Betty (24), wakes up in a burns unit in hospital, crippled with pain and swaddled in bandages. She swings between dreams and memories, trying to free herself of the terror a violent man has aroused in her.

What happens when a person decides that life is merely a state of mind? If you're Betty, a small-town waitress and soap opera fan from Fair Oaks, Kansas, you refuse to believe that you can't be with the love of your life just because he doesn't really exist. After all, life is no excuse for not living. Traumatized by a savage event, Betty enters into a fugue state that allows -- even encourages -- her to keep functioning... in a kind of alternate reality.

A Southern librarian puts excitement in her life with a found murder weapon and a false confession.

When bestselling novelist Betty Fisher loses her young son in a tragic accident, her unstable mother resorts to unusual actions to alleviate Betty's grief, actions which set off a chain reaction among a promiscuous waitress and her criminal associates.