Jaclyn, a teenage girl from Baltimore, reflects on her time spent at a resort hotel called Kingdom by the Sea, where she met her first secret love, Annabel Lee. She returns to the resort to find that Annabel died the previous winter and that her family blames her for for their daughter's illness. Members of this society believe that love between two women makes it easier for them to succumb to illness and death.
Jaclyn endures painful rumors about her sexuality, but her family remains unaware due to her mother's chronic illness. When she runs into a boy about her age, he teases her, and in a fit of rage about how easily he moves through the world, she pushes him. Jaclyn becomes overcome with grief over the loss of Annabel, who she loved secretly for a long time, and runs into the sea so that she may drown.