When twin brothers Noah and Jude Sweetwine were kids, they were close friends, but these days, the trials of adolescence are pushing them apart. Their competition and their independent quests for identity are worsened by their literal competition as students in a high school for the arts. Noah's artistic talent speaks for itself, but he is paralyzed by his strange attraction to a neighborhood boy. Jude, while the second best, enjoys her flirtatious personality openly. They also compete for their mother Dianna's esteem and affection.
Noah spies on his twin sister, so he knows that she keeps her best work to herself. Noah is discovered by his mother during his 'private time' with his neighborhood friend, but then, Noah discovers his mother's own unsavory secret: she's having an affair on their father with a local artist, Guillermo Garcia. He leaves his mother a sketch of what he saw, prompting a volatile fight between them during which Noah's mother reveals her intent to leave their father and be with Guillermo. She leaves to ask him to marry her.
On her way to her lover's house, Dianna dies in a car accident. Noah finds Guillermo and tells him that his mother will stay. His art school application seems to have been rejected, and all these terrible encounters remind him of his unbearable affinity for Brian, who seems a lost cause.
In part two, the narrative switches to the other twin's point of view. Just as Noah sabotaged his sister for the attention of their mother, Jude has sabotaged Noah. She threw his application away; it was never rejected because no one ever saw it. Jude alone has gone to art school, but she is failing her classes. She feels literally haunted by her mother. Guillermo Garcia takes Jude on as a student, but Jude's interests are fixed on the British boy Oscar. Jude reveals that she never lets things go too far with boys because when her mom died, she was losing her virginity.
Noah is worried by Jude's apprenticeship, because he wonders whether Guillermo will tell her Noah was responsible for their mother's death. Noah plays a drinking game and over-drinks, nearly committing suicide in a drunken panic. Jude and Oscar pull him from the cliff's edge and Jude confesses her sabotage of his application. Noah tells Guillermo the truth about his mom, and Guillermo finally gets closure that Dianna loved him until her death. Jude and Oscar become a couple. On top of it all, Noah learns that Brian is now openly gay, and the two couples set off for a life as a family once more.
