“The world is asleep. The sounds change — the hum of a refrigerator becomes audible, the tick of a wall clock becomes a heartbeat, the distant traffic thins to single vehicles whose headlights sweep across bedroom ceilings like searchlights. The performance of daytime — the masks, the appropriate responses, the careful curation of what you show and what you hide — all of it dissolves in the dark. At 2 AM, the person you're talking to isn't getting the version of you that functions in society. They're getting the version that exists underneath: messier, more honest, more dangerous.”