Plot
This story takes place at North High School (Phoenix, AZ), where Stacy Collins is a shy 16-year-old student who has had a secret romantic interest in Bobby Tennison for two years. She is surprised when he starts to show a romantic interest in her, considering he is a senior wrestler, and the most popular guy in school. Stacy’s two best friends, Nicki and Val, accompany her to an after-school wrestling match where Bobby and Stacy first lock eyes with each other and Nicki encourages Stacy to go for it. One night Nicki and Stacy hang out at a local pizza parlor where Stacy gets to meet Bobby face to face and Nicki gets to meet his friend Tony, another wrestler on the school team who in turn notices Nicki. Bobby approaches them at their table at the restaurant and invites Stacy to one of his wrestling practices after school and they hit it off. Bobby then invites Stacy and her friends along with his friends to the local hangout, a lake for a late night lake party and bonfire. They sneak off and have an intimate talk and they both find out that their fathers had abandoned them. They then decide to start dating. That same night, Nicki starts a relationship with Tony. In a side story we meet Stacy’s mom, Laura Collins, who is a working single mom dating a man named Rod whom Stacy deeply dislikes because she believes him to be emotionally abusive towards her mom. She often urges her mom to leave him and find someone who treats her better.
After a few weeks of dating, Bobby starts showing possessive behavior. One instance occurs in the school library when friends try to join in a private study session between Stacy and Bobby and he angrily chastises Stacy for inviting them to sit with them. He also angrily refuses to allow Stacy to meet his mom just because he doesn’t want her to. Then, Bobby gives Stacy a list of controlling rules; for example, she needs to be home at night when he calls. He is also jealous whenever another guy approaches or talks about Stacy, and he does not want her to hang out with anyone when they are together. At first, she does not suspect that there is anything wrong, because he immediately apologizes after getting mad at her, tells her that he loves her, and gives her gifts to show his remorse, like a beautiful gold bracelet and roses (because Stacy told him early on she likes getting flowers from a guy the night they met in the pizza parlor).
One day Nicki and Stacy go shopping and Stacy reveals bruises on her back in the fitting room, concerning Nicki. Stacy reveals to Nicki that the bruises came from one night out at the lake when Bobby and Stacy shared their first sexual experience, hence Stacy losing her virginity. Stacy promises after the fact that she and Bobby will be together forever which she reveals to Nicki. At school, boys start to notice Stacy after Nicki convinces her to wear a mid-thigh length skirt she bought to wear to impress Bobby. In the boys' locker room, one of the boys gives Stacy a compliment, and this outrages Bobby. After this, he seeks out Stacy in the school halls wearing the skirt and furiously tells her she looks like a slut, demands that she wear proper clothes, and forces her to change into a pair of his track pants in the bathroom. She tries to explain that she was only dressing up for him, but he becomes more furious and throws and slams her into the wall in the gym during wrestling practice which worries the coach and other wrestlers who notice what happened. The coach questions this, concerned he may have to report the incident but Stacy defends Bobby by saying she “slipped”. Back at home, Laura worries that Stacy is spending too much time with Bobby, but Stacy assures her that he loves her and vice versa. Meanwhile, Nicki and Val also grow concerned about Stacy's relationship with him. Stacy won’t join in helping them decorate the school gym for a dance because Bobby has limited Stacy’s time with all her friends. Nicki soon learns from Bobby's cousin, Donna, that his last girlfriend Tracy changed schools after being hit by him. Nicki's worry continues to grow when she notices that Stacy has several more unexplained bruises on her arm. She talks to her about the rumor she heard, but Stacy, frustrated, shuts her down and assures her that she can take care of herself.
By accident, while out shopping after school, Stacy finally meets Bobby's mother; Bobby catches them talking to each other and becomes furious and violent slamming Stacy into a truck and telling her that she needs to mind her business and not talk to his mom. Upset, Stacy refuses to see Bobby again, and later that night takes out her anger on her mom Laura, calling her irresponsible because of her own emotionally abusive relationship with Rod saying she’d rather have a mom than a “friend” who goes out all the time with her boyfriend. Bobby later wins Stacy’s trust back by sneaking into her house after Laura goes out for the night with Rod. Bobby tells Stacy about the alcoholism that runs in his family. His father was an abusive alcoholic and his mother would not leave him. He left on his own. Bobby manages to coax Stacy back into a relationship by appealing to her about her own issues with her mom and relating to her with stories of his estranged dad. They later attend the big 1950s themed sock hop school dance where they party and dance with friends. They are happy for a while, but trouble begins again when he sees her talking to another boy at the dance. He pulls her outside into the parking lot and slaps her, all of which is witnessed by Nicki and Tony, who are nearby.
Nicki quickly confronts Stacy about how badly Bobby is treating her, but she defends him, saying he has been through a lot. When Nicki says that Bobby doesn't love her, she angrily says, "Then you don't know what love is!" before taking off with him in his car. Bobby drops Stacy off at home and outside Stacy hears her mom arguing with Rod. Stacy stays at Nicki's house afterwards and while there Nicki helps her see the truth about Bobby and how he is not treating her right. Also while there, Laura calls Stacy and tells her that she ended things with Rod which further helps Stacy see the light, helping Stacy confirm her choice to end it with Bobby because she sees her own mom trying to end her dysfunctional dating cycle, too. Stacy ends her relationship with Bobby at school. When he does not take it well, she offers for them to just be friends, telling him that she needs to focus on her other friends and her studies. Stacy gets invited to a bowling birthday party next Saturday night with Nicki and all her other friends to forget Bobby but another mutual friend, Carla (who has a secret crush on Bobby) calls him from a pay phone trying to make plans with him. He asks to talk to Stacy and he offers to pick her up and have her hang out at his place with him and his other friend Vince Fortner. He invites Carla too. While at his place he accuses Stacy of being out with another guy at the party and slaps her again despite the fact that they are no longer dating. In private he kisses Carla and tells her if anyone asks it was just him and Stacy there and that they fought and she ran out.
Later that night, Bobby, accompanied by Vince, convinces Stacy to get in his car for a ride. He drives them to the lake and walks off with her to be alone while Vince waits in the car. The next day, it is reported that she is missing.
Laura calls Nicki looking for Stacy and Nicki in turn asks Bobby what happened. Bobby claimed that Stacy and him had a fight and she ran out. They go out searching for her. Most people guess that Stacy hitchhiked and was murdered, some think she might be staying somewhere after a fight with Bobby.TV news coverage of Stacy’s disappearance links it to a classmate but Laura suspects that Bobby has something to do with it especially after she finds Stacy's purse in his room. Bobby convinces her that he is very concerned about Stacy’s disappearance and he enlists everyone to help look for her. Nicki is also convinced that Bobby is responsible and asks Carla, who was at Bobby's house on the night of Stacy's disappearance, for information. Because of Bobby exploiting her attraction to him Carla insists that all she knows is Stacy ran out of the house after arguing with Bobby, which frustrates Nicki. Accompanied by Laura, Nicki goes to the police, informing Laura and Detective Anderson about how abusive Stacy's relationship with Bobby was. Carla eventually talks to them as well, admitting that Bobby and Vince took Stacy to the lake.
Detective Anderson gets an anonymous tip from a phone call from Vince telling him to “go out by the lake”. Vince hangs up before the detective can identify him. He goes by the lake and finds a flower washed up by the shore and keeps it as evidence. Bobby and Vince do get arrested and Bobby blames Stacy's disappearance on Vince. When confronted by this lie, he admits that Bobby was the one last seen with her, and later reveals that when he came back alone, he said that "if he can't have her, no one's gonna." Vince is free to go, since he told Detective Anderson the truth, that he didn't know if Bobby killed Stacy. Detective Anderson is then convinced Bobby did so when she ended their relationship and refused to get back together. When he confronts him, showing the flower from the lake, he realizes he is cornered and shortly admits that he slit her throat when she refused to get back together with him and then disposed of her murdered body in the lake.
Stacy's body is soon found in the lake, wrapped in a trash bag bound with duct tape,and tied down with cinder blocks. Laura and Nicki grieve together as the coroner takes her away. A court trial soon follows with the district attorney asking everyone if they ever saw Bobby hit Stacy. Carla says she did, but that it was because Stacy wouldn't listen to him. Donna and other classmates also admit that they witnessed the abuse, but figured she would leave him eventually.
Val, Vince, Nicki, and Tony expose the abusive ways that Bobby treated Stacy, with Nicki saying how she desperately wanted to oust him, but was afraid of losing Stacy's friendship if she were to say what he was doing to her. He is eventually found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Laura breaks down in tears of relief from the verdict and Bobby’s mom tearfully hugs her son. Before court is adjourned, the judge addresses everyone in the room (particularly the younger audience) to tell someone if they ever see a friend being abused, instead of standing by and doing nothing, implying how it could have saved Stacy's life.
Later, a distraught tearful Nicki cleans out Stacy's locker and cries as she looks at the pictures of them, remembering their friendship and guiltily wishing that she had acted sooner to have saved her. The film ends with Nicki and Tony leaving a bouquet of roses (like the ones Bobby would give her) on the sand at the lake in memory of Stacy.
