Darkness Before Dawn

A short introductory section places the narrator, Keisha Montgomery, at her high school graduation ceremony. She is nervous because she is class president and will have to give a speech. As she waits for the ceremony to begin, Keisha thinks back to her previous losses. Her friend Rob died in a car crash the year before. Her boyfriend Andy also died that April. Keisha begins her story for the reader on the day of Andy’s death.

As the novel begins, Keisha is a junior at Hazelwood High School in urban Cincinnati. When homeroom attendance is called one April morning, Andy is missing. Nobody thinks anything of his absence, and Keisha spends time with her friend Rhonda, talking about the latter’s boyfriend, Tyrone.

Later that night, Rhonda calls to tell Keisha that Andy shot himself with his father’s hunting rifle. His little brother Monty found the body. Keisha is furious with her mother when she learns that Andy had called and asked for Keisha at midnight the night before, but her mother told him it was too late to disturb her.

Keisha’s mother agrees to drive them both to Andy’s house to offer comfort to the grieving family.