After sixteen-year-old Raina learns that she is a perfect match for donating bone marrow to a leukemia patient in Virginia, she discovers that the young woman is the sister she never knew she had.
Fifteen-year-old Carrie has had leukemia for three years. She meets another cancer patient at a support group, and feels helpless as she watches her friend slip away.
As Melissa dies of leukemia, her best friend, Jory Delany, draws closer to Melissa's family while they struggle to cope with her imminent death and to replace anger with hope and inspiration.