Since she was 10 years old Kendall's mother had abused her and her father had never noticed it. After eight years of abuse, one day her father walked in on her mother violently beating her. He called the cops and had her mother immediately put in jail and Kendall's father moved them away from her hometown. He never wanted Kendall's mother to get out of jail and find them but he knew that one day she would be out. In her new hometown Kendall meets an array of new people and her guard is up. Since the abuse she has never let her guard down but when she meets a particular guy she lets her guard down and she's afraid. What will happen and how will she survive?

(TH#5)"And maybe in the end, in spite of all we said, all we did, all we met, we are only thoughts that evaporate into the effervescent whirlwind of time." Cole Winters is a perfect example of high school done right; star quarterback, good-looking, popular, he has the whole package. Things couldn't possibly go wrong. He lives for the present with no certainty on the future or anything it holds. Grace Loving is terminally ill. She's been cancer-free, but it can't be gone forever. She knows it. Everybody knows it. And it's only a matter of time before she bites it. But to maximize her living expectancy, her parents bring her to a well-known doctor operating a hospital just outside of Heart, North Carolina, where she finds her new home and, ultimately, Cole Winters. It's not love at first sight. It's not even love at fourth sight. But as they're thrown together in odd and unsavory circumstances, it becomes a battle between love and the desire not to hurt or be hurt, and the realization that in life you cannot have one without the other.