Ellie Parker's life begins to fall apart in January of 2007, when her twin brother Danny tries to kill himself. On the evening of their graduation party, he leaves their hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, without a word to anyone. She hasn't seen him in six years. Since then, she has built a life of her own in San Francisco as a quirky, aspiring artist. But when she is diagnosed with a brain tumor that might just rob her of her talent, Ellie has to come to terms with her own mortality and with what happened to her and her brother all those years ago. In order to do so, she goes on a bit of a cross-country journey with former high school love interest Colin Crawford and together they begin the long search for Ellie's wayward brother.
Seth is young man. He has a good paying job and a good life. He's happy, and then he runs into the love of his life while shopping for groceries. She leaves him standing speechless without any contact information. Seth regrets not acting quicker, he let her slip right through his fingers. Or so he thinks...then one day he's walking and sees a man back a young woman into an alley and pull out a knife. He reacts by charging the man and splitting his skull with a steel metal pipe. When he realizes who the girl is...he realizes fate is on his side.
Claire was born mute. Her mother died when she was young and she had an abusive father. He finally died of a heart attack and Claire could finally breathe again. Claire had boyfriends, but they all tried taking advantage of her. That is until she runs into a tall and stunning man while shopping. She ran away from him and regretted it. Something just felt right about him...Claire never thought she'd see him again. Especially how they're about to meet for the second time when Claire gets backed into an alley by a drunken creep.
After Claire is rescued the two fall deeply in love with each other and know right away that they'll last forever.