3:17 AM
1541 Words
Chapter 4: 3:17 AM
There are certain times of night that don't feel real.
Three in the morning was one of them.
At 3 AM, the world became softer somehow.
Cars disappeared from the streets.
Notifications stopped.
Even the air felt quieter.
It was the hour for insomniacs.
For overthinkers.
For lonely people searching for proof that someone else was still awake.
And almost every night, Maya was.
By now, her streams had become the center of my days.
Or maybe my nights.
Time barely mattered anymore.
I'd wake up late, send out job applications I no longer believed in, survive the afternoon somehow, then wait for darkness to arrive.
Wait for the notification.
Wait for her.
I knew it wasn't healthy.
But loneliness made unhealthy things feel necessary.
Especially when they were the only good part of your day.
That Thursday night, rain hammered against my apartment windows hard enough to shake the glass.
The city outside looked blurred.
Distant lights smeared across wet streets.
My room smelled faintly of coffee and dust.
I sat at my desk refreshing Maya's channel every few minutes like an i***t.
At exactly 2:11 AM, the stream appeared.
Title:
"the rain is loud tonight"
I clicked immediately.
Black screen.
Gray text.
Viewer count: 4.
Then her message appeared.
"there you are."
A smile spread across my face before I could stop it.
"You sound relieved."
"Maybe I am."
"Wow."
"Don't make it weird."
"Too late."
A few seconds passed.
Then:
"how bad's the weather there?"
I looked toward the window.
"Feels like the apocalypse."
"Nice."
"What about yours?"
"Same."
For some reason, the idea that it was raining where she lived too made the distance between us feel smaller.
Like the same storm had found both of us.
The chat stayed quiet that night.
A few viewers drifted in and out, but nobody really talked.
Which meant it became another one of our conversations.
The kind that stretched for hours without either of us noticing.
At one point Maya typed:
"I think rain makes people honest."
"Why?"
"Because everything feels quieter."
I leaned back in my chair.
"Tell me something honest then."
Three dots appeared instantly.
"I almost ended the stream before you joined."
"Why?"
"I was having a bad night."
The words tightened something inside my chest.
"What happened?"
Long pause.
Then:
"Nothing dramatic."
"Just one of those days where existing feels embarrassing."
I stared at the screen.
That sentence sounded too familiar.
Too real.
"Yeah," I typed slowly.
"I know that feeling."
For a while neither of us spoke.
The silence between messages felt heavier than usual.
Finally Maya wrote:
"Do you ever think maybe we're all just pretending?"
"Pretending what?"
"That we're okay."
The rain hit harder against the window.
I rubbed tired eyes.
Then answered honestly.
"All the time."
The typing indicator blinked.
Stopped.
Started again.
"I think people can tell when someone's broken."
I frowned.
"I don't think you're broken."
"You don't know me."
"Maybe not."
Another pause.
Then I typed:
"But I know you stay awake talking to strangers so they don't feel alone."
The typing indicator vanished.
For nearly a minute there was nothing.
Then finally:
"that's unfair."
"What is?"
"Making me emotional at 2:30 in the morning."
I laughed softly.
"Sorry."
"No you're not."
She was right.
I wasn't.
Because moments like this felt important.
Real.
Not fake like most conversations people had during the day.
No pretending.
No masks.
Just honesty in the dark.
Eventually Maya changed the subject.
"Okay serious question."
"That's dangerous."
"If animals could talk, which one would be the rudest?"
I blinked.
"What?"
"Answer the question."
"Geese."
"Oh absolutely."
"They already act like they pay taxes."
For the next twenty minutes we argued about animals.
Foxes.
Cats.
Raccoons.
At one point Maya typed:
"Raccoons would definitely blackmail people."
"How would a raccoon blackmail someone?"
"I don't know but they'd enjoy it."
I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my coffee.
And suddenly I realized something strange.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd laughed this much with someone.
Not forced laughter.
Not polite laughter.
Real laughter.
The kind that left your chest warm afterward.
Around 3 AM, Maya grew quieter.
Her replies slowed.
Shorter messages.
Long pauses.
I noticed immediately.
"You okay?"
Several seconds passed.
Then:
"Can I ask something weird?"
"Always."
"What do you think I look like?"
The question caught me off guard.
I stared at the screen.
Honestly, I had tried imagining her before.
Countless times.
But the image never stayed consistent.
Sometimes I pictured dark hair.
Sometimes glasses.
Sometimes oversized sweaters and tired eyes.
But none of it felt important.
Because somehow Maya already felt real without a face.
"I don't know," I admitted.
"That's not an answer."
"It's true."
"So you've never imagined me?"
"I have."
"And?"
I hesitated.
Then typed carefully.
"I think you look like someone who apologizes when other people bump into you."
There was a long silence.
Then:
"wow."
"What?"
"That's weirdly specific."
"Am I wrong?"
"...no."
I smiled to myself.
"What do you think I look like?"
Her response came instantly.
"Tired."
I laughed.
"That's it?"
"Also tall."
"I'm average height."
"Damn."
"And why tired?"
"Because you type like someone who's exhausted."
I stared at the message.
It shouldn't have affected me.
Yet somehow it did.
Because she noticed things.
Tiny things.
The kind most people missed.
At 3:17 AM, Maya suddenly typed:
"Tell me something true."
The words hit differently this time.
Maybe because the night already felt fragile.
Maybe because we'd spent weeks slowly pulling pieces of ourselves apart for each other.
I rested my hands on the keyboard.
Then stopped.
Then started again.
Finally I wrote:
"I think meeting you changed something in me."
The message sat there.
Unmoving.
Too honest.
Way too honest.
I almost deleted it.
But it was already sent.
The typing indicator appeared immediately.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally:
"good change or bad change?"
I stared at the question.
Rain filled the silence.
"Good."
Another pause.
Then:
"that's scary."
"Why?"
"Because I think maybe you changed something in me too."
My chest tightened painfully.
There it was again.
That dangerous feeling growing between us.
Not exactly romance.
But close enough to frighten me.
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed a hand over my face.
This was insane.
We didn't know each other.
Not really.
No voices.
No faces.
No real names.
And yet somehow she had become the most important part of my life.
As if reading my thoughts, Maya typed:
"Do you ever think this is weird?"
"Constantly."
"Good."
"But I don't think weird automatically means bad."
The typing indicator blinked slowly.
Then:
"Maybe not."
Outside, thunder rolled through the sky.
My apartment briefly flashed white with lightning.
The stream remained dark except for the soft gray text appearing one sentence at a time.
Somehow that darkness made everything feel more intimate.
Like the rest of the world didn't exist.
Eventually Maya asked:
"If there was anywhere in the world you could go right now, where would you go?"
The answer came instantly.
"Honestly?"
"Yeah."
"Probably wherever you are."
The moment I sent it, panic hit me.
Too much.
Way too much.
I reached for the keyboard as if I could take the words back.
But Maya replied before I could think.
"Oh."
Just that.
Oh.
Then nothing.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Two minutes.
My stomach twisted.
Great.
I ruined it.
Then finally:
"I think if there was anyone in the world I'd want to meet..."
The typing stopped.
Started again.
"...it would probably be you."
Everything inside me went still.
The rain.
The room.
My thoughts.
All of it faded behind those words.
I reread them once.
Twice.
Ten times.
My heart beat so hard it actually hurt.
And somewhere deep down, terrifyingly, beautifully, I realized the truth.
I was falling in love with a girl I'd never seen.
Not with her face.
Not with some fantasy.
With her.
With the way she stayed awake when she couldn't handle her thoughts.
With the way she asked impossible questions.
With the way she hid sadness inside jokes.
With the way she made loneliness feel survivable.
The realization should have scared me more than it did.
Maybe because part of me had known for weeks already.
Neither of us spoke for a long time after that.
The silence wasn't uncomfortable.
It felt full.
Like both of us were standing at the edge of something huge.
Something unnamed.
Finally Maya typed:
"It's late."
"Yeah."
"I should probably sleep."
"Probably."
"But thanks for being here tonight."
There was something soft about the sentence.
Something almost vulnerable.
And suddenly I wanted to tell her everything.
That she mattered to me.
That she was becoming the first thing I thought about in the morning.
That my days revolved around these conversations now.
Instead I typed the only thing I could manage.
"Always."
The stream ended seconds later.
Black screen.
Disconnected chat.
Silence.
But this time the silence felt different.
Because somewhere out there, behind another glowing screen and another rain-covered window, there was a girl thinking about me too.
And that realization was both the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I'd ever felt.
- Writer
