Wait For Me to Come Home (Noah Schnapp x Gay Male OC Story)

Part One

A/N: TW here for a bit of self-harm and one slur. I'm sorry about including this and I promise there won't be any more actions like this. If you ever feel like this then please reach out to friends, family and don't do stuff like this. Things will get better, and this isn't the answer.

Robbie

I bring my phone out from beneath the uneven hotel duvet covers, though I can already tell from the darkness surrounding my room that it's early morning. 2:27 am. And I'm wide awake. Screw jet lag. But screw my mind too.

If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be in America, I'd laugh at you. My British ass was perfectly happy not travelling halfway across the world to the place my friends and I had mocked for years growing up about Gun toting diabetics and every other stereotype we could think of.

One moment I'm playing small gigs in pubs and venues you'd only find if you'd made a wrong turn somewhere, the next I'm on tour playing bigger and bigger venues across the U.S. I'm not quite at 'Madison Square Garden Level' as some overly confident people I've met put it, but I shouldn't complain. Still, everything's so surreal.

One thing which hasn't changed is my mental health. And I tell myself jet lag is part of the problem, but I know the real reason I'm not sleeping. My career is finally starting to lift off after years of hard work and people saying I couldn't possibly do it, but I don't feel anything except the incredible lows.

At least I'm not feeling low at the moment. It's worse. I'm empty, I don't care and I'm running out of reasons to care. I would just write another song but I've written so many when I've felt like this that it isn't exactly therapeutic. My phone buzzes. Oddly enough for someone who people have called 'Up and Coming' and been tagged in countless videos across Instagram, I still don't get that many messages.

I raise the phone above my face, blinding myself briefly as the light of the screen adjusts to the darkness. I see the username and the message along with it. My heart sinks.

[Instagram] adrian_cooper: Since when were you in America???

Typical Adrian. We'd been best friends since we met on the first day of Year Seven, and had stayed close for all the years before we finished our GCSEs a year ago. But I'd always felt like he'd never treated me the same as his other close friends, and I was proved right when he started ignoring me after I came out, despite him saying nothing would change. So I returned the favour, not wanting to endure one sided conversations where I was genuinely interested in what he had to say, yet he couldn't care less about me.

This is the first time he's messaged me in around seven months. I bet he'd seen the post I'd put up earlier last night, of my usual crowd picture I take during the last song of my set at every gig I play. Of course he still pays attention to my feed, but couldn't be bothered to try to talk to me.

The memories and emotions come flooding in all at once as I reread his message on my lock screen. Is it even worth trying to respond? He's messaged me first for once. I'm not in the mood for this, but maybe it's time I called him out on his bullshit.

I hesitate, before unlocking my phone and opening Instagram.

robbie.mp3: yeah I'm out on tour now, I'm currently in Atlanta haha

adrian_cooper: omg! that's so cool you're getting to go to America whilst I'm still stuck doing A-Levels

I frown a little. Since when was he so invested in my life? He was one of the people who laughed when I first said a few years ago that I knew I wanted to be a musician. My phone buzzes again, and my heart is up in my throat.