Freedom. That's what Reese Gibson craves as she heads off to college. Her longing for autonomy, born from the seemingly pointless over-protection her mother insisted on dispensing, leaves her stepping onto campus with one mission - don't get attached. If she doesn't get attached, she knows one thing for sure. She won't make the mistakes her parents made. She won't suffer through four years of college that are free of keg-stands and frat parties and full of baby bottles and diapers. Stay unattached, and all will be well - or so she tells herself. But her parents' mutual past isn't as simple as it seems. The events that lead up to her life - that built the family she has always known - are rife with complication. The actions of the still-children who will too-soon become her parents were more driven by desire and feelings of obligation than she could ever know. Two distinct tales woven together unfold - Reese's quest for the carefree college life she had so long dreamed of and the efforts of the boy who will become her father, Kurt, to make right what he didn't put wrong - to atone for a mistake that he is not responsible for making. Uncover more of the still-resonant past and venture into the present in this compelling continuation of The Aftermath Trilogy.