15-year old Scott Bartlett's family life is turned upside-down after an outbreak of Lyme disease hits the community spreading illness and paranoia. Scott's parents -- a workaholic father, Mickey, and an overprotective mother, Brenda -- are on the verge of a divorce as his older brother Jim is about to ship off for war. Complicating matters, Scott has fallen in love with his next door neighbor, Adrianna Bragg. Adrianna seems to be the only person in the world who understands Scott demonstrated by her equally troubled, less affluent family including an uptight mother, Melissa, carrying on a not-so-clandestine love affair, and a father, Charlie, slowly slipping away from the effects of Lyme disease.