Page 18 of Matchmaking for Psychopaths

I ’d set up the date for Rebecca and Paul for Saturday night.

In addition to our matching services, Better Love had connections with local restaurants that allowed us to get reservations at places that were booked months in advance.

I got Rebecca and Paul a table at one of my favorite restaurants.

I wasn’t going on the date, but with my level of excitement as I made the plans, I might as well have been.

My own social calendar remained achingly blank. I hadn’t heard from Noah since the night that he’d ended things—“paused,” not “ended.” I told myself that nothing was truly over with him, not yet.

I was less perturbed by the absence of his physical presence than by the cessation of his messages. Because he spent so much time at the hospital, a lot of our relationship had consisted of notes that he wrote on Post-its like he was filling out a prescription pad with pills for love.

Have a great day, beautiful, he left on my bedside table.

I left something sweet for you in the fridge, said one stuck to the counter.

I wish I could spend the day with you, said one on the door to the garage.

During his breaks from work, he would send me texts that reinforced what the notes said.

Because of the constant reminders of adoration, I never had to question whether he loved me.

It was written—literally—all over the home that we shared together.

Such correspondence had continued all the way up until the day that he left me, and the sudden termination came as a shock to the system.

I thought of a date with Aidan as a way of making Noah jealous, and then pushed the idea aside. Jealousy worked only when the person I wanted to feel it was looking at me, and Noah, it seemed, had forgotten me completely.

Are you going to come get your things? I messaged him on Friday.

I carefully considered my strategy before I pressed send .

Men were very sensitive when they perceived that women close to them were experiencing emotion.

The most important thing was to avoid coming off as hysterical.

All women, regardless of how cool, calm, and collected they felt internally, were at risk of falling into the trap of hysteria.

Get dumped and feel bad about it? Hysterical.

Expect your romantic partner to care about your feelings?

Absolutely insane. “Hysteria” was another word for “feelings,” except that it applied specifically to feelings that men disliked.

It created an impossible bind. Women weren’t allowed to express displeasure or heartbreak, or to suggest that any men had wronged them.

It meant that the only way to get Noah back was to pretend that I was unaffected by the things that he’d done.

Dots immediately popped up on the screen, indicating that Noah was typing something, and then disappeared.

Each time my phone buzzed during the rest of the day, I hurriedly picked it up thinking that there was a message from him, only for it to be from Rebecca.

She was the only thing in my life that wasn’t consistently proving to be a disappointment.

The two of us had been chatting nonstop, recapping all of our favorite shows.

It was like bingeing on friendship, catching up on the years when we hadn’t known each other.

Did you watch the season where Lulu released her album?

Yes!!! Secretly, I kind of loved it.

Oh, I know. She’s a terrible singer, which makes it better in my opinion.

It wasn’t until I was in the shower the following morning that Noah finally got back to me. I got out, naked and shivering, grateful that Noah was unable to witness my eagerness to hear from him. Nothing killed a relationship faster than wanting to be in contact with someone.

Can I come by tonight?

Yes. Noah in the town house. It was a more promising response than I’d expected.

I saw a vision of the two of us standing at the altar, our eyes meeting as he slipped onto my finger the ring that signified forever .

I didn’t let any of that come through the phone.

As far as Noah knew, I was the ice queen.

I have plans at 8, so it has to be fast.

There were no plans at eight. Rebecca would still be on her date, my mother in prison, and I had no one else to call, but pretending I was busy seemed a surefire way of protecting myself from charges of hysteria.

He couldn’t know how much I wanted to see him, how certain I was that he was going to come back.

I dedicated the day to getting ready for Noah’s arrival.

It was a twisted version of my birthday—rather than being about me it would be about us .

I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s where I’d gone wrong to begin with.

Had I spent too much time focused on my own needs?

Maybe I should’ve been the one planning surprise parties during the long hours that Noah was at work.

My first stop was the flower shop.

I didn’t used to understand the appeal of flowers.

“Flowers die,” my mother had told me, before extolling all the virtues of diamonds.

Though my mother’s statement was melodramatic, she wasn’t totally wrong. I couldn’t figure out the purpose of spending money on something that would wither within a few days. At least a bottle of champagne or a nice cut of fish would provide me some physical pleasure.

Then Noah had bought me flowers for our first Valentine’s Day.

I’d come home from work exhausted. We always got a rush of new clients in February.

People were trying to make good on their New Year’s resolutions; they were cold, and the holiday reminded them of how alone they were.

Even psychopaths weren’t immune to that kind of pressure.

On top of the new clients, my existing clients needed assistance with making reservations, and figuring out the right gestures to cement their relationships.

It was my responsibility to make sure that none of my newly matched couples fell apart because they’d gifted each other too much too soon or nothing at all.

I hadn’t expected Noah to do anything for Valentine’s Day. He’d left me a note in the morning.

I love you.

After that, he’d disappeared into the abyss of the hospital. I figured that neither of us had the capacity to plan anything, and that was fine. I’d spent the holiday alone for the majority of my life, and there was no reason that I couldn’t continue the pattern.

The flowers were waiting outside the door. A bouquet of a dozen roses in a vase. The card: You’re my match.

“You must be freezing,” I’d said to the flowers, and brought them inside.

I coveted them like a new pet. I trimmed the stems, gave them food, kept them alive for as long as possible.

Noah wasn’t able to make it home in time for dinner, and it didn’t matter.

I ordered a heart-shaped pizza and ate it on the couch, with my bouquet sitting next to me.

Suddenly I understood that flowers were special because they died.

They served no purpose. They weren’t nourishing or healing.

They were the ultimate extravagance, an ephemeral kind of beauty.

My mother couldn’t appreciate that. Then again, my mother was a murderer.

As much as she thought otherwise, her tastes were rarely indicative of objective truth.

I went to the florist because I wanted to remind Noah of that night.

He’d seen how much I liked the bouquet and he’d set up an order for a weekly delivery, a recurring gift that had stopped after he revealed his infidelity.

I hoped that when he saw the bouquet he would assume that I had a suitor.

I couldn’t use Aidan to make him jealous, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t use jealousy as a strategy.

I would fabricate a man out of air if I needed to.

When I saw the broad shoulders, the gray hat, and the jacket in front of me in line, a ding of recognition sounded in my brain.

Noah. It’s Noah. He’s here and he’s buying me flowers.

I reached my arm forward and tapped him on the shoulder. The man turned.

“Lexie.”

It wasn’t Noah at all, but Aidan. I was horrified at my mistake.

I’d heard of clients making similar gaffes.

We were making love and I accidentally called him my ex’s name.

He’s so mad at me, but I didn’t mean it.

I don’t think about my ex anymore, not consciously.

I don’t know where that came from. Can you perform an exorcism?

Erase him from my brain? I was grateful that at least I hadn’t spoken Noah’s name out loud.

I was the only one who knew what my psyche had done, switching out one man for another.

I could imagine the smug look on Aidan’s face if he knew.

“Aidan.”

“It seems like we can’t avoid each other,” he said.

There were two people in front of him in line.

The woman ordering asked questions as though she’d never seen a flower before in her life.

I needed to go. I had food to put in the oven.

I was uncomfortable with the way Aidan was looking at me.

I wished that I’d put on makeup before leaving the house.

“Yes, it’s weird, isn’t it?” I replied. “Do you have a hot date tonight?”

He was holding a prearranged bouquet. He glanced down at the flowers like he’d forgotten they were in his hands.

“No. I’m still waiting for you to find the love of my life—remember? These are for me. Men can buy themselves flowers too, you know. What about you? Did your fiancé come crawling back, as you predicted?”

“Yes, actually. We’re seeing each other tonight. He’s coming over.”

The line hadn’t moved. I shifted impatiently. I’d never been good at waiting.

“Well, I hope that it works out for the two of you.”

Aidan’s tone indicated the opposite of his stated sentiment. He leaned in closer. He was always doing that, the kind of psychopath who didn’t understand boundaries.

“Does he know?” he asked.

“Know what?”