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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX633R1fYio
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd111WIpDCt
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsLBt7gFsFm
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd4M3hsyR8N
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeijQoNf8x7
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNOzCeqZggA
Just silence.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgLlXfjSTXS
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdV7IPKLdNx
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbEZHMpT5D4
But instead, I turned left.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOpACSvQf1t
Down to the garage level.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnr8xX5WyAq
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyZg5PTNRnW
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUZz8MQUqz4
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNgsUmADW4Y
Same humming vending machine.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPR7wNpkY5m
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmfazre1sqr
My father's would've been three from the end.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfT7nPYp2eR
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvEwcHVgy3s
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8TaXioxmuf
Boots too clean for the garage.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZWCuMY2yvS
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPvmJmokcNB
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdqWeycQc4K
I could barely see past the brim.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsPmzHuk8SA
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhqm3bvPvKO
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1lGnhb6iWS
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjoXBwz8SDE
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWFO9Pk2Rv6
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeXmDsaauOa
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMwBlVk7TpT
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9GzCG3z3ic
The way my mother cried without sound.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYJyymGqQuL
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe0sZDzGLbi
In the masjids.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0zlbXWm7OR
At the community center.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7wQGmW1g0q
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHSSdPBw97C
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNJi3WCFBFm
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEfRR17k0b7
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8tPVCtSIVr
Access.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKYS7gCbKjl
An education I never dreamed of affording.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzlE36pgdFw
Tutors. Travel.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJOpCMGVvHw
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNWM298X1m1
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfUZJweCMgz
I learned quickly to keep my distance.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGeqCn0K1Ca
To look, but not linger.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmLZiJxHQwM
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTs5SpGxZ7u
Closed my eyes.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsomqsAAGqC
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj4O6Px8bqi
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxzzy2y7WHs
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjTMFmUSsIU
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvA3DWi0IFn
No chatter. No phones ringing.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvdcs0PRq8C
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCV71i6sugq
Too early.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWMAEsSA0B
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIwp9pkgMUy
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOChC3c17Ln
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7zolAjIEft
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrgFdj2B7sC
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoehu7T0Z3I
My stomach knotted.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSkydcvTYQC
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,13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVvxNmvw0k1
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVbLi6JW7aF
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvIj6CXlqbw
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvI9Wfld1lM
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmQqd7GdIJx
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?13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKwEwE6Ev42
No.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ34wf9wLMB
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0cWoq1kMuZ
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrKfaCf3Ja4
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvhR7pIsbTU
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnlJQYA6yLb
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡprwqmCvFsI
and then Add to home screen.