Maria is an 18-year-old Dominican American girl living with her mother in a small town, following the recent death of her father. As more and more local Dominican American girls go missing and the police fail to act, parents become anxious. They direct this anxiety toward their daughters in the forms of anger and increased strictness.

During an eventful fall, Maria “finally figures out how to give herself an orgasm,” which her ex-boyfriend never could do. In order to save up for a bus ticket to Chicago, where she wants to move to escape her town, Maria works at a clothing store, where her boss regularly gropes her. She starts taking a shortcut home through the strip mall parking lot, and attends a party, where she chats about the disappearances with two girls with equally strict parents. Later, one of those two girls goes missing. When her mother’s car breaks down, Maria is driven home by a co-worker who turns out to have a foot fetish. She lets him rub his penis on her boots because she is scared to refuse. Cleaning her boots in the strip mall parking lot, she hears footsteps approaching her and runs away. 

One day, Maria snaps at her boss while he harasses her. He shoves her against a wall and tells her he’ll “let her keep her job under one condition.” Afterwards, she runs home, cries, leaves a goodbye/apology note for her mother, and boards a bus to Chicago. On the bus she imagines all the missing girls living together on the same Chicago block, living their lives fully and freely with no fear.

After Maria leaves, a rich white girl goes missing in her hometown and the police finally conduct a full-fledged search. That winter, all the missing girls’ bodies are discovered in the strip mall, and a suspect is arrested, but the community never receives the answers they demand.