Out-and-regretting-it comprehensive attendee Jayden Phillips turns his cast-iron plans for life upside-down by falling in love with private-school violinist Darren Peace, a sardonic boy with the craziest hair Jayden's ever seen.<br><br>But all is not what it seems, and Jayden's bullying problem becomes meaningless when he is confronted with what the music does to Darren. How do you stop a dangerous depression rooted in the same thing that makes someone what they are? Dark moods, blank apathy, and the undertow of self-loathing all simmer beneath Darren's dry and beautiful veneer, and Jayden feels powerless to stop them.<br><br>Then a mugging gone wrong takes the music forcibly away, and Jayden is finally given the chance to change Darren's life -- and, quite literally, his mind.

Vivaldi in the Dark

“She’s called Michelle, but Scott—that’s my brother—we just call her Misha most of the time. Or Mish-Mash. Or Potato.”


Jayden laughed properly and untangled himself, scrubbing at the tears with the heel of his hand. “What about your brother?” he mumbled.


“Scott? He’s nineteen,” Darren said, vanishing into a cubicle briefly and reappearing with a wad of paper that he handed over. Jayden scrubbed at his eyes and mumbled a thanks. “Well, you’re welcome. Presuming it helped. I can hug, but that’s about all I can do for tears.”


“I think I needed a hug,” Jayden admitted, still sniffing. “I just…I love my mum and she tries but she’s always trying to fix it and she can’t fix it, she just can’t, and Charley goes and rants about them and says how we’re going to be amazing one day, and I just…I just need a hug sometimes.”


Chapter 17