By seven in the evening, Dean’s brain felt like overcooked glass—brittle, hot, and ready to shatter at the slightest tap.
He stared at the dual monitors in his cramped cubicle, the endless rows of financial data blurring into a gray smudge. As a junior analyst at a high-pressure consultancy, his entire life was measured in pivot tables, tight deadlines, and senior partners barking orders across open-plan desks. Every minute of his day was an exercise in micro-management. He managed his boss’s erratic tempers, managed his own crushing workload, and managed to smile when a director threw a hundred-page deck back on his desk with five minutes' notice.
He was good at it. He was neat, hyper-organized, and punctual to a fault. But the control was a exhausting performance, a tightrope walk that
