“You know, there’s a rule that you’re not supposed to run in the hallways,” I admonished, ruffling his silky black hair. “You could get hurt.”

“I know. That’s how I got this,” he said before thrusting up his leg for me to inspect, a healing graze tracking down his shin. If anything, he looked proud.

I smirked. “What’s your name?”

“Austin, and I’m three years old.” He finished by raising four fingers to reiterate his age.

“Well, Austin, do you know where your parents are?”

Austin pressed a finger to his lips to shush me. “I’m playing hide and seek. You know a place?”

My lips tried stretching into a grin. Nope, don’t laugh. “Austin… Does your mother know you’re playing hide and seek?”

His brow furrowed, thinking hard when a worried voice carried from afar. “Austin, where are you? Austin?!”

The young boy turned and sprinted towards the strained call that sounded almost familiar. Then Austin tackled someone who rounded the corner. She immediately dropped to pick him up, attention solely focused on him—whilst mine was focused on her.

My chest abruptly tightened, causing my nervous system to spasm from shock. Struck frozen as a statue, I couldn't move, even if I tried.

Alexis. God, she was beautiful.

Over the years, I had fawned over her memory, coveted every detail of the past life we shared. She was my favourite dream—one I simultaneously adored and loathed. Because of her, I could never move on—would never move on.

Even then. Seeing her in the flesh for the first time in four and a half years had me losing all my faculties, all my damn senses.

Alexis is here. That’s when stark realisation whipped me across the face. After being in her presence again, I knew nothing would ever compare to the real her.

Awareness slowly filtered back into my arrested state as Austin giggled.

“You found me, Mama! I didn’t get to hide yet.”

Mama?

“Austin, I told you, you can’t run off like that. You can’t play hide and seek without the other person knowing. It’s dangerous, baby. What if you got lost? What if someone stole you?”

“Mister, were you going to steal me?” Austin pitched my way.

Shit! Abort, abort.

That’s when Alexis noticed she had company. Almost in slow motion, I could see the colour drain from her face as her eyes meticulously tracked up and down my frame.

I wasn’t even breathing. How could I?

My ex-wife I still loved above all others was standing in front of me… with her son.

I had come a long way in the past four and a half years, working hard on myself, trying to find fulfilment after drowning in my depression for so long.