Struggling with her mother and step-father, 12 year old Kelly runs away from home and to her estranged father's house. Chris, a former soldier with disfiguring physical injuries on his legs while also suffers the mental scars of war, discovers Kelly has run away and takes her home despite her pleas to stay. In an attempt to show Chris as a failure Mel, Kelly's mother, allows her to stay with her father. Both Chris and Kelly have dark secrets that cause them pain and their parallel lives become interconnected. When the time approaches for Kelly to return home, she asks her father if she can stay with him. Refusing, Chris tells her he is not the parent she needs. Their bonding continues, which begins to heal old wounds for Chris as he accepts his responsibilities as a father. Responsibilities he sees he neglected when he struggled to cope with the trauma of serving in Afghanistan. However this does not go far enough to reach and help Kelly. Waking in the morning Chris finds Kelly unconscious having taken an overdose. Rushing her to hospital Chris must wait with Mel and her husband Mike in hope that Kelly will survive. Requested by a conscious, recovering Kelly, Chris is asked to come see her alone. On arriving Kelly is still unwilling to say what is wrong, so Chris tells Kelly what happened to him in Afghanistan, and the events that changed all of their lives. Inspired Kelly tells her father why and reveals the dark secret she has been hiding.