“What was Mom like in high school?” the boy asked one rainy afternoon, curled up on the couch in his pajamas.

Paul smirked, setting down his phone and ruffling his son’s hair. “Your mom? Oh, she was a menace—with a red pen and a scary high ponytail.”

From the kitchen, you paused, mug halfway to your lips.

“I was... let’s just say, not the sharpest tool in the shed. I barely passed anything, always forgot homework, and once wrote an essay on the wrong book. Your mom? Two years ahead in math, corrected the teachers, probably could’ve recited the periodic table in her sleep.”

“Whoa,” the boy whispered.

Paul nodded. “I sat behind her in class. First time she talked to me, she handed back my test—covered in red marks—and said, ‘You got three questions right. Out of thirty.’”

From the kitchen, you tried (and failed) not to laugh.

“But here’s the thing,” Paul continued, “every time I struggled, she helped. Every time I slacked off, she’d roll her eyes, smack me with her notebook, and make me try again. I got detention once for copying homework, and she didn’t yell. She just looked disappointed. And that hurt way worse.”

“Did you like her even then?” his son asked.

Paul smiled. “I liked her before I even knew how to spell ‘algebra.’ I’d pretend not to understand just so she’d lean in and explain it again. I lived for her sarcastic comments and red ink scribbles.”

A voice called from the kitchen: “You were impossible.”

Paul turned, grinning. “You loved it.”

You leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, eyebrow raised. “I tolerated it.”

“Which is basically love,” Paul said, winking at his son.

“She used to bring me snacks when I passed a quiz. Little things like that. No one else believed I’d graduate—except her. And when I finally walked across that stage, she was there, grinning like I was the valedictorian.”

Your son stared, wide-eyed and quiet.

Paul pulled him close and said, voice soft:

“And that, kiddo... that’s how I met your mom.”