The delete button is lying to you — and the reason you trust it is the same reason it knows so much.

It is 1:47 a.m. somewhere in Accra. A man is lying beside his wife, phone tilted away from her at that particular angle we have all mastered. He is not texting another woman. He is typing to a chatbot. He is asking it something he has never asked his pastor, his brother, or the woman breathing next to him. Something about his marriage. Something about his body. Something he has carried since he was fifteen and has never found a room safe enough to put down.