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

He expected it to be Paul or Ethan, or even one of the other string students to tell him what he had been called in his absence by the ever-touchy Mr. Weber, but it was Jayden’s picture that lit up the screen, and he skated his thumb across one new message with a mingled sense of dread and hope.


When was he ever going to stop hoping that this would go away?


It was nearly half past five. Jayden would be at the drama rehearsal, and it never lasted its allotted time on Fridays.


Fine, he replied and hauled himself off the bed again. Jayden didn’t know this either. He thought he did, but he didn’t. He’d never seen it, never seen the shadows under his eyes or the way he had to keep rubbing his thumb and fingers together, to check they were there. He’d take playing over the numbness. He’d take the empty shells of Vivaldi’s concerti, take his mind spiralling away into the notes until there was nothing left to wonder why it felt so wrong, over this…this…ache


Chapter 77