Darkness Before Dawn

“‘I’ll probably never be OK again,’ she said. ‘I miss my brother, I’m still shaking about Andy, and I’m scared death is just gonna jump in and grab me, too!’ ‘I know it’s hard,’ I told her, ‘but you gotta hold on to the good memories and step out into the future—even if it’s scary. That’s what I’m trying to do.’”

Joyelle is grieving for Andy, Rob, and herself. Eventually, she will play out her deepest fear when she almost follows in her brother’s footsteps by dying in a car accident. Luckily, she survives. In this quote, Keisha again gives good advice that she will fail to take until after she recovers from Jonathan’s toxic influence.

“‘We could use a little Andy right now. When will this feeling go away, Gerald?’ ‘It will always be there, Keisha, but you’ll learn to lock it away. If you don’t, you’ll let the pain eat you up.’”

Andy was the class clown before Leon stepped into that role. Gerald’s advice is sound, but Keisha fails to heed it during her recovery. She wallows in misery and self-loathing. It will take the help of others to pull her out of it.

“I sped up and left them in the leaves. I felt uncomfortable trying to help them figure out something they had to deal with themselves, and it made me mad that I had nobody to worry about being separated from. I just sighed and ran on.”

Keisha considers Tyrone and Rhonda’s relationship and her inability to help them. More importantly, she focuses on her loneliness without Andy, which will make her vulnerable to Jonathan’s seduction because she doesn’t want to be alone.

“‘What’s up, Keisha?’ Angel smiled broadly. I think she kinda looked up to me because I was a big-time senior who looked like I had it together. Poor kid. If she only knew how confused I felt.”

Keisha constantly feels the tension between her need for guidance and her need to be perceived as an adult. Her status as a senior student clouds her judgment. Younger students look up to her in high school, but this doesn’t mean she’s a mature adult ready to tackle the real world.

“Being able to talk to each other really helped. I told him he was very strong. In my home village the men would have said that he had been through the fire and the scars had made him a strong and mighty man.”

Jalani is telling Keisha about her conversation with Gerald. She is indirectly endorsing the value of communication as a bridge to understanding. The two teens discover that they share past trials, which helps establish a bond between them. When Keisha faces her own trial, she cuts the lines of communication with all her friends.

“For the first time in months, I felt like the rock where my feelings used to be was starting to dissolve.”

Keisha has just spent time alone with Jonathan and feels her defenses melting. Her guardedness implies a vulnerability that Jonathan is quick to spot. He offers her the emotional intimacy that she lost when Andy died. Little does she know the price she will pay for opening her heart to a sexual predator.

“Every once in a while, I meet a couple of kids like you that lets me know the world is gonna be OK. Now get on inside out of this cold. Both o’ you! You done a good thing today. And that’s just ’bout good enough!”

Jalani and Keisha have given Edna some soup, which she gratefully accepts. Edna doesn’t feel needy because she believes that a greater power is meeting all her needs. She always sees the good in life even though her material circumstances might cause her to doubt it.

“Since my dad wasn’t there to yell at most of the time, she took her frustrations out on me. I was never good enough or smart enough or fast enough to please her. I loved her, but it seemed like I couldn’t make her love me.”

Jonathan tells Keisha about his relationship with his mother. This is the only point in the novel where the reader gets some insight into his psychology. He rapes women at knifepoint to gain the love that his mother denied him.

“Jonathan was wonderful—like no one I had ever met—fine and sharp and smart, too. But there was something, something I couldn’t put my finger on, that bothered me. I couldn’t put it into words, wasn’t even sure what I felt. Worry? His childhood? I wasn’t sure. But I let the thought pass.”

In the previous quote, Jonathan clearly told Keisha who he was and what he wanted. She found the disclosure unnerving but suppressed her response. She wants to believe that he’s perfect. She would rather believe a superficial image of the model boyfriend than her own gut instincts.

“I’ve always watched you, Keisha. You were always pretty and popular—like a butterfly—fluttering and shining for others to admire. People like to hang around you. Me, I’m the class fool.”

Leon is expressing his sincere admiration for Keisha. His choice of a butterfly to describe her ought to give her a hint about who sent her the butterfly necklace. Unfortunately, Keisha can no longer see the obvious because she’s fallen under Jonathan’s spell.

“‘You’re brilliant, Keisha. I’ve never met anyone quite like you.’ I was grinning into the phone like he could see me. Jonathan made me feel like a grown-up with a mind, not a girl with a phone number like the boys I’d meet at the mall did.”

Jonathan takes the time to flatter Keisha for her intellect. He uses every technique he can to appear superior to his competition—teenage boys at the mall. At the same time, he sets Keisha above her female classmates by keying on her maturity and cleverness. All these ploys are intended to make her feel special and grown up.

“‘Your mind is so open and ready to absorb everything, Keisha,’ he said with admiration. ‘You’re like a plant that has been parched and dry, waiting for the rain to help you bloom.’ ‘Are you my rain?’ I asked him teasingly. ‘I’m a full-blast thunderstorm,’ he replied.”

In this quote, we again see Jonathan praising Keisha’s intellect to draw attention away from his real purpose, sexual seduction. At the same time, he is lightheartedly telling her what he is. A full-blast thunderstorm is a destructive force of nature. Much like Jonathan’s revelation about his emotionally deprived childhood, this hint also goes unheeded.

“‘He is not too old!’ I argued. ‘I am eighteen years old! I’m grown and I can see who I like! I can take care of myself! When are you going to let me grow up?’ ‘You think you’re grown-up, Keisha,’ my mother sighed, ‘but if you have to tell people you’re an adult, that means you’re not. Grown folks never say, “I’m grown.”’”

Keisha’s declaration of independence sounds petulant and weak. She appears like a child having a tantrum, which her mother quickly points out. The quote reveals her insecurity in words meant to prove her maturity.

“‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ his smooth voice soothed. ‘Remember, you’re not like the rest of the girls. They’re still crawling around like caterpillars. You are already a butterfly—ready to try her wings.’”

Jonathan’s voice is frequently described as smooth. Too smooth and unctuously soothing. Once again, he draws a favorable comparison between Keisha and her immature classmates. She is the butterfly, but they are lowly worms. This transparent flattery almost works because Keisha desperately wants to see herself as a mature adult.

“But I want the two of you to consider the consequences. Sex is serious. And sex can be stupid. Be careful. That goes for you and Jalani, too, Keisha. You kids better think with your heads, not your other body parts.”

Rhonda’s mother starts by lecturing her daughter and Tyrone about their growing intimacy. However, her words are highly applicable to Keisha’s current plight. She’s been swept away by a romantic image of Jonathan without considering the consequences if she gets involved with him sexually.

“Jalani was quiet for a moment. Then she told me, ‘There’s an old Ibo saying: “Beware of the gift wrapped with silence. The snake hides under a silver moon.”’ Her words made me shiver, but I refused to let Jalani know.”

Keisha has repeatedly ignored the warnings from people who care about her. While it’s understandable that a teenager might rebel against parental advice, these words come from her peer. Jalani defines silence as dangerous. The conspiracy of silence surrounding Jonathan and his clandestine relationships with women is exactly that.

“I’m so much more mature than high school boys like Leon. He’s a good friend, but he has no idea how to act like a real man. This is a world that Leon can’t even imagine. Dim lights. Candles. Romance.”

Keisha thinks this as she admires Jonathan’s elegant apartment and the gourmet dinner he arranged for them. His sophistication elevates her in her mind. She can only think of herself as mature if he does so first.

“‘I didn’t think I would ever smile again,’ I said sadly. I thought about the horrible night with Jonathan. ‘You gotta smile, baby. Smilin’ is the medicine God give us to heal us from pain. You gonna get over this. You gonna smile for the rest of your life.’”

Once again, Edna offers words of wisdom. Jonathan’s influence has made Keisha feel that no good is left in the world. Edna has less reason than anyone to believe there is, but she asserts that conviction just the same. Her benevolence is a good antidote for Jonathan’s selfishness.

“‘You saved my life,’ I told her gratefully. ‘No, child. You saved your own life. I just patched up your body and put a bandage on your soul. You gonna be just fine.’”

Keisha is blaming herself for ever getting involved with Jonathan. She fails to recognize that she fought back and freed herself. Rita will later make a similar comment about Keisha’s assertiveness. Keisha is still mentally at the point where she’s giving her power away to her attacker. Fortunately, she will eventually get her perspective back.

“Rita sighed. ‘I was once where you are, Keisha. I didn’t think I could live again. But right now, you are doing exactly what he wants you to do. You are letting him control your life, your thoughts, your very existence. Is that what you want?’”

Many people try to pull Keisha out of her depression, but only Rita succeeds. Her words carry weight because she is an abuse survivor too. She has found a way to shatter Jonathan’s control. Her very presence is a reassuring sign to Keisha that she can do the same.

“‘Wouldn’t that have got him into trouble, instead of you?’ I asked. ‘Maybe. But he has a way of twisting things so that he looks innocent and you feel stupid and guilty.’ ‘I know.’ I understood completely.”

Keisha’s biggest problem isn’t Jonathan’s physical attack. It’s the effect he’s had on her mind. He has shifted blame for his actions onto her, and she has accepted that guilt. He did the same to Rita. Recovery begins when survivors of abuse stop blaming themselves for their attackers’ sins.

“You gotta go back to school—with your head held high. You beat him, Keisha! You won! Let your friends help you. What kind of friend turns her back on folks when they’re offering love and support? You may as well smack them in the face just like I did you.”

Keisha is avoiding her friends because she’s avoiding herself. However, she fails to see that her isolation sends a message of rejection and insult to the people who want to help her. Rita points this out explicitly by framing Keisha’s depression as a form of self-absorption.

“It had been weeks after the attack before I had been able to look at myself. At first, all I saw in the mirror was shame and fear, pain and dark memories. […] That day, I looked in the mirror and I actually smiled. The face I saw had personality and spunk.”

The mirror is an important metaphor for Keisha’s desire to hide from herself. Her healing can’t begin until she acknowledges her mistake and moves past it. When she can see herself in a positive light again, she is on the road to recovery. Being able to bear her own reflection in the mirror and finding spunk there is a sign that healing has begun.