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

Only, you know, it hadn’t. Because his boyfriend was calling The Samaritans on a pretty regular basis, and Jayden didn’t know what to think about it. On the one hand, it was better than he’d hoped. Darren didn’t open up, he didn’t talk about things, so that he was even trying to, even with a stranger…that was amazing and brilliant and he’d make him do it every single time if it helped.


But on the other hand, he’d had to do it thirty-three times. In the last not-too-long. It was a mind-blowing number, and one that Jayden kind of totally didn’t want to think about. Ever. Because he’d been that bad, that many times, and…


And Jayden couldn’t shake the feeling, no matter how happy he was—they were—the rest of the time, that a day was going to come when the depression overwhelmed them both.


Chapter 74