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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlgQzA37pHx
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡghN0FJ7H0E
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQjDo2lkC1t
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkjQasEqoJ6
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEvF20qs2Yf
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPfjhwAxVU4
Just silence.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCWbAtDbPxg
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9gZs84PPNm
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6nPzvX7ZPM
But instead, I turned left.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqO7nIQrIJh
Down to the garage level.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiIgYfhU8y3
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjufdD5RDGb
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPAvYaMDX3w
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ72KK8YqEMM
Same humming vending machine.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcRV82eHtR5
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWwjpSQJ0OZ
My father's would've been three from the end.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0RkeIIOLM2
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnldStb063F
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ46n8T11lZU
Boots too clean for the garage.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCneyXdSuWT
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhQk67TifXP
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3t00lHaTb6
I could barely see past the brim.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡidQi5gLkJW
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9xTGxNVCBY
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBFxXuzaCSC
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf25FN5hpWw
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtW3tCPRymu
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL36OUqJZys
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdiheC8AyMx
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSAs8DI0ksU
The way my mother cried without sound.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP6zJjFp3tX
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzfdyUuoEp4
In the masjids.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGUJ9zFsdAV
At the community center.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbG1b6EwE3V
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaMOHeuz3gx
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfv1bd9wDfx
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6tEHTmScSn
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ70eFeenKWY
Access.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6lgh1tmnXS
An education I never dreamed of affording.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8kVhJxRYmp
Tutors. Travel.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCcA0Uq5IXr
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZttN4HAW4b
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7loPrYJA8F
I learned quickly to keep my distance.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0YMT0YbnZn
To look, but not linger.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1bXTwOJDmn
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡduNzJOGzxN
Closed my eyes.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBZkyzgOO39
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLoJvLHtCUl
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNRbdvMHqD0
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHoASZXnq7c
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW0zgWWI3Oq
No chatter. No phones ringing.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYUJFSv8arf
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGXA1nTbYGO
Too early.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvf6JggJt2o
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnSx2Dy9Vhe
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5l8QZ1PU1X
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTqCktU4Kx2
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBdWduYL2q1
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTgWAPNCk5B
My stomach knotted.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc9O7YDR5wn
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,10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNHjVGrDQUJ
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgmaG0teG1X
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdsC9h3cXJf
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSdBLUjVy62
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0Cx9SJKrQS
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?10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi8GyQ5swtA
No.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡep460tJOLq
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCI1nnsUWfG
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5fr31BAzBu
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLlO9VaECQN
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAOMp0tHdVm
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGMA9dPDXSG
