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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFw13LVyMqF
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNWhLJGzgAo
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDtYg86mnjb
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPjgwKyA3dE
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmOYmRkfb8E
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNR1vKBG700
Just silence.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8dLiSUbMHO
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDs5wAKjIpB
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRJ1tpxRcJo
But instead, I turned left.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH5vSDNcyMK
Down to the garage level.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZVmVD10i6p
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR0OTyKvWkZ
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCvDsp73zO6
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2GXpUlxKwK
Same humming vending machine.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZXLsJpifSB
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0qAjRuybDJ
My father's would've been three from the end.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRoQ461G7fU
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI1HBd9EEIj
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcO1kRWyQki
Boots too clean for the garage.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Vl4pOsnza
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8YXgVw6jld
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfXtIyALfKO
I could barely see past the brim.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSWQSDoyNGk
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCCDPu04mjp
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwaujlH2Ukd
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMyhr3pfjfm
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhn1n4s5h2N
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRHlb46Ezb0
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiGZfqqbuhM
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfL7EFPXMKs
The way my mother cried without sound.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡru7g8oDD8F
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4FrttlIbr6
In the masjids.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZp2EyGTo1z
At the community center.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPuk3p2Gc75
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2Oci0GJuQU
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuYU2Lye2uY
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoI3B5AJy8H
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyIxSya7Av3
Access.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ6zdMRpTzK
An education I never dreamed of affording.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4mqrEhlzd0
Tutors. Travel.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsPkK2YcT3L
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP7MHeP4k1r
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRnrdwV565u
I learned quickly to keep my distance.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLiGNnCnSjR
To look, but not linger.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNoSmGmsRpB
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaWSKxY64Ut
Closed my eyes.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaqNk9ysGcA
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRbngMIaJWO
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyyZiV5174N
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnlguiS1Ftg
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ52dNqvoNzx
No chatter. No phones ringing.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN2g0B0t0AQ
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb45e1F8Dax
Too early.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt1u3ZF7naN
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTmWQvh1yj5
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡToaP1Bcfxe
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc5wj7QXkEB
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx7FVf2H1mq
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡefmRVdSEtB
My stomach knotted.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTKW0UEXq8d
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,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2xbJboKbCF
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcjGgknoFjX
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdX9uSgaPOq
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqtBRy3s7wR
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.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwgJTX5iby7
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?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq4glLz4uHa
No.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdvGnCmgBzx
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRHJNllRExk
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfv5fw6arO5
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVw92lTcO3b
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGhNUv6UYpH
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsu6Y72oR9a
and then Add to home screen.