Cate, a set designer in her early forties, lives and works in Chicago's theater community, and knows it's time to get past her prolonged adolescence. Her best friend Neale, a yoga instructor, lives nearby with her son and is Cate's model for what serious adulthood looks like. Blocks away are Nathan and Irene -- casual sociopaths and drug addicts. Their world and Cate's intersect the day she comes into Neale's kitchen to find these strangers assaulting her friend. Forced to take spontaneous action, Cate does something she's never even considered. She now also knows the violence she is capable of, as does everyone else in her life, and overnight, their world has changed.