The woman is giving birth, and the man helps. He tells her to breath. She moans for her ex, and he tells her not to think about him, as he’s gone. She keeps pushing.

Earlier, the man’s engine sputters to nothing. A pickup truck comes down the road, and he waves it over. He says to the woman and her then-boyfriend that his car won’t start. He offers to help him jump it. The man then compliments the woman, which makes the then-boyfriend upset. When he lunges at him, the man pulls out his gun and shoots him dead. The man then suffers a split in his brain, which makes him lose control of his mind in an out-of-body experience. He then climbs into the truck with the woman, who calls him a monster. He sees that she’s pregnant, about twenty-four months along. He drives away with her, and he says he won’t kill her. She asks him what he’s going to do. He say he doesn’t know other than to wait. She throws up.

The woman reminisces on how her ex rubbed her belly in the pickup truck and laughed with her. She thinks about how good it was with him even though she became pregnant out of wedlock, because she loved him. She reflects on seeing the man kill her ex and how she’s now in the car with him. She hears on the radio that there’s a interstate investigation of kidnapping involving him, a former inpatient at a psych ward. Later, one night, they push the pickup truck into a lake, and she remembers how she and her ex used to cuddle and sleep in its bed.

In another car, the man keeps driving with the woman. The news is always playing. Through the news, he found out what her name was. He then goes into a deli, gets a sandwich, and unties her hands so she can have it while they drive. He eventually apologizes for what he did, but she knows it’s a lie, as she saw him smile as he did it. She asks about his time in the psych ward, and he answers her vaguely in order to avoid another split. He says it was the worst time in his life.

After six weeks, the man and the woman celebrate the Fourth of July, which makes her think back to a time when she celebrated it with her ex and friends. She then thinks about how horribly confining her normal life was and how she struggled to cope with her life’s changes, especially with a baby. This year, the man and the woman sit in a forest clearing with fireflies. She finds it beautiful and feels much freer than she had ever before.

After checking out of a motel, the man and the woman go into a diner together—the second time they’ve eaten in public. They figure that no one will spot them out in the west. They sit in a booth and order their food from a waiter. The woman asks the man if he’s ever fallen in love. He says no. She asks about his family. He doesn’t want to talk about it. She wants to know more and says that she should if they’re going to be traveling together. He accepts her point but knows such sensitive conversation could provoke him. He eventually says that his mother committed suicide and that his father is a neurosurgeon whom he thinks is evil. Soon enough, he splits and thinks back to the horrific moments with his father, but the woman pulls him back into reality. They eat at their food for a little while, and she says out of the blue that her cousin used to touch her. The man gets upset and wishes he could enact vengeance on her cousin for that. They then notice that the waitress is staring at them and making a call. They quickly leave.

The man gets supplies by shoplifting, and the woman doesn’t have much to do. They’re now at a cabin, and she has a gun for self-defense in case something happens. She still thinks about her ex and how he violated her at a beach one day. She thinks about why she told the man about the cousin incident and not her ex, because the man understands that kind of trauma but the ex never would. She realizes that while her ex didn’t deserve to die, she feels like he comes off as a violent person and thus it was natural for the man to act out of fear.

The man cuts the baby from the woman and hands him to her. She tells him to rest, so she sleeps with the baby in hand. He falls asleep too. Over days, they take care of the baby. The woman thinks about her ex. She tells the man that he’s not a monster. One night, while the baby is crying, she wonders where the man has gone. Soon enough, footsteps emerge from outside—police officers. They come in with guns and say that they’re here to save the woman and the baby. Meanwhile, the man is restrained in the back of a cop car and splits. He oscillates between memories of his abusive father and memories of the present, in which the other cops are making fun of him. He falls to his side.