For six months now they'd been together. Francis was happy, for the most part. They didn't fight often, but when they did, it was bad.
Mostly, though, they laughed together and had fun and teased one another and in general just enjoyed each other's company.
They had met in a coffee shop, on a day Francis had been down in the dumps. The charming Scot approached him and tried to cheer him up with a couple of rather lame jokes and a few lopsided grins. Francis was definitely cheered up. They had a long conversation and ended up going home with each others numbers.
Allistair had been the first to call, and invited Francis out to lunch the next day.
Their relationship slowly got more and more serious, but Francis still wouldn't commit to sex. He was raised to believe it was a sacred thing that should only be shared when two people in love were bound by marriage.
So he kept denying the Scotsman's advances.
At first, Allistair would easily back off, but then he started to ask for it more and more, until Francis was ready to throw him out and slam the door in his face.
Lately, Allistair hadn't been pushing so hard for it, and for that Francis was glad.
It happened fast, and Francis never saw it coming.
Allistair proposed one day, out of the blue, in the middle of a park they'd been walking through.
Francis was shocked, but he said yes.
He loved Allistair, no matter what his faults.
He felt confident after that, and that night, they had a long night of hard, wild, passionate sex until the sun peeked over the horizon in the morning.
Francis had passed out, too spent to get up.
When he woke up, Allistair was gone. At first, he thought maybe that he had just gone to work. So, he got up (despite the aching in his body), showered, and went to where Allistair worked.
The foreman informed him that Allistair had quit that morning.
When Francis went back home, he discovered all of Allistair's things were gone. Including the ring he had set on the nightstand.
In a panic, he went to Allistair's apartment.
It was empty.
He never cried harder in his life than he did that night.
Allistair's number had been deleted from his phone, too.
And his email.
And all of their pictures together.
Francis was completely broken-hearted. He had thought they'd been so in love, but evidently he was wrong.
Allistair had never loved him.
It was all just a game.
He just wanted to get into Francis' pants. There was never any love.
Francis didn't eat for days. He spent most of his time crying, or painting Allistair from his memory, or writing poems, or crying some more. He couldn't sleep in his own bed anymore. He could barely sleep at all.
He was waiting. Waiting for Allistair to come back. Waiting for someone he knew, deep down, would never return.
His neighbors, Arthur and Alfred, had noticed something was amiss, and both had tried to help Francis deal with his heartache, but there was nothing they could do.
Francis waited for ten years. He opened up a little coffee shop, and stayed in his same small apartment, andwaited. He wasn't even supposed to be in Scotland for a year, much less ten. But still, he tried to hold on hope, and waited for Allistair to come back.
But he never did.
One morning, Arthur came over with some lunch for Francis, wanting to talk to him about moving on and using the food as an excuse to be over.
He found Francis dead in the bathtub, with his chest wide open and empty, and his bloody heart held tightly in his hand. Written on the wall, in Francis' blood, was a simple message.
"You forgot something when you left me."