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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡChVGgAm6MP
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWQgUPWiEES
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtiD6zorMxx
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlMhBp6WcIb
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlrk6BDH8uW
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaLHWcXheXL
Just silence.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP7lHUylXjg
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCvof97cMTb
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgsB5oUfhiI
But instead, I turned left.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSIu3ZsTvdw
Down to the garage level.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7aBG9GkuQb
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhwxurPOR95
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGnx15HN5Cu
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsDriNJisJM
Same humming vending machine.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ57bqeSNdBn
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBtNXWhdULC
My father's would've been three from the end.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHBBP4FxLif
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMLrimy7SwN
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv4ZYkTH3kP
Boots too clean for the garage.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRD7IabLq82
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsYYwvmpPoj
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs62z4dNRmI
I could barely see past the brim.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn1k31krlce
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3SDinj7nJp
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy9CTlGzXPx
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8f8E9cuweh
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD7cIkUQqML
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhCzYLxE5YA
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡklAfgka7aI
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8ChlsZUAUv
The way my mother cried without sound.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs7qtzaya8J
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTPzINPt5mi
In the masjids.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM34040Nczy
At the community center.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMH2F45Tjm4
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxA9l7brCwv
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ98waeOgkw9
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY8yyRnu2yw
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcgMNRGDpMi
Access.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4pwxhfHnTi
An education I never dreamed of affording.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmcLu1RYcud
Tutors. Travel.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEF8ZQySU5B
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX9jlB800NP
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO8I4iyids5
I learned quickly to keep my distance.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡporkwSmuBG
To look, but not linger.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfMT1QvJdo6
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNnVjoAIqeu
Closed my eyes.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqfHxZ3kSeG
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7iitaVK0bS
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ07Lfluu0Ps
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQlOpoqgphS
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Y7sEu6IXt
No chatter. No phones ringing.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡszmXLsW9F1
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ46GYj8sOw9
Too early.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQaQ3SY0O4Y
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFc9GFhBdd3
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLfoWIevesC
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW4SCCVMxgS
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfJIJYWZBHq
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhsXW15J4zA
My stomach knotted.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbMi5gh2S4I
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,79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqCmCLh2Rfd
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9EiEnFtGbm
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYtAKskdnZw
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ92AgT9QWn2
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl1dDpzQkm0
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?79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhrZJsggPSg
No.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT570u4wybb
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbfhpcaxhBd
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHnLwyiZezs
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOz0JIlUpW4
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqRvBhpZBYF
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaxfGbOAMWf
