I’m watching the numbers for the downtown branch again, 2:17 AM. My store's hit every damn metric for six months straight, the sales floor looks like a magazine shoot, even Brenda next door congratulated me on the new patio furniture – but the downtown store… their dip, that 11% shortfall last week, it feels like a personal failure. Like my own success is just… some kind of fluke, waiting for the other shoe to drop, even though it has nothing to do with my commute, my display tables, my quarterly reports. It's an internal tremor, a low-grade hum of dread, observing their struggle and feeling my own competency erode, like sand in an hourglass I can’t stop watching.