Cherry tells her story, from the moment she meets her great love, Emily, during college, to the disappointment of love that makes him enlist in the army and end up in Iraq as a doctor. Just before he leaves, he repairs his relationship and marries Emily. But the war changes him, and when he returns home, the post-traumatic stress prevents him from leading a normal life and throws him into a world of drugs and crime, trying to find his place in the world.