It was hardly his fault that he was girly-looking; why did the other kids have to tease him endlessly about it? Don makes the natural assumption that the kids in his school all hate him for his girlishness. He had no idea that not only did all the kids not hate him but that some of them were attracted to his girlish appearance.
One boy in particular, Roy, and one girl, Susanna, were very attracted to him. Roy struggles with the clash between his attraction to Don and his fear of being thought of as gay by the other kids. Susanna has her own issues to deal with when she discovers the girl inside Don. Meanwhile, Don is evolving and struggling with his attractions to femininity as well as Roy.
How these three teens deal with their innermost feelings forms the crux of this most unusual, sensitively handled, story of teenage love and sexuality.