When he awoke Jackie was gone. She left for work at a reasonable hour. It was Joey's sleep schedule that was fucked due to working night shifts at the cafe. In the beginning the night shifts were shared between him and Tony. But after a few weeks, somehow, Tony convinced Joey that it'd be better to change the night shifts every other month.

"See, it just doesn't make sense for both of us to ruin our sleep schedules at the same time. So how about one guy takes the night shift one month, the whole month. And then we switch."

That was the plan. But for some reason months passed and Tony was never working nights. Only Joey. The latter, being younger and less assertive, didn't know how to broach the topic. Tony acted like their plan to switch schedules never happened. He'd compliment Joey on how much of a trooper was. 

gaslighting

him... using compliments to make it tougher for Joey to bring up the fact that it was time... had been time to shift long ago.

Apparently 

sleep

 was imperative for health. Now that he had run away from home. Ran away from the panic attacks. Now that he was alone in New York, he wondered whether the night shifts were to blame for the panic attacks in the first place. He got up finally. Went to the window in the bedroom. Opened it and let the sounds of the city enter.