The book changes view point from the three main characters: Ricky, a teenage boy who recently lost his mother to a car accident; Dr. Brandon Cooper, an oncologist who gains custody of his son, Ricky, after his wife's death, although he hasn't contacted his son since the divorce when the child was 3; Arianna Roger, who becomes Ricky's friend after the boy moves across the country to live with his estranged father.

Ricky, a 14-year-old just about to enter high school, loses his place in the world when his mother dies and is forced back into his father's hands, whom he has know memories of. He comes into Brandon's life, rejecting his dad for how the man shied away from his wife and only child, while Dr. Cooper only wants Ricky to know that he loves him and that it wasn't his decision to leave his family. As Ricky uncovers the true reason for the division of his parents' lives, he disenthralls himself from the prospective relationship with his father and becomes entangled with Arianna, a girl he finds at his dad's hospital, and she soon becomes his only friend.