I don't know why I always come back to that day. Maybe because the light hit differently, bleeding gold between the shelves. Maybe because your laugh broke through the silence, rough and real, like it belonged to me the moment I heard it.

You weren't supposed to matter. Not to me. Not to the life I thought I was meant to live. But you did. You still do.

Every word you spoke, I kept like pressed flowers. Every glance, I folded away like fragile paper. And now, in the stillness of my nights, I find myself writing you into existence, afraid of forgetting what it felt like-your hand brushing mine, your voice calling me back to earth.

People tell me days pass quickly, that time steals everything. But I don't believe that. Not when I still feel the weight of you in every borrowed second.

There are thirty-one days in July. But the 30th was ours.

And if I could, I'd live it forever. My dearest Jude.”

Elias slammed his journal shut by the time he finished his diary entry for this night. His doctor said it was mandatory to jog up his lost memories- although he highly doubts that the doctor wanted to read his sob story. He couldn't bare to write another sentence after that name. How could he even possibly move forward now when he, himself still hasn't moved from the past.

Dragging himself to get up and go to bed, he paused as soon as he passed by the windows. Rain was pouring like it was post-draught. Elias stared at the people with their umbrellas, some running from street to street as they tried to avoid being wet and splashed by hurrying cars.

Yeah... It was like this night. He thought as that familiar grief settled in the pit of his stomach. 

Elias had been pacing around the apartment like a caged animal for the past 3 hours. Rain is thundering on the rooftop and the city could be barely seen clearly from this floor. He bit his nails, brushed his hair off his forehead and cussed more than he could count. Who wouldn't be anxious in his state? Jude didn't come home.

He checked his phone once more, hoping to get a reply from his 20th message, yet nothing. However, by the time he was losing hope, the apartment's door creaked open. And there was Jude, soaked in rain. The man had his eyes glued away, as if he already expected Elias to be waiting for him.

"Where were you?" Elias asked as soon as Jude removed his shoes. Quietly, like he rehearshed that line ten times already in his head.

"I went out for a walk" he got an equally quiet response.

And Jude's words almost made him bark a sardonic laugh, bitterness playing in his throat. "In the rain?"

"I didn't know it was gonna rain."

Again. Another deflected question with ease.

Elias clenched his teeth and held back from saying anything harsh. No... He wouldn't dare to hurt Jude. That was never his intention. He wanted to fix things. He had wanted nothing but to be together.

The question remained in the back of his head. Jude must feel the same way. And he couldn't do anything about it. Since this man in front of him had every reason to leave him.

"You're... slipping away. Aren't you?" His voice trembled when he asked the question he never wanted to acknowledge that it existed in his head all this time. He didn't want to keep on asking, yet as if his lips were possessed of his anxiousness that he kept on talking.

By the time he snapped out of it, Jude was already long gone.

Elias only needed to hold onto Jude's hand.