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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsj29BCP7jm
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6wRFU2c17i
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3MqNZXHq3X
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqswh6mPO4E
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaJZEn3zD8P
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVXiI5OJGGG
Just silence.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpFb9TFtqcO
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHOqsOW8PLg
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYymENbDoEo
But instead, I turned left.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCMgjjqbMEd
Down to the garage level.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfGhKtD2gzl
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIiTmt0Fdky
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA2hqIrWyVm
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIcEKhYxtUY
Same humming vending machine.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwllLKn4eBD
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Ku5S0Q0hB
My father's would've been three from the end.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPTjzm1T2dI
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGCeTM52ZtX
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrgDU7ka3nw
Boots too clean for the garage.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnwjohptsgr
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiBtfDXiVwY
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUR8Jaeb8Gq
I could barely see past the brim.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxCZgIAKVJM
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU6dB9mPjvP
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdicJmqVosR
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuN0uLWD0EB
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhvLmdrO5kd
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡghrsnUZCGL
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjnmDFZGFL9
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSwW1XYeDhF
The way my mother cried without sound.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4EQhe48qXS
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIf7MWDA6xr
In the masjids.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBs0Q23BL1F
At the community center.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6MJ5gDrpJE
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJb5Vyh6eP0
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxVwa3q3I4O
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvbqopPuY6m
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQhyvsHsoRg
Access.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbpqOIyExH9
An education I never dreamed of affording.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡukDGxuA45P
Tutors. Travel.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxzvArodSdd
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43gmM1BRoL
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIxjwd7LRrb
I learned quickly to keep my distance.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqGtiEoVmZK
To look, but not linger.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCyxDWGJYud
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIyg8ZCePMc
Closed my eyes.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ79Dpz6mjj0
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwBSfz2NoEs
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP7rh32IsBi
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlS9tPijuic
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1ldBGP6NGy
No chatter. No phones ringing.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNhAKWOCqh6
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2urgcIZzsA
Too early.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmBJVyyrqAz
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy78pZfLyHS
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxU3Afq2f0f
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwj9fhnrhZc
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTviepvZWrw
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjRz1aqLRfo
My stomach knotted.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8IFVU0kYGe
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,20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv1EuQ2hVXF
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlYNfNnWu2r
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7hJB79dX0b
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuP9owyu8QK
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.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡajOhVlP2V7
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?20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8yqFFTAVAd
No.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT1bG2sN3Wr
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ424VLCpujB
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAAzF0IpxLD
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMV7Hy0Jx2C
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyjGHPwVkty
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyshBo1Mj1n
