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

“All right,” he said anyway, and Jayden pulled him out of his chair by the hand, dragging him back to the counter to order refills to go, biting his lip and frowning when Darren made no attempt to try and pay.


Things were bad. He didn’t let go of Darren’s hand all the way home.


Things were bad. He’d never seen Darren this…


Darren had texted him at three-thirty on the dot, saying he would be in Costa rather than the theatre, and a niggling unease had started in Jayden’s stomach. And his face when Jayden had got there…he looked almost shell-shocked, all the feeling shaken out of him. Jayden hadn’t known whether to talk to him or fetch a blanket and hug him to death.


Jayden didn’t know what to do. Darren was barely talking—barely even seeming to hear him, most of the time—and when even raiding the biscuit tin and settling down in front of the TV to a show on BBC2 that Jayden knew Darren enjoyed did nothing to lift his mood, the unease ballooned into outright worry.


Chapter 46