Empathy No. 005

06/24/02, Diary entry 397

It makes me sick the way some people around here will double-talk you. Everywhere we go, it's all "Congratulate your dad for us" and crap like that, but when they think we can't hear them? When they're away? Oh, that's when the TRUTH comes out, and it's bad. People can be such judgmental scumbags, I swear.

Do any of these assholes know what it's been like around here since Mom died? NO. Do any of them know what it did to Dad? NO. But they're all ready to gossip about how inappropriate it is to marry some "young girl" - which is exactly what one of them said! - so soon after the accident. God, are people this bored? They don't have the time to ask any of us how we're doing, but they'll stab us all in the back just for fun? Absolute slime.

Dad wants more of them to meet Ellie, I guess because he thinks it might clear all of this up. That must be why he's doing this whole 4th of July barbecue thing. I don't know, maybe it will help. It has to stop the worst of it, all these pricks who heard some rumor that he picked up some college kid or something. But the worst of them won't come by and we'll have to keep dealing with their shitty little judgments. I hate this place so much sometimes.

But I'm kind of looking forward to it myself, because it's gonna be the first time we all meet the future stepbro. Jason's been doing some kind of research into Roderick, I guess because of something that one of the cousins said. It turns out that he's some sort of crazy overachiever! I keep turning up all these articles where he's just won something else, and I swear he's just good at EVERYTHING.

Man, what's it gonna be like living with someone like that?