The long-time friendship of high school juniors Althea Carter and Oliver McKinley is threatened when she tries to turn it into something more despite Oliver's resistance. Then Oliver discovers he has a rare sleep disorder and moves from their hometown in North Carolina to New York to participate in a clinical study. Althea, regretting the end of their friendship travels north to visit him, and ends up immersing herself in the counterculture of the mid-1990s.