The movie starts with one of our main characters Simon. He's drooling on a table and begins to eat a sad looking meal while on a certain drug (he's asked by a worker about his side effects he's having) he looks over at a drooling girl and she plays with her food for a moment and he vomits all over his plate. Next Simon is in an office upset about pay(we see now that he signed up for a drug clinical trial to make some money) and he doesn't get the full amount because he didn't complete all the days he's supposed to so he only gets paid partially. He leaves the office upset and curses out the doctor. He runs into the drooling girl from earlier outside and walks her home because it's Sunday and her bus is not coming. He eats dinner with her family and her mom seduces him in the kitchen and it causes a scene and Simon causes a big fire in their bushes, making him a wanted man by police. Next scene we meet our new character Patty who is often ridiculed and made fun of by jocks. Patty is very socially awkward and doesn't appear to have many friends. She sits on a bench while jocks bully her and steal her sandwich. Patty works at a pet store. Jocks and their girlfriends bully her and she goes home and plays basketball badly and she sees a dead cat on her lawn and watches it for a moment. Pattys family has dinner and she asks her mom and dad to go to a concert on the weekend and they say no cuz they are squares. She has an adopted brother named Kevin who doesn't know yet that he's adopted and they bicker at the table. She goes to her room and turns on her favorite punk band "Psyops"(John Q is the frontman and she's obsessed)dances around then takes a dirty photo of herself to send to John Q. Simon is shown at a bank and fights with the lady at the counter to cash a check. He takes his cash to his drug dealers and buys a whole stash to sell. We see him next at the post office picking up mail from a PO Box and we see a black envelope addressed to "John Q. Public". We see him walk down the street after dealing some drugs as a cop drives by and recognizes him. He runs away in an alley and hides on a high up stairwell and sees patty and silently signals her not to tell the police he's there. She agrees and they talk for a few minutes and we find out he was in her music appreciation class in junior college before she drops out. He follows paddy back into her home lighting a cigarette and patty says no her dad is allergic but he smokes it anyways. He tells her he owes her one for helping him hide. Simon joins them at family dinner while lying that he's a missionary so they'll allow him to stay for the week to lay low from the cops because they wouldn't look for him there. Simon reveals to Kevin he was adopted to mess with him. Patty shows Simon her medications in her room. Patty says to Simon that she loves Psyops and wants to go to their show in a few days and they're opening for a band called "the alliance". Simon gets upset. It's revealed that "John Q" is Simon but paddy doesn't know yet. (No one knows who John q is because he wears a ski mask)Paddy tells him she writes love letters to John Q and Simon goes to the bathroom opens his backpack and the black envelopes are from Paddy. He jumps out the window and goes to his band mates yelling upset that they would book a show with The Alliance as Simon says they're "eyeliner punk for 14 year old girls". 2 band mates want to play the show but Simon and one other do not. One of the band mates reveals to Simon that their promoter will be very upset if they don't play the show with the alliance and that they were asked by police about Simon and said that the reward for turning him in increased to five thousand dollars. Simon leaves his band mates and sneaks back into patty's house. Kevin jumps on him they fight for a moment and Simon makes peace by getting him stoned and they become friends. The next morning Patty is looking through the paper for a new job because she was let go from the pet store. She says to Simon her boss hasn't given her her last check and he says he's gonna go with her to get it. First she wants to play basketball and he says if he makes a basket she has to kiss him we can start to now see he's starting to like her. He doesn't make the shot. He sees the dead cat when he goes to pick up the ball that rolled away and calls her weird because she said she watches the dead cat sometimes but then just says he's messing with her. They go to wait for a bus and they dodge the cops and run on the bus. They run into the jocks and Simon defends her gets into a fight with the jocks and gets beat up. Simon immediately plots his revenge gets up angrily and they go to the liquor store. Simon trades some pills to his friend working the counter in exchange for borrowing his truck for the weekend. They drive off super fast and end up at paddys house. They wrap up the dead cat in a garbage bag and go to the school and they lure the jocks. Simon knocks them both out with a mini bat he got from his friend at the liquor store. Simon and paddy strip them both naked and Simon sets their clothes on fire and throws the dead cat on them and takes a photo with paddys Polaroid camera threatening to them if they call her the "R" word one more time that that photo will haunt them forever. Simon and paddy run away to the pet store and yells at her boss for firing her because he said she's slow. Simon yells at him and she gets her check. They go to lunch and Paddy finally asks Simon to kiss her and they make out in the booth while getting a few grossed out looks from other customers and Simon says they're going to go on a date and he's gonna take her to the psyops show. They hold hands in the car and go to the arcade instead of job hunting for paddy. They go to turn in tickets to win a giant bear for paddy but they need over five thousand. Simon tells her to wait in line and he opens one of the games with a screwdriver and steals the whole roll of tickets. Simon drives her and the giant bear home and paddy thanks Simon for giving her the best day ever. They go in the house to find the whole family high because Kevin has a new girlfriend who brought over weed brownies. Simon and paddy go to her room and she wants to sleep with him but he says rain check because his face hurts from being beat up by the jocks. He takes some of her pills to sleep. He wakes the next morning with paddy asking him to drive her to a job interview. They skip the interview and end up at Simons parents home. They go to the basement and Simon reveals to Paddy that he's John Q and shows her all the letters she's written him and how all the "love letters" are amazing power pop songs and that she's an amazing writer. They finally sleep together. After Simon says let's rock out and they end up making a song with one of her letters called "watermelon". Simons mom comes home and there's a big showdown with his family(except his brother Danny who is kind to Simon) because they think he's a druggy loser pyro and paddy and Simon leave. When they leave paddy asks Simon if he thinks she's "R" word. He slams the breaks and tells her never talk like that about herself and that she's a total punk rocker. They listen to their song. Later we see that Psyops is playing a solo show instead of the alliance show and the promoter gets mad and calls the cops on Simon after his band mate reveals he's a wanted man. They start the show paddy is having a great time and Simon dedicates a song to her. Cops show up and arrest him and paddy kisses him before hes taken away. Two of her old friends come up to her asking if she was kissing John Q and she says yes he's her boyfriend. They offer her a place in their riot girl band they're starting and she accepts. Simon writes her from jail and is excited for her upcoming visit. Paddy is then on a bus when 2 bully girls are rude to them and she punches one in the face and yells. She leaves the bus and the movie ends with her putting on Simons ski mask and she listens to their song watermelon on her headphones and dances.