CYRUS AND JEFF ARE BEST FRIENDS. They start a band in Jeff's garage where Cyrus plays drums and Jeff screams and plays guitar as a way to escape their boring lives in a part of central PA so removed from hardcore it has more churches per square mile than anywhere else in the country. At least that's what Cyrus was told.The band is a place where Cy can be himself, not the quiet boy whose mother died in a car wreck three years ago. Not the cute boy no one in school knows is gay - not even his friend Mindy, who wants to date him. Just Cyrus and Jeff, the best friend he dreams about even though he knows he shouldn't. Even after a kiss in Cy's bedroom leaves him hoping for more.For Jeff, the band is a way to channel his rage into music - rage at the father who abandoned him, the mother who has chosen his stepfather over him, and the stepfather who has chosen the righteousness of the backhand the closed fist when trying to cleanse Jeff of his sins.But the band can't last forever. And what happens when that refuge is threatened changes everything.