You need roses and a heart; he only has thorns and darkness. After two years with her boyfriend Travis, Vanessa Clarke becomes increasingly unhappy. Exhausted by her parents’ divorce and barely starting her second year of college, she meets Thomas Collins in class. He’s a talented basketball player, his body covered with tattoos, and his green eyes are so easy to lose yourself in. Thomas is a volatile mix of charm and arrogance, with a very complicated past. He and Vanessa are so different, yet deep down they’re alike. Their tense relationship is made of moments of passion and flashes of tenderness, furious fights and reconciliations. But Vanessa wants more—she dreams of real, romantic, all-encompassing love as described in novels. Thomas, on the other hand, avoids any closeness, and in his heart there are endless thickets of thorns. And even though understanding each other is difficult, parting is simply impossible.