Seventeen-year-old Cassandra has a rare phobia: she is afraid of physical contact with other people--a condition that has haunted her all her life. Cassandra and her aunt Maggie May drift from town to town in a beat-up trailer, while Maggie May looks for the next man in her life and her next bottle of booze. When they arrive in Malibu, California she meets Lucas, a handsome teen, and for the first time begins to feel for someone. Lucas is fascinated by the beautiful and different Cassandra and slowly they fall in love. But Nancy, Lucas' mother, has other plans. Her husband is dying and the family will go bankrupt if she can't marry Lucas off to Pam, whose parents are wealthy. Nancy sees how much Lucas is attracted to Cassandra and will do anything to break up the budding relationship. She asks former detective Peter to find out what he can about the two intruders. What he uncovers sets off a dramatic chain of events that change the two teenagers' lives forever as Cassandra is sent to a mental health facility. While incarcerated, Cassandra writes dozens of letters to Lucas. But she never sends the letters and she hears nothing from him. It is only when she is released seven years later that the deep mystery of her life unravels.