Empathy No. 100

11/27/02, Roderick bedrm. 4:15 PM (approx)

JASON: Hey Roderick! People are showing up!

RODERICK: I'll be right out.

JASON: Hold on, someone wants to meet you. This is Alex, our cousin.

ALEX: Wow, I would not have recognized you. I bet you don't remember me, but I was taking the ACT the same day as you. You were right next to me.

RODERICK: I remember you. Um...red sweatshirt, black jeans.

ALEX: That's incredible, man. For real, I wanted to talk to you back then, but you were enough on edge just being in that room.

RODERICK: It wasn't that big a deal. Lots of kids that age take tests like that.

JASON: It's what he always says, that it's not a big deal.

ALEX: I think it was. These trophies? Not a big deal either?

RODERICK: I keep meaning to take those down.

ALEX: Why? They're-

RODERICK: I'm just...I don't do those things anymore.

JASON: He's doing a lot of writing now.

ALEX: Cool. What do you write? 'Cause I heard you had some things published.

RODERICK: I haven't done fiction in a while, it's um...just research right now, for something else.

ALEX: Research? Interesting. Same thing I hear from everyone else, except usually it's for some history essay. Speaking of which, how sick are you of people asking you about college?

RODERICK: It hasn't come up all that much.

ALEX: Word of advice: Get real serious, then tell them that you want to go to Juilliard and study electrical engineering, or something like that. If you're enough of a wiseass, they eventually lay off those questions.

JASON: Yeah, you use to tell everyone you were going to learn...I think it was modern dance at MIT?

ALEX: I did, and after I did it enough people stopped asking me about my major.

RODERICK: We should probably go out, my Mom's gonna want me to talk to people.

JASON: Yeah, so's Dad. Come on.

ALEX: Hold on a sec, Jason.

JASON: Roderick's not gonna like it if we're in here without him.

ALEX: Yeah, we'll go right out and not touch anything, I just wanna ask you something. Is he okay?

JASON: Sure. I mean, he had a rough month and everything, but he's doing fine.

ALEX: It's just he looked uncomfortable. You know, I hear kids like that can be a little on the...you know, weird side.

JASON: That's what Allison thinks. He's not weird, he's just quiet. You know, it's nice to be around someone who doesn't talk about himself all the time.

ALEX: Oh, is that a shot at me?

JASON: Course not! But he doesn't really like talking about the awards and stuff. It's just not him.

ALEX: Message received. Let's go.