca.

What would it be like to be in a whole roomful of such people? Too bad I wouldn’t—couldn’t—know.

The man I matched Rebecca with was named Paul.

He’d been my client for a couple of months.

He’d proved difficult to match, because I worried that if I matched him with the wrong woman he would destroy her life.

The issue wasn’t that he was violent or cruel.

If anything, he was, similarly to Aidan, too charming.

He came into our first meeting and described the trail of women he’d left heartbroken.

“I didn’t want to hurt them,” Paul told me. “I like making people happy, and sometimes that means telling them what they want to hear, even if it’s not true.”

A misconception that people had about psychopaths was that their lies were always vicious.

Niceness, however, could also be cruel. Paul was the kind of man a woman went on a single date with and started imagining her first name combined with his last. He needed someone with a restrained heart—someone like Rebecca.

For a moment, I considered sending her Aidan instead, but his profile wasn’t ready, and something in my gut told me that he and Rebecca were wrong for each other.

Paul was everything that she’d asked for.

It was better, I thought, to start with someone whose flaws were knowable to me, unlike Aidan, whose mysteries were contained to a drunken night that I couldn’t remember.

While I waited for her response, I opened a Chinese takeout menu in my browser.

I was still trying to convince myself that I could have a good time without Molly.

I’d spent years of my life with no friends at all.

While the other kids at my high school were at parties, at sleepovers, going to prom, I was watching movies in my room.

That had been enough. When had I become so reliant upon another person? I vowed to reassert my independence.

My email dinged with a new message. It was from Rebecca.

I’m intrigued. Set up a date, she said.

Great! I replied.

Paul had already accepted. Of course he had. Rebecca was a catch.

I started making arrangements for their first date.

I closed out of the Chinese takeout menu, deciding that I would order a pizza for dinner instead.

The Children of Murdered Parents support group’s website stared at me from the screen.

I didn’t even remember opening it that morning, but I must have.

I closed out of that too. It didn’t mean anything.

I researched all sorts of things online.

I was finalizing the details of Rebecca’s date with Paul when I heard Nicole’s voice drift down the hallway.

She was in Serena’s office and had neglected to close the door.

I quietly stood up from my desk chair and tiptoed down the hallway so that I could make out individual words.

Oliver’s office was next to Serena’s, and he gave me a knowing glance as I passed by.

I raised my pointer finger to my lips in a shh motion.

“I’m so excited about the expansion,” Nicole said. “I’ve always told Ethan that I wished there were more Better Love locations. There are so many lonely people out there, and the work that we do really helps. It’s basically charity! How many branches do you think there’ll be?”

“We’ll see how the couple of locations do. We’ll open as many as we can sustain,” Serena told her.

“Wow, that’s amazing. Have I ever told you how much I look up to you? You’re such a girlboss. It’s so great to work for someone like you. You’ve shown me what it’s possible to achieve. I tell everyone that you’re basically like a second mom to me.”

I rolled my eyes at that comment. Nicole didn’t know the weight of the word “mom.” She had one of those mothers who commented about how beautiful her daughter was on every social media post she made.

She didn’t know that a mom was someone who could break your world as well as make it whole.

She didn’t understand the sacrifice that came with loving a person like that.

“Thank you. I appreciate it,” Serena replied.

Typically, I was good at gauging tone, but I often struggled to read Serena, as she was kind to everyone—which was decidedly different from liking everyone.

I struggled to parse whether she sincerely liked Nicole’s company or she was just good at faking it.

“There could be no bigger honor in this lifetime than taking over the role of director at this location,” Nicole continued. “I love love, and I love matchmaking. The way you’ve grown this company is so admirable, and I want to help further that growth.”

“You’ve certainly helped us in that department,” Serena told her.

Reluctantly, I had to admit that the compliment was accurate.

Clients liked Nicole. They liked how she looked like the greeting card section of a store.

Women appreciated how relatable she was—a true basic bitch—and men liked her conventional hotness.

In another industry, she might’ve been infantilized, but her sentimentality served her well in matchmaking.

Despite all that, I didn’t think she had what it took to be a leader.

She hadn’t totally shed her mean-girl persona from high school, and the little jabs she made in meetings led to her being a polarizing figure in the office.

She wanted to serve only the clients who were like her.

If she were put in charge, a lot of people would be left behind.

There were frequently characters like Nicole in romantic comedies.

The rival woman was good-looking enough to be a threat, but never as charming as the main character.

The viewer was supposed to root actively for her downfall; though, presented through a different lens, she probably had redeeming qualities.

For instance, Nicole’s cringeworthy style made me look fashionable in comparison.

Oliver agreed with my assessment.

“Nicole makes it impossible to respect her, with that little baby voice,” Oliver had told me on more than one occasion.

I stopped myself from marching into Serena’s office to declare Me! It should be me! as Nicole said, “Thank you so much. Everything I’ve achieved has been because of you.”

What a suck-up.

“Your name is on my list of contenders,” Serena said. “I hope to make an announcement soon.”

I crept off before Nicole emerged from the office.

Back at my desk, I seethed as I wrote clients emails like I’m glad your date went well!

Are you ready for round two? and I’m so pleased to present your next match!

I just know the two of you will hit it off .

To anyone who was watching, I was the perfect representative of love.

Inside, resentment ate away at me. I’d tried so hard to be the woman Noah had wanted, and still, he’d abandoned me for Molly.

I’d worked so hard at Better Love, taking on challenging clients, and despite that, Serena was considering Nicole for the director position.

Sometimes it felt like everything came easily to other people—friendship, love, stability—and I had to claw and scratch for even a scrap of what they had.

What was the point of all my efforts? It was so tempting to break the rules.

Parked outside the library, I pretended that I wasn’t there to attend the Children of Murdered Parents meeting.

I told myself that I would go inside, maybe check out a book.

I had a fondness for libraries, as I’d spent significant portions of my teenage years inside of one in order to get away from my aunt’s house.

Considering that I’d been getting most of my recent reads from Noah’s mother, I probably needed a new source of books while I worked to win Noah back.

I walked inside, pretended to browse the new fiction titles, and eyed the meeting room’s closed door, which had a sign that said COMP taped to the outside.

Internally, I expanded the abbreviation to “Children of Murdered Parents.” Though I was totally sober, entering the room didn’t feel entirely different from Saturday night, when I’d gotten drunk, danced on a table, and spilled my deepest, darkest secrets to an attractive man I believed I’d never see again.

Since Molly and Noah had told me about their affair, the world had taken on a dreamlike quality.

I was making decisions that I wouldn’t ordinarily make.

I was jeopardizing my future with Better Love by attempting to see a client outside the office, and it wasn’t even for sex.

Was I really prepared to tell strangers about my murdered father in order to befriend a psychopath?