"Dude, your mom is so… chill," I said, dodging a plasma bolt.
But I just smiled and picked up my controller. The storm was passing. The AC would kick back on soon. And I had learned something that summer: seeing someone clearly—as a friend, a mother, a whole human—was a lot more interesting than any fantasy. My frnd hot mom
She smiled, and it wasn't a flirty smile or a staged one. It was a tired, genuine, mom smile. "No, he's not. He's stubborn and he leaves his socks everywhere. But you see the good stuff. That's a gift." "Dude, your mom is so… chill," I said,
Mrs. Delgado was hot. That was still a fact, like gravity or the price of gas. But the story wasn't about that. The story was about a sixteen-year-old kid who stopped seeing a "hot mom" and started seeing Elena—the woman who could beat you at Scrabble, who cried at dog commercials, and who, when Leo finally went to college, would be the one left behind, drinking her iced coffee alone in a quiet kitchen. The AC would kick back on soon
"Now."
"You're a good friend to him, you know," she said, looking at me directly. Not at my acne, not at my too-big t-shirt, but at me . "He's been happier this year. Quieter at home, but happier. That's because of you."
Leo and I were in the basement, playing a video game where we blew up aliens. Upstairs, Mrs. Delgado was on a Zoom call for her landscape architecture job. Her voice drifted down, calm and professional.