Jayden's throat tightened. The room felt smaller, warmer, heavier.
Elliot stood, pulled out his phone, and stepped toward the door. "I need to make a call," he said. "There's something I need to arrange."
Jayden blinked. "Arrange?"
Elliot paused at the doorway. "You're not going to disappear from this world, Jayden. Not on my watch."
Then he stepped into the hallway, voice low as he spoke into the phone—words Jayden couldn't make out, but felt were about him.
Jayden stared at the violin in his lap, heart pounding. He didn't know what Elliot was planning. He didn't know why this man kept showing up. But for the first time in days, the room didn't feel like a cage: it felt like a beginning.
Jayden sat there for a long moment after Elliot stepped out, the fading echo of his music still trembling in the air. Even with the violin cracked and his confidence cracked deeper, something about playing in front of Elliot had steadied him. The man saw him: not the brokenness, not the ragged edges, but the heart that kept beating underneath.
Yet beginnings are fragile things.
The next afternoon arrived gray and brittle, as Chicago winter days often did. The sky hung low, heavy with clouds, and the air smelled like snow waiting to fall. Jayden left school with his violin slung over his shoulder, planning to practice again at Jackson Park before heading home. He liked the open space there: the winding paths, the bare trees like dark veins against the sky, the way the lake wind hummed whenever he played. It gave him room to feel everything without walls closing in.
He walked past the swings creaking in the wind, past a group of younger kids playing tag, their boots crunching over dead leaves. He found his usual bench near a patch of brittle winter grass, set the violin case down carefully, and took a deep breath.
He lifted the instrument, letting the bow hover just above the strings, and then—
"Hey. Look who's back."
Jayden flinched.
Three boys about his age, or maybe a year older, approached from behind the swings. He recognized them immediately: they were from a nearby block, kids who liked trouble the way some people liked music. He'd seen them around school before, shoving smaller kids in the hallway, laughing like rules didn't apply to them.
The tallest one, wearing a bright red puffer jacket, smirked. "Yo, play us something, Mozart."
Jayden tried to stay calm. He lowered his violin. "I'm just practicing. You can go somewhere else."
The boy in the beanie stepped closer—too close. "We like it here."