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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIfoLfwTIa0
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPKsfyXBq9d
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXkfj5RUnGz
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn6ak6p35xm
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL4vW5TQeil
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjDmq47RD0h
Just silence.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuRa4vTFOdk
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhlReSMYlXj
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpEXVUWlI2b
But instead, I turned left.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrrtOoY9qtJ
Down to the garage level.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd4ecl9v7dB
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEvjMbFbp4j
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRdLfBlhj5g
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE86lqcunDA
Same humming vending machine.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrpZpWmO6YP
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa1HGfD0fzg
My father's would've been three from the end.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcdKr7jv9Pf
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡockYCd8VBR
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxzVMDn1HUr
Boots too clean for the garage.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrmkf4zVmuD
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbtUmoZFKLJ
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR5CObzwh93
I could barely see past the brim.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLdjQAMjbxc
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKrm1vegex0
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl13Rn2FAHx
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBMPlTwB0Y9
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYEYH6icj8a
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRUi5cdCS3y
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ93bE9uGLBF
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWgBLug6GJ5
The way my mother cried without sound.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGhUehyUr8Y
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMuiWW6PJYv
In the masjids.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzzXCdVciJP
At the community center.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtB7cjVu4fs
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ1Sx7BL8eb
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD57mysu4jQ
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFI0e1qxAgj
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZuAqgCYuvD
Access.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ84N43oS4LB
An education I never dreamed of affording.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAMwzqmHdgi
Tutors. Travel.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5cJ3xaobOc
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡinlHRBeZP0
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3GkcOASd8v
I learned quickly to keep my distance.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN6iZuqx571
To look, but not linger.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡStUt3VJ9G4
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGRiqmRwGNm
Closed my eyes.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR5QZEYxaqy
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtfm8R4dCAF
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp1c3JBubN5
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXp5N5u1Tx6
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDiXLVxCAMg
No chatter. No phones ringing.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZrb49VRPQN
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRXwNdRc1ym
Too early.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDpgiJSxk7L
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7aqXYNBZGE
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjxoNT7TBtc
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLgn1yJnxT3
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv798HGTuKT
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsflNjeJa3g
My stomach knotted.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj3Fnd8n7eZ
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,8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGiCSd3ksAo
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ580e45W4zD
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaBa249Qs5A
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv8Up7Wv8Fk
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.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoB3ltGVHBk
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?8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXlKVyw17XY
No.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ72EYSCieyd
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBuXvtcoUiZ
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPFgiH6TNrs
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ95NPRO1546
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡplLVDxzKGi
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZXkTzMCNDC
