The year is 1963. Jocelyn Smith is a black sixteen year old who is frustrated with the ill treatment of colored people. When she loses her brother to racist violence, she is ready to give up. An unlikely savior changes her perception. A summer romance begins, but it's doomed from the start.

It's crazy how this world seems to work. It's gotten so crazy that you need "permission" to love who it is you want to love. They don't want me to love him. They don't want him to love me. People don't care about our feelings for each other. They just don't like the way we look together. But that's okay. We're going to love each other anyways and show everyone what real love is. Get your pencil and paper ready to take notes. (BW&AM romance)

Brielle Jackson and Levi Miller have been friends since they were six and were playing pee wee baseball together. Levi is a 6'0, athletic, blonde, fair-skinned, light brown eyed baseball player while Brielle is 5'4 and everything he is except she plays fastpitch softball now, has dark brown eyes and is African American. Their friendship never saw color as a boundary because the status was only that of best friends. As they grew older their friendship just grew stronger and feelings for each other morphed into something more. Coming out of the senior year, Levi tells Brielle some thing that changes the makeup of their friendship. Not only will their twelve year friendship be tested by outside forces but they both learn about the hard realities of the world around them. In the end, Brielle will have a decision to make, one that could destroy any chance she may have with the boy who's always had her heart. Can she use the strength, courage and perserverance she's learned from the place she's lived her entire life or will it break the strong young woman she became? Or will the outside forces using race as a divider become a boundary that destroys this friendship and growing love?