#eliascore

Augustus "Auggie" Ellings is, in every universe, the second-born son of Beaumont and Cecilia Ellings, a wealthy lawyer and former pageant queen turned bored housewife respectively. They live in Georgia.

Edmund Ellings is Auggie's older brother. They're 4 years apart in age and Edmund is just kind of a dick? Edmund is essentially being groomed to take over his father's law firm and as a result his life is heavily monitored and predetermined for him. Any frustrations with this way of life or really any emotion he ever has is turned into anger and taken out on Auggie. Read this for an insight into their relationship.

Auggie's parents do not want him and they do not care about him. They will throw money at him mostly in the hopes that he'll just disappear and never ask them for anything (it kind of works)

Margot is Auggie's twin sister. She doesn't always exist, but I thought it would be fun to think about what Auggie's life would be like if he did have a sister and then she became her own character. She and Auggie are obsessed with their own twinness. As children they once cut Margot's hair in the bathroom so that she and Auggie could be matching. As teenagers they traded clothes in the school bathroom and also played very weird games with the guys they pursued (if Margot and a boy broke up, Auggie would try to date him. Auggie hooked up with a guy that Margot then started dating and she cheated on him with the guy Auggie was in love with in his junior year). They're... well!

I haven't written much about Margot but I do know that if Beaumont is raising Edmund to take his place, Cecilia is raising Margot to take hers. She definitely got her daughter to bleach her hair and put her in pageants or at least tried to do something similar.

Elias Conrad works for Beaumont Ellings. I don't know enough about law firms or even what kind of law Beaumont practices to know specifics of Elias' job but I guess he's a lawyer? A junior lawyer? Is that a thing? Who cares. His job is important, basically. Elias is 10 years older than Auggie and therefore 6 years older than Edmund. Elias believes himself more worthy of taking over Beaumont's firm than Edmund. He's diligent and gets results, he's worked hard to get where he is, etc etc etc. Beaumont really respects Elias and invites him over for dinner and to the various parties Cecilia throws at their home. That's how Auggie and Elias meet. Elias is often the only person in the room who will pay attention to Auggie at all and that makes Auggie feel VERY weird.

The summer before Auggie goes away to college (he's 18), he and Elias (28) begin a sexual relationship. That summer, Auggie spends a lot of time at Elias' house. It's not healthy. I affectionately refer to this time as "The Summer of Auggielias".

Elias is living as the third version of Elias Conrad. He grew up as the first version, a quiet child with a troubled relationship with his father. When he was 15, his father passed away and he watched a bunch of people seemingly lie about what a great man his father was at his funeral and he had a little bit of a mental breakdown for 2 years (thats the second version of Elias). The third version is the one that got him into college and into the Ellings firm. The third version is entirely lies and never tells the truth. He sometimes gets close to truth with Auggie.

Auggie attends a highly prestigious art school where he and his small cohort are involved in the semi-accidental death of their professor/mentor but never caught. This part of his life is not fleshed out yet because I'm doing something completely separate with it.

After he graduates, he moves to New York and is eventually able to become a full time exhibiting artist. He has a gallery show when he's in his mid-thirties that Elias randomly shows up to. At this point, Elias has a wife and son (Harriet and Davey). I won't piece the whole puzzle together but tl;dr that visit at the gallery eventually leads to the events of this piece