Step mom remarried but i don't think he grew up with her so no reason to call her mom
Well,
then that is even more fucked. Okay, so the MC isn't related to her? Then what is their relationship, and why isn't it at all touched on before they finish their conversation? They were so familiar with each other, I assumed she was his mother (despite him insta-perving on her with zero hesitation). Again, piss poor writing. He just zaps out of the hospital into this house and has a conversation with her as if he was talking with his mom after coming home from school on any other mundane afternoon.
But he isn't. He just jumped in a cab to come to this place after being in a coma caused by an accident where his father died, and apparently I'm the only one bothered by this event; cause the MC and this mystery woman couldn't give less of a fuck about it. It's almost as if these 'characters' don't at all react like sane human beings given the circumstances we're
told that they're in. This is George Lucas levels of 'tell, don't show' going on here.
Either the MC and this woman are close enough to slot right back in together into that household, in which case again their blasé attitude towards the death of a loved one and a traumatic life changing event is 'ejection seat through the canopy' levels of breaking my immersion. Or they're so distant as to perhaps not want to open up to each other about the incident, except then why is the MC again acting like he's come home after spending a day at school? You can't have it both ways. The entire exchange is off-putting, incongruous, and downright weird. She's trying to hook him up with a pool cleaning job for the neighbor and telling him to raid the fridge if he gets hungry; the sort of thing you might do on a mundane afternoon,
not what I'd expect after returning home for the first time post coma and dad dying.
Also she drops the bomb that his birthday was a week ago, back when he was still in recovery and physical therapy, and she did get him a phone but couldn't be bothered to go visit to give it to him. Not only that, be the MC thanks her for it and she responds likewise. They're both acting like she did him a favor, that she was nice to him; rather than the fact that she just admitted to missing the birthday of a someone suffering through post-coma physical therapy and recent patricide and couldn't be bothered for a whole week to get herself down there to say hello or give him the gift.
That is supremely fucked up. Without mitigating circumstances, that was just downright callous and neglectful. Again, the author is following a checklist of plot points and exposition they want to vomit up, with no regard for what is actually happening or how sane people would react to this situation.