The friction between twelve-year-old Romy and her mother over her father's abandonment of the family spills over onto a wider landscape where institutional neglect threatens the life of Ethan, an abused eight-year-old boy.

Romy starts a secret, doomed romance with an older teenage boy and later recruits him into trying to help Ethan. When Marcie, her only girlfriend, is hospitalized due to an accident caused by drug use, parents and police try to crack down on Romy's activities, but her rash attempt to save Ethan has already gone too far to stop.

Romy finds solace in caring for her three little cousins, and she finds a role model in her sophisticated and practical Aunt Lucia, who is willing to overlook Romy's impetuous behavior and join Romy's crusade to save the young boy.

Impulsive twelve-year-old Romy comes of age in spectacular fashion while struggling with an abusive father, a mother in denial, an inappropriate boyfriend, and a broken social services system. Together with her only friend, Marcie, she recklessly trespasses on the prerogatives of adulthood while trying to prevent a tragedy the adult world seems incapable of dealing with.