x
I'd been on edge since Fajr.
When the email came in last night, I thought it was a mistake. A glitch in the scheduling system. An error someone in HR would correct by morning.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr6WfOHfrA2
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbq4IUn6K6c
Replaced with joint sessions, team strategy reviews, and onboarding syncs... all with Lamija Begović.
I stared at my calendar for a full five minutes, just waiting for it to shift back.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ151fh64CP5
It didn't.
I prayed Fajr at the masjid near my apartment, the one with peeling blue paint and a heater that hummed too loudly.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5lSSLvsQRP
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAhGTJPbyVL
I tried to focus during sujood, whispered du'a between breaths.
Ya Allah... make me enough.
On the drive to the office, I didn't play Qur'an like usual.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ob400HXsw
Just silence.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyRVNzofZLi
Sarajevo was still half-asleep, the city bathed in that cold, pre-sunlight stillness.
Zehira texted me just before I pulled into the lot:
Zehira: Good luck, ljubavi. You'll be brilliant.
It almost made me smile.
Even her mother knew what a difficult woman she'd raised.
I should've gone upstairs.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNQLI9XZ07e
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYtwi1Dno0R
But instead, I turned left.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd5Igq7KftD
Down to the garage level.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuV5SaVVI5I
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqHm24LNTEH
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEJJpihUg9C
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVMPKyy8NwI
Same humming vending machine.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsmp4qttfzn
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeZejtqXCzc
My father's would've been three from the end.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwaXHYsKha7
He used to let me sit in his truck while he checked in with dispatch.
That's where I first saw her.
Lamija was fourteen.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIxrfSnGYgY
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTJt6auC1EJ
Boots too clean for the garage.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt8vWYCUePo
She walked in with a box of new company merch to hand out to the drivers—hats, hoodies, branded mugs.
I was gone the moment I saw her.
She handed a jacket to my father.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM14ZBu8e9Q
Then looked at me.
"You're Ibrahim's boy?" she asked.
I nodded, ears burning.
The cap she put on my head was comically big.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSE8w1C6DK4
I could barely see past the brim.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM6w4JaMcdb
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkVVPFduHUK
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAghlWVsijr
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6Uw1q9ywbp
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6n3ujk3VLN
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMxVyfYcShW
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKcHhdRkWdc
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgtd1T36g74
The way my mother cried without sound.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNCji4VYMkd
The way she remarried four months later like my father was a chapter she could close and shelve.
Her new husband didn't want baggage.
I was the baggage.
She left me with my uncle, a man who only tolerated me because he shared a last name with my father. The house was cold even when the heaters were on. I ate alone. Slept with the door locked. Did laundry by hand because no one thought to show me the machine.
Zehira Begović started asking around.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnO66QaYlTP
In the masjids.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqVm6AEwNSf
At the community center.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSq5X7Elf2i
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLnjigcuVi6
I still remember the way she pushed past him without waiting for permission.
"Get your things, Ayub. You're coming with me."
And just like that, I did.
I was sixteen when I moved into the Begović house.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2MuFQa5X5Z
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHcREsmpf2n
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR7pwhlUjxK
Access.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoho9wNAOZI
An education I never dreamed of affording.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNZFPAa9trL
Tutors. Travel.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxw43XGEbys
A desk in the corner of the estate library stocked with everything I needed.
They treated me like a son—not just with warmth, but with investment.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRIFOo5oQCr
The kind you pour into a future you believe in.
Even now, they're the closest thing I have to parents.
And Lamija...
Lamija was fire and gravity and sharpness in human form.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvcMEwt9mN7
I learned quickly to keep my distance.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4E4N1hgCZM
To look, but not linger.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXeQsWdgnTb
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw9V28A9ZZT
Closed my eyes.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD6OMJ7aptu
Spoke softly into the space like I used to do when I was a boy sitting in the truck.
"Babo... they want me to work under her now."
I swallowed.
"She's not that little girl anymore. She runs an entire division.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7bZ0LqYR0h
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcSfaGyr11A
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfpDgGubgPB
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSKRC8LRU2Z
No chatter. No phones ringing.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnHa0GVWK42
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvZ4eWIC0sO
Too early.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6ndTvTWizW
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrIM4IjDXDW
Not until I figured out how to say it without sounding like a coward.
My new desk was in the operations wing—closer to Lamija's glass-encased office.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2pq8H8he2B
Front row seats to the storm.
I dropped my bag onto the desk and pulled out my tablet.
The welcome packet was already open—color-coded folders, division performance graphs, open contracts.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXRuEyTZLZI
She was nothing if not thorough.
There was a note at the bottom of one file:
Review before the 10am sync. Come prepared. –L.B.
Short. Sharp. Efficient.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkQgFcxWIYD
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgVMLErFOf8
My stomach knotted.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHzTkAQHI6
Not because I couldn't do it—but because I'd spent years trying to keep my distance.
And now I was being asked to stand beside her, hold my own, and pretend I wasn't still the boy who remembered the way she said,23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYifNHCs4AF
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6dD2TpbGa7
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6aXqT5WZ6R
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBPyX4NSGG3
trying to figure out how to ask the one question I already knew he wouldn't want to answer.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Notes from Ash&Olive:
So. We met Ayub.
He prays, he panics, he trauma-bonds with diesel fumes.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcfeOd1qw6K
Very on brand for someone who's about to work under a woman who could shatter him with a sentence and then move on with her day.
Is he emotionally prepared for this transition?23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLeQ4toNRgZ
No.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaqzpaex35h
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡazYfkIEdiH
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaoyvz9bhfi
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt9Xbid4Hmv
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtnCEwgK1iD
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡutes7cm6na
