Anna and Bennett were never supposed to meet. Why would they? Anna's a sixteen-year-old in 1995, fiercely determined to secure a running scholarship so she can leave her quiet, dull town and finally travel the world. Bennett's a seventeen-year-old in 2012, living in San Francisco and trying to control his ability to travel through time — an incredible gift, but also an unpredictable curse, which constantly threatens to separate him from the people he loves. When a minor lapse in judgment puts his sister Brooke in danger, Bennett finds himself two thousand miles and seventeen years away — in Anna's world. As he searches for Brooke, Bennett is strangely and inescapably drawn to Anna, who feels sure she's seen him somewhere before. Through the gorgeous, mysterious newcomer, able to travel anywhere in a split second, Anna visits deserted tropical beaches and stunning mediterranean coastlines for the first time, and they can't help falling for one another. But they both know, deep down, that it can never last. For no matter how desperate Bennett is to stay with Anna, his uncontrollable condition will inevitably knock him right back to where he belongs — and Anna will be left to pick up the pieces.

Calling Anna and Bennett's romance long distance is an understatement. She's from 1995 Chicago, and he's a time traveller from 2012 San Francisco. They never should have met, but they did. They fell in love, even though they knew they shouldn't. And they found a way to stay together, against all the odds. It's not perfect, of course. Bennett is forced to skip parts of his own present in order to be with Anna in hers, and he's unable to stay in the past for more than brief periods of time. But they're sure they can make it work, somehow... until Bennett witnesses a single event he never should have seen, and certainly never expected to. Will the decisions he makes from that point on cement a future that both Anna and Bennett are desperate to avoid?