Dr. Vivian Cross had been a breakup coach for thirty-seven years, which was impressive considering she looked thirty-two and had been alive since the Crimean War. The “Dr.” was honorary. She’d attended medical school in 1889 but never technically graduated on account of eating the dean. Her clients didn’t need to know that.
Her office was in a converted brownstone in a gentrifying neighborhood where organic juice bars shared walls with check-cashing stores. There was a discreet brass plaque by the door, soundproofed walls, and a waiting room that smelled like lavender and absolutely not like the blood bags in the mini-fridge labeled “Lunch: Do Not Touch.”
She was good at her job. Unnaturally good, some might say, though no one ever did because that would be rude. When you’ve personally watched your husband age and die in 1872, then done it again in 1923, and again in 1967 (she really should have learned her lesson), you develop a certain expertise in grief processing.
Her Yelp rating was 4.9 stars. The missing 0.1 was from Marcus T., who complained that her advice to “let go and move forward with your life” felt “almost hypnotic.” It was.
It had been four months, two weeks, and five days since Vivian had fed properly. The blood bags were fine, like drinking flat soda when you’re craving champagne, but she missed actual human blood, fresh from the source, with the kick of adrenaline that made her feel alive. Well, animated. Whatever.
She’d made a promise to herself after the incident in 2019, when a stockbroker cheated on his wife with his sister-in-law and then with both women’s yoga instructors. Some people just needed to be removed from the dating pool. Since then she would be ethical. She would be controlled. She would subsist on blood bank donations and absolutely, definitely not murder anyone unless it was an emergency.
The problem was, she was starting to reconsider what constituted an emergency.
“So then he texted me ‘K,'” Jennifer was saying, her voice rising at the end of every sentence. “Just the letter K. Not ‘okay,’ not even ‘kk,’ just K. What does that even mean, Dr. Cross?”
Vivian’s left eye twitched. She’d been seeing Jennifer twice a week for six weeks. The ex-boyfriend in question had broken up with Jennifer via Post-It note (classy guy), and Jennifer was having trouble moving on, mainly because she kept inventing excuses to text him.
“Jennifer,” Vivian said, her voice remarkably steady considering she could hear Jennifer’s pulse from across the room, “we’ve discussed this. You need to implement the no-contact rule. Block his number. Delete his socials. Do not…”
“But what if he’s trying to reach out and I miss it?”
“He sent you the letter K.”
“Maybe it was autocorrect!”
Vivian’s fingernails dug into the leather armrest of her chair. She’d been filing them twice daily to keep them blunt. “The letter K cannot be autocorrect, Jennifer. It’s a letter.”
“But what if…”
“Jennifer.” The word came out sharper than intended, with a slight echo that made the lamp flicker. Vivian cleared her throat. “I think we should explore why you’re resistant to closure. Let’s try a visualization exercise. Look at me.”
Jennifer looked up, and Vivian let just a little bit of magic slip into her voice. Nothing major. Just a nudge. “You are going to go home, block Tyler’s number, and resist the urge to contact him for one full week. Do you understand?”
“I… yes. One week.”
“Good.” Vivian smiled, making sure to keep her lips closed. “Same time Thursday?”
After Jennifer left, Vivian opened her mini-fridge and drank two blood bags in rapid succession, not bothering with a glass. They tasted like pennies and disappointment.
The first call came at 11:47 PM. Jennifer skipped hello.
“Dr. Cross? It’s Jennifer. I’m sorry to call so late, but I just saw Tyler posted an Instagram story at Birch & Barley (that’s the restaurant where we had our first date) and he was with someone, I couldn’t see who, but she had blonde hair and I have blonde hair, so do you think he’s trying to make me jealous, or…”
Vivian hung up and put her phone on silent.
The second call came at 1:23 AM. Vivian watched it ring, her eyes reflecting the screen’s glow in the darkness of her bedroom. She didn’t need to sleep, but she liked to. It was one of the few remaining human habits that brought her comfort. The third call came at 3:41 AM, and this time she picked up.
“Jennifer, it is nearly four in the morning.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I just…” There was ugly crying on the other end. “I texted him. I know you said not to, but I texted him and he left me on read, Dr. Cross, he read it and didn’t respond, what does that mean?”
“It means,” Vivian said, her voice very calm and very cold, “that you need to go to sleep, Jennifer. We will discuss this in our session.”
“But…”
“Sleep. Now.”
The magic worked through phone lines. It was one of her more useful discoveries from the 1990s.
Halloween had always been Vivian’s favorite holiday, for obvious reasons. People expected monsters on Halloween, and you could bare your fangs at a party and someone would compliment your commitment to the costume.
She had three sessions scheduled before the evening, then a charity fundraiser at the botanical gardens. “Supposed to attend” being the operative phrase, because at 2:15 PM her carefully maintained composure began to crack.
Client #1 was Brian, a software engineer who’d been dumped six months ago and was, in Vivian’s professional opinion, doing completely fine but had started treating therapy as a social outlet because he was lonely. He spent forty-five minutes on his Hinge matches.
Client #2 was Melissa, who’d broken up with her girlfriend and wanted to get back together but was too proud to apologize for sleeping with her CrossFit trainer. “Do you think if I just show up at her Halloween party tonight, she’ll see it as romantic?” No, Melissa. No, she would not.
Client #3 was a new intake, probably a single session. The form said his name was Fallon Sutton, age thirty-four, recently separated. Fallon was seven minutes late, and he was not alone.
“Sorry,” Fallon said, ushering in a petite woman with shell-shocked eyes. “This is Amanda. My ex-wife. I thought it might be helpful if we both came? For, like, closure?”
Vivian held her smile in place by force. “You brought your ex-wife. To your individual breakup coaching session.”
“Right, yeah, I know it’s unconventional, but I really think if we talk through things with a professional mediator, Amanda will understand why I had to make the choices I made.”
Amanda looked like she wanted to dissolve into the floor.
“What choices,” Vivian asked, very quietly, “did you make, Fallon?”
“Well, I mean, the affair was really more of a symptom of our communication issues.”
“He slept with my sister,” Amanda said, her voice hollow. “For eight months. They’re engaged now.”
Vivian went very still.
“Right, but that’s a very reductive way of looking at it,” Fallon said.
Vivian stood. She was five-foot-eight, but when she wanted to, she could make herself seem much larger, and the shadows in the corners of her office grew longer. “Did you tell Amanda you were bringing her here today?”
“I mean, I mentioned it might be good for her to get professional help processing everything.”
“Did she agree to come?”
Fallon shifted. “I told her if she didn’t come, I’d contest the divorce and drag it out. She wants it over with before Thanksgiving, so…”
“So you coerced your ex-wife, whom you cheated on with her own sister, into attending a therapy session under threat of legal manipulation.”
“That’s not… I mean, when you put it like that…”
Vivian tilted her head. In the afternoon light through the blinds, her eyes caught the sun wrong, reflecting like an animal’s. “Amanda, would you like to leave?”
Amanda nodded, tears streaming down her face.
“Then go. The session is free. Fallon will not contest the divorce.” She looked at Fallon, and her voice dropped low enough to rattle the pens on her desk. “Will you, Fallon?”
“I… I won’t contest the divorce.”
Amanda fled, and the door clicked shut behind her.
“Okay, that was really unprofessional,” Fallon said, his confidence returning now that his human shield was gone. “I’m definitely reporting you to whatever board you answer to.”
“There is no board, Fallon.”
“And I’m leaving a review, because this is a textbook case of…”
“Fallon, do you know what I am?”
He blinked. “What?”
Vivian smiled, and this time she did not hide her teeth.
“Oh,” Fallon said.
She did not feed on him right away. Vivian was a professional, and there were loose ends. She slid his phone across the desk and told him to sit down. “You’re going to call Amanda. You’ll tell her you’ve been thinking it over and you’re signing the papers, no contest. You’ll tell her you need time away and you’re leaving town. Indefinitely. You’ll sound sorry.”
Fallon’s hands shook as he dialed. His voice, when Amanda picked up, came out thin and hoarse, and it needed no coaching at all. Vivian listened to every word with her chin propped on her hand. When he hung up, she thanked him for his cooperation and drew the blinds.
The botanical gardens were done up beautifully, all orange lights and tasteful cobwebs. Vivian arrived at 7:30 PM in a vintage black dress and a string of pearls that had belonged to a countess in 1908. She didn’t need a costume.
She’d cleaned up carefully. Fallon’s body was in a storage unit she rented under a fake name, ready to be disposed of tomorrow. She’d fed for the first time in months, and while the guilt lingered, it was dimmed by the satisfaction of knowing that Fallon Sutton would never threaten another ex-wife again. Also, he’d tasted like energy drinks and poor life choices. She’d need a palate cleanser.
“Dr. Cross!”
Vivian turned to find Amanda standing by the punch bowl, looking remarkably composed for someone who’d been sobbing four hours earlier.
“Amanda. I’m surprised to see you here.”
“It’s for the women’s shelter,” Amanda said. “I bought tickets months ago, before everything.” She studied Vivian carefully. “I wanted to thank you. After I left your office, Fallon called me. Said he’d been thinking it over and he was going to sign the papers, no contest. He sounded really different. Shaken up, maybe.”
“How nice.”
“Yeah.” Amanda paused. “He also said he was leaving town for a while. ‘Indefinitely,’ he said.”
“Good for him,” Vivian said. “Sometimes people need a fresh start.”
“Definitely.” Amanda glanced at Vivian’s dress. “No costume?”
“I’m a vampire,” Vivian said, deadpan. “Just a very subtle one.”
Amanda laughed, really laughed, probably for the first time in months. “Well, it’s convincing. Very method.” She held up her glass. “Thank you, Dr. Cross. Really. You gave me something I didn’t think I could have.”
“What’s that?”
“Closure.”
After Amanda drifted away, Vivian found herself smiling, a real smile this time, not the professional one she wore like a mask. Yes, she’d killed someone. Yes, she’d broken her promise to herself. Yes, she would feel guilty about it tomorrow when the blood high wore off. But sometimes, she thought, watching Amanda chat with friends and actually smile, the right person needed to be removed from the equation. Sometimes mercy looked like monster.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Jennifer: “One week no contact done! Feeling so much better. Thank you for everything!!!”
Vivian typed back: “Proud of you. See you Thursday.”
She helped herself to a glass of wine and wandered through the party. Someone had set up a photo booth with props. A DJ was playing “Monster Mash.” There were tiny quiches. Dr. Vivian Cross, breakup coach, vampire, occasional murderer, took a bite of brie and decided that some exes really did deserve to vanish into the night.
