Sixteen year old Samantha Leighton's forearm has become the diary of her woes. The once bubbly teenager has resorted to self-mutilation to cope with the pain stemming from a multitude of hardships that have befallen her. First, she loses her father in a car accident and then her mother becomes addicted to prescription pills and lives in a perpetual state of altered reality. The young girl's life becomes even more complicated when she and her mother are forced to move in with an abusive uncle who is bent on making her life miserable. When Sam ends up in the hospital after a cutting incident that leaves her emotionally and physically weak, she meets twenty-six year old Angela D'Abrue whose idyllic life is turned upside down when her boyfriend abandons her to seek fame on the road with his band. The two women form an unlikely friendship that neither one of them expects to last beyond their short stay in the hospital. The friends are reunited a couple of months later when Samantha turns to Angela for help after fleeing her uncle's home. An astute observation by her young friend forces Angie to rethink her friendship with her best friend, Michael, and she embarks on a journey of self-discovery that leads her to find love in the arms of the one man whose friendship and affection she had taken for granted for so long. While Samantha works on regaining her confidence and her enjoyment of life, Angie faces her biggest challenge when her ex-boyfriend returns. As both friends reach important crossroads in their lives, they learn that kindness can come from the most unexpected places and that no matter how dismal their lives may get, the promise of sunshine is just behind every dark cloud.