Luke Thompson is the golden boy of mediocracy. Stuck in the same routine of home, school, and work; he finds comfort in the safety of repetition. Luke isn't one to take risks, he likes to live a sheltered life. This all changes when a boy with rusty coppertone eyes and a daring smirk waltz into Luke's minimum-wage paying job one night in the middle of August. Jack Durden is a firey, confident, impulsive boy that wants to show Luke there is more to life than nine-to-five routines. He has wisdom and philosophy that only few can accomplish learning in their whole lives, and he makes it his mission to implant the reckless abandon lifestyle into Luke Thompson before he succumbs to the cancer festering within his own body. Jack never talked about his illness, and therefore, Luke would often forget that Jack was dying. But it was always there, and he was always reminded of it.