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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQyMUW061ck
But then the revised weekly schedule hit my inbox a few minutes later. Every meeting with Imran—gone.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8mMpNUwJYd
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡacxo3rtjZ3
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvQFDXVjAmB
I needed the quiet. I needed the grounding.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiNMCLulXoP
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIYHc987vKR
Just silence.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZEuOeErItf
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxrLfY1Hyoj
Should've taken the elevator straight to the top floor and stepped into whatever version of hell this week would be.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyoVTYhz83O
But instead, I turned left.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrcCJTTbmqP
Down to the garage level.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKyM2iOq2gw
To the drivers' lounge.
The room was empty, but warm.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ09AXVW8iHL
It smelled like diesel and stale coffee and those cheap Bosnian cigarettes my father used to chain-smoke.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjz8xsbwX1l
I closed the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
This place had barely changed.
Same cracked leather couches.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpBwrhH6K0c
Same humming vending machine.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMW4sf83FeI
Same half-faded poster about snow chain protocols.
I walked over to the corner where the lockers used to be.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj0ENGrn2GK
My father's would've been three from the end.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8oWEespzez
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOVK2WdTnhG
Bright scarf knotted under her chin.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyIPJpUr6gt
Boots too clean for the garage.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoZT24i923P
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡywnoUDAfHd
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxeFadNjlqH
I could barely see past the brim.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlN5fEcevT7
She grinned anyway.
"Looks good on you."
My father chuckled as she walked away.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDSUlInlm1g
"Little boss got good taste," he said, ruffling my hair.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9jSpKFGF3M
"Careful, Ayub. That one's trouble."
I still have that cap.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYFrf9pb4sm
Buried in a box in the back of my closet.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Cp0x14kgW
Never wore it again, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.
My father died a few months later.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlkvbokivMJ
Rain-slick road. A sharp turn just past Visoko.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBJlwjv4tay
They found the truck wrapped around a concrete barrier.
I still remember the knock on the door.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbsDqD48wZ5
The way my mother cried without sound.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAIXR3c99A5
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGQ26TnEL8z
In the masjids.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6lEVni7KWJ
At the community center.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ukNRzOTKx
Where is Ibrahim's son? Who has him?
She showed up at my uncle's door like a storm in a silk hijab.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkyRuyJYJtG
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIAQowKYUnx
I stayed for two years.
Imran took me in like a brother.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIlDo1dNDkL
But what their parents gave me—that was something else entirely.
They gave me status.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEW3pyEXdJg
Access.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkLF9HJCq61
An education I never dreamed of affording.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGjQe5gZXZL
Tutors. Travel.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtuudMmHtMF
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvPsXxGR3KP
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmKTtEQjfC8
I learned quickly to keep my distance.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMbHC1PeL4Y
To look, but not linger.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ1et29MZdd
To admire quietly and never, ever want too much.
I sat down on the old couch near the window.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1z63PUbcT1
Closed my eyes.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMV6QWrziOF
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwDK0rSJQPB
And I'm terrified — not of the work, but of falling short of the man they believe I am.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUP9d9kHnqU
The one she expects."
The silence pressed against my chest.
"I miss you."
I sat there a little longer, until my throat stopped burning.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfdinkQgJ0m
Then I pulled my shoulders back and headed for the elevator.
The executive floor was mostly dark when I arrived.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVG7EnousAS
No chatter. No phones ringing.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyo6kiCYSx8
Just the soft hum of the lights and the faint click of my own shoes.
Everyone knew Imran started early.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4MqTY80GqF
Too early.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡamDlsR42XU
He was probably already in his office, sipping bitter coffee and reviewing shipping reports.
I wasn't ready to face him yet.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUG37pxQwyr
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXIK43wpQsN
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDH8BrXUAmW
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIRT6vJbKSO
Pure Lamija.
I opened the file.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMx6vuQLrs4
My stomach knotted.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJhapYEuS8S
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,18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc6jAyoZMoS
"Looks good on you."
I stared at the screen until the lines blurred.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiQLkLb46PD
Then I stood. Slowly. Quietly.
And turned down the hall toward Imran's office.
I didn't knock.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHmAUC09iQq
Not yet.
I just stood outside the door—18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgDWpGRYihR
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.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYe9vch9oUw
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?18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIXcmgVbI7G
No.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi5KU7yJ1uu
Did he try to spiritually process it before opening an Excel sheet?18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsPaQhprvqD
Absolutely.
He's doing his best.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxToXFLKL0j
Unfortunately, his best is now being measured against Lamija Begović at 10am sharp.
Pray for him. Again.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfSvO5PYs9e
Or better yet—leave a comment telling me who you think is going to break first.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWTZEAAjZzl
(It's fine. I already know. I just want to see where your loyalties lie.)
18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSyefpJh7qT
and then Add to home screen.