A is 16 and lives every day in a different body: sometimes male, sometimes female; sometimes gay, sometimes straight; sometimes Spanish-speaking; sometimes beautiful; sometimes drug-addicted; sometimes athletic; and sometimes suicidal. The one thing that stays the same is that A is always A, no matter what s/he looks like. A has adapted to living this life of body after body for sixteen years without family and friends, without one single personal belonging. The only things s/he can hang on to as s/he travels from body to body are emails; the books A loves, which s/he can often find in the library; and the understanding that his/her diverse experiences and outsider status have taught him: that people are basically the same, despite superficial differences. A knows not everyone feels this way, and often in the book A remarks on the ways that people are blinded by their limited experience.

When A meets Rhiannon, he is not happy with merely surviving and merely observing. S/he has a sudden urge to be recognized by another, to love and be loved. A begins to change, no longer staying within the rules that they have set up. Previously, A had always respected the person whose body s/he inhabited, living the day the way that s/he expects they would.