For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and for these two, their lives have been planned down to a science. For Wylan Olson, being yourself can be very stressful. Since she was young, her emotions have always been backwards. The embodiment of 'tears of joy,' that laughs to keep from crying, not many people understand her struggle. Mostly because she barely understands it herself, but she's making it...barely. All she wants to do is make something out of herself, and she's willing to work for it. Kwame Okari has been raised to be perfect. His parents' strict expectations at son leave no room for friendships, which they regard as frivolous. Their only concern is for him to be Ivy League, and he cannot afford to disappoint. He is a boy on a mission, with a clear objective: be first. And there's only one person standing in his way-Wylan. As the two develop a better understanding of each other, competing agendas complicate their relationship forcing them to decide which is more important: attraction or ambition, satisfaction or success, friendship or fruition, and lead them to wonder if one has to be mitigated for the other.

Bad Boy Blue. He has that nickname for a reason. Abandoned by his white mother as a baby, Blue was taken in my gang-running father. He grew up on the streets, and was raised by a gun. After being caught with drugs and guns and sent to juvie, he was released to be with his uncle in Louisiana where his old life can't get to him. But it's not that easy. It's a struggle for him to do anything right, an nobody takes the boy with the tattoos and bad record seriously. Except Lou. Luigi Alayna Brown is used to being picked out to be picked on. Normally she had her brother there to take care of her but he's gone to college. She wants to escape the ties to her mother, but everybody wants to hold her there. Except Blue, who could care less. Even though she knows Blue likes her, she can't help but boycott the bad boy.