In the winter of 1990, in small-town America, sixteen-year-old Alan Saverio lives under the crushing religious fervor of his Catholic parents. He suffers from a chronic illness and is forced into nightly prayers and confessions, guilt-ridden and convinced that his very existence is sinful. When he was seven, he was sexually abused by the local priest, Father William, but his parents' blind faith leads them to view the victim as the one who tempted the holy man. Unable to speak of the abuse, Alan grows up believing he is irredeemably tainted.

One evening, he meets Hayden Steward, a drifter in his twenties who works as a temporary cook at a diner. Hayden comes from a violent home: his father was abusive to his mother; she eventually poisoned him, spiraled into drug addiction, and died of an overdose when Hayden was eighteen. After burning down the family house and driving off in his father's car, Hayden has been wandering from town to town, incapable of staying still, perpetually searching for a place to call home. He recognizes a kindred darkness in Alan's eyes.

The two grow increasingly close. When Hayden's transient nature forces him to move on, Alan makes the desperate choice to leave everything behind and go with him. This turns Hayden into, by legal definition, a kidnapper, and the two start a fugitive road trip across 1990s America. They move between motels, small apartments, and temporary jobs, and for the first time Alan tastes real freedom. But the past catches up. One night, distracted by their own turmoil, they accidentally hit and kill a prostitute named Maria. Unable to face the consequences—which would return Alan to his parents and Hayden to a life sentence—they flee the scene, deepening the guilt that already consumes them both.

As a police detective who knew Hayden when he was a teenager begins tracking them, Alan confronts the root of his pain. He finds Father William, who mocks and blames him for the long-ago assault. After a phone call in which Alan's own father disowns him, Alan shoots the priest dead and then fires a bullet into a crucifix, severing his last ties to the God that never saved him. Now wanted for murder, the two race for the Mexican border, toward a "sea without memory" that Hayden once described.

Surrounded by police at the ocean's edge, Alan is shot in the chest. As he lies dying in Hayden's arms, he tells him that he will find him again in the next life, that he will always be Hayden's true home. The story ends with the implication that Hayden remains with Alan, finally choosing not to run. Their journey has been a search for belonging, and they find it not in a place, but in each other—a brief, intense, and tragic home.