BEFORE THE DAWN

Lily was resting her head on the steering wheel when Jean knocked on the car window.

Rolling down the window, she had to squint her eyes and saw a smiling Jean, "Hey. I'm just resting a little. What is it?"

"Get out of the car. You're not driving tonight," replied Jean.

"It's okay. I can drive."

"Nope. I insist. Don't make me haul your ass out of there. Come on. Somebody will drive you home. Give me your car key."

A little hesitant, Lily gave her the key anyway. "Who?"

"Him." Jean pointed to her right.

"Leather jacket guy? But how--" Lily tried to protest but Jean shut her up.

"He has a name, Lil. Ray Carter."

What?! Lily thought this couldn't be happening to her. Not him of all people!

Before she could say a word of protest, a rather impatient car horn was heard.

In the driver's seat was Ray Carter, the super pale guy. The leather jacket guy. Lily had a lot of nicknames for him. She just couldn't believe she didn't recognize him earlier.

Looking at Jean once more, she knew she had no choice but to let Ray Carter drive her home. According to her best friend, he was a good citizen of Fram Hill. He would not harm her.

So trusting her friend's judgment, she went inside the black car.

"Aren't you going to say goodbye to your friend?" Ray asked Lily, who was still uncomfortable sitting in the backseat.

"Oh! Bye, Jean. Don't stay too late."

The redhead winked at her. "You bet, baby girl. I won't."

With that short goodbye between the best friends, Ray started the engine and drove away.

***

Jean only stared at the back of the black car while it found its way away from the party.

After a while, she went back to Douglas' party, grabbed another bottle of cheap beer, and tried to enjoy the rest of the night.

In one corner, Frankie and Missy were flirting with each other, and Jean, jealous as she was with the two, didn't know if the party was better now that Lily, the wallflower, the Stiff, was on her way home.

At least, Lily was not suffering from being ignored and bored anymore. Jean felt almost content.

Hopelessly staring at Frankie, the object of her one-sided affection, she wondered if getting drunk could hide her feelings -- they were building up for years, waiting to be confessed and appreciated. She had been hiding, holding it all in.

One kiss was enough. One kiss was all she could ever wish.

But tonight was not to be the night.

Someday and, maybe, in one of Fram Hill's many house parties, she would be the one flirting with him and not with the cheerleader.

And that would absolutely be a better writing assignment and the most interesting of all, but for now, flirting with another bottle of beer would do.

***

Ray Carter was driving one of his best friends home. That was all right because he did it on an almost regular basis.

But tonight? Something was not right; something was irregular.

He was also driving a damsel in distress to her home, back to her tower. That damsel in distress was the Stiff -- Lily McQueen.

Lucky or unlucky? He wondered.

His current situation was not right but he thought that it was nothing serious -- only that he felt something he shouldn't feel, not in a long time now.

He felt like trouble was brewing, and he was in it. Or must it be a resurfacing of bad habits?

The Stiff was awkward in the backseat; she looked innocent enough.

Ray decided the girl was safe, harmless. Look at her! She can bore me to death by just sitting there. He assured himself.

Suddenly, he felt threatened. For some reason, he felt like she was trouble.

***

While on the road, driving and already resigned to his current circumstance, Ray Carter kept looking at the girl, quietly sitting in the backseat.

He was a little bemused by the fact he was being nice. To somebody. To a stranger. To her.

What the hell was he thinking? Being a good citizen of the town what else. He reasoned.

The girl, Lily McQueen, was rather simple and petite, delicate and plain. She had long, raven-black hair, a rather cute button nose, and not much going on the chest aspect.

Obviously not his type.

One puzzling detail to the girl, despite the fact that she was basically unremarkable, was that he always found her mouth lovely -- small but full and lips rosebud.

At random times, she could be seen pouting and still looked compelling enough to a rather quiet drive.

For already a number of times now, he dared to catch a glimpse. Stealing glances. Was he daring enough to stare at those lips? Did she just lick them wet?

He shook his head. What the fuck? He wasn't aware he saw her that way until now.

All he knew was that she was the girl who used to sneak into the shower room of the varsity teams and eavesdrop on conversations. That happened in his freshman year in high school. It was hilarious that it became a topic of ridicule among players themselves.

He also remembered her as the different, awkward, and "not really pretty" girl from the big city. That was what he heard -- unsympathetic whispers from people in town who thought she didn't belong.

To them, she was still some kind of a foreigner, an alien being pried open and to avoid at first encounter.

Who belongs to this old town anyway? Damn it! They were in the same remedial class before.

He shook his head again, a habit of his, and almost forgot that one detail. He could hear Frankie in his head telling him that the Stiff was forgettable and "not really pretty".

Frankie, one of his best friends, could be such a hater, an antagonist at times, and completely different from Alas who was more forgiving.

The former was a loudmouth, hot-tempered fool while the latter was a dog-loving, gentle soul who couldn't move on from his middle school crush.

Ray got his fair share of best friends in the world, for sure. He was grateful for having friends who put up with him but, in times like tonight, he wished he didn't care for each one of them.

There was another best friend in his own version of a "knights of the roundtable" but that guy was unproblematic. That guy was reliable at best and, Ray reckoned, the luckiest tonight, being that he was having a good time in the arms of the girl he loved.

If only that lucky guy or Frankie drove the drunk Alas home instead, Ray would not be heading in a direction he had never taken before. The direction to 7th Rose Street.

A first drive but an exciting kind in a long while for him. Maybe.

Trying to focus his eyes on the road yet stealing glances again at Lily in the backseat, both difficult to do while driving, Ray was curious.

She was just another teenager. Another name, another girl, and another drive home. All those might be true but how could someone like her be so unremarkable he could not help but notice her?

The realization took him by surprise.

He was curious to the point that she was quietly sitting, doing nothing, between awake and almost asleep, but moving something inside him.

Only the night knew where.

He thought he was already doing so well these days but... his eyes went back to take in her image, straight to his weary brain.

This couldn't be the darkest before the dawn, could it?

***