Ellen McConnell Timeline and Summary

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• Ellen is in love with James, her older brother Link's best friend.
• For her fourteenth birthday Ellen gets rollerblades, a helmet, and The Age of Innocence.
• She has her first day at her new school, and gets overwhelmed by trying to avoid getting any attention (to no avail).
• Ellen struggles to read Pride and Prejudice, but doesn't like how anxious the characters are, so her dad gives her Jane Eyre instead.
• At lunch one day, Adena casually mentions how Link and James are like a couple and it blows Ellen's mind.
• She decides to ask her mom during a shopping trip whether Link is gay or not. Mom's input is that if she's really curious, she should ask Link herself.
• Ellen asks James and Link whether they're a couple, and chaos ensues. James says yes, Link adamantly says no, and the fight begins.
• Ellen embarks on a quest to research what it means to be gay.
• She starts eating lunch with James every day, despite Link's absence, and they begin a budding romance.
• Ellen starts running with Link so she can have some sort of connection with him.
• James shows Ellen how to "see" people at the hospital cafeteria; this opens up a whole new world for her.
• James also gives Ellen the drawing he's done of her and her "interesting qualities." It's the closest thing to a love letter she's ever received.
• Link turned all of his exams in blank, so Ellen's family is in an uproar.
• Ellen accidentally has a sleepover at James's house, but is eventually happy she did so.
• Ellen and Link go out to buy a Christmas tree together after a family meeting in which it is established that Link is in big trouble and his dad's paying him to date a girl.
• Ellen ends up arranging for James and Link to reunite at dinner, and when they are awkward she tries to debate whether it'd be better for her to bow out or not.
• Her dad takes her out to dinner, and Ellen ends up telling him about how she thinks he's mishandling Link's situation.
• Ellen starts drawing, and she draws everything. She's better drawing from memory than from what she sees in front of her, though.
• Tension continues to escalate in the McConnell household—they're all at a standoff about Link's identity crisis.
• Link reveals that he got into Yale, and for some reason this fixes everything.
• James tells Ellen he's going to Germany for college, and they have sex instead of crying about it.
• Ellen walks home, and realizes she kind of likes herself.