Finally! Some condolences for our dearly departed matriarch.
Mary tho. She was a real one.
djp73 wrote: ↑25 Jun 2026, 14:25Captain Canada wrote: ↑25 Jun 2026, 13:49Sometimes we learn as a community that sometimes no comment is better than some comments
Invictus
-
Captain Canada
Topic author - Posts: 7394
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Invictus
-
Captain Canada
Topic author - Posts: 7394
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Invictus
Season VI | Episode 10 - Forever And Ever, Amen
Zane sat behind the wheel of his car across the street from the church, staring blankly through the windshield at the swelling crowd gathered on the stone steps.
The church looked almost too grand for the occasion, its old brick exterior towering beneath the gray winter sky, as if it had stood through centuries of grief just like this. People clustered in pockets near the entrance, dressed in black and muted colors, their breaths visible in the cold as they spoke in hushed tones.
Some stood with their hands clasped in front of them, others hugged one another tightly, while a few simply stared ahead in silence, waiting for the doors to open. It all felt surreal to Zane - like he was watching someone else’s life unfold through the glass instead of his own.
The days since Mary’s passing had blurred together into something shapeless, a whirlwind of condolences, paperwork, funeral arrangements, and numbness.
He couldn’t keep track of what day it was anymore, let alone everything that had happened in between. There had been moments he’d lost entire hours, sitting in silence or lying awake staring at the ceiling, unable to remember how he got there.
People kept telling him things - who had called, who had stopped by, who had dropped food off at the house - but it all slipped through his fingers the moment it was said. Even his father had been in and out like smoke, impossible to pin down.
Rasheed had drifted through the edges of the last few weeks like a ghost, present one moment and gone the next. Zane barely remembered seeing him after Mary died. In fact, he didn’t remember him showing up at the hospital at all.
It had been Marie and Johntay who told him later that Rasheed had come in after the doctors called it, asking everyone to leave so he could have a moment alone with her. Zane had tried to picture it - his father, alone in that room with Mary - but every time he did, it felt too strange to believe. Since then, the time they had spent together had been little to none, their interactions brief and strained, as if neither of them knew how to exist in the same grief without it turning into something uglier.
From where he sat, Zane narrowed his eyes and scanned the crowd, spotting familiar faces scattered among the mourners.
Johntay stood near the front steps in a black suit, hands stuffed into his pockets, talking quietly with Jaedn and Tyshawn. The three of them had made the trip from Syracuse, and the sight of them grounded Zane, if only slightly. It reminded him that life outside of Pittsburgh still existed, even if it felt impossibly far away now.
Coach Brown had sent his condolences on behalf of the Syracuse football program, along with a message from the team. Zane had read it when it came through, stared at the words for a long while, and still wasn’t sure what condolences were really supposed to mean. They were words. Kind ones, maybe. But words all the same.
Malik had texted him too, apologizing for not being able to make it to the funeral. Miami was deep into the College Football Playoff run now, and he couldn’t get away. Zane understood that. He did. But it still stung, even if he hated himself a little for feeling that way. Malik had been there for him through the darkest stretch after Felix died. Someone who didn’t say too much, but made his presence felt. It was appreciated and now sorely missed.
His eyes kept moving until they landed on Bianca and Katie.
The two girls stood off to the side, separate from the larger crowd, speaking politely to people who approached them.
Bianca looked composed, her dark coat fitted close against her frame, her hands folded neatly in front of her as she nodded through introductions she probably didn’t care about. Katie stood beside her, quieter than usual, her posture straighter, more reserved, clearly trying to follow Bianca’s lead and respect the weight of the day.
Seeing Bianca there still felt strange to him. Unexpected and complicated. She had become this strange constant over the last few weeks, orbiting around his grief in a way he hadn’t anticipated. Her presence was comforting and unsettling all at once. It just felt all so familiar. As if it hadn’t just been over a year ago that they had all done this before.
Zane finally looked down at himself.
The black suit he wore fit him perfectly, sharper than anything he had packed from Syracuse in his frantic rush home.
Tyson had sent it over through Marie a few days ago, a quiet gesture from his agent that Zane hadn’t expected but appreciated. Tyson had called to explain he wanted to come in person but thought he’d be more useful staying behind in Syracuse, handling Zane’s condo, his car, and all the loose ends tied to his departure from the program. It was practical. Necessary.
Exactly the kind of thing Tyson was good at. Zane had thanked him, though even that conversation felt distant now, like something that had happened to another version of himself.
Then the church bells rang.
The deep, echoing sound rolled through the cold air, cutting through the quiet murmurs of the crowd and signaling everyone to begin making their way inside. It startled him a little, pulling him from the fog in his head. As the bells continued, Zane noticed the first snowflakes beginning to fall from the sky - small at first, drifting lazily under the pale morning light before catching on the shoulders of coats and the tops of parked cars. He watched them for a moment, the world seeming to slow down with them.
He drew in a deep breath through his nose, his chest tightening against the weight of it all.
Then he opened the car door.
The cold air hit him immediately, sharp and unforgiving, and he stepped out onto the pavement. For a moment he just stood there, staring at the church where he was about to bury the woman who had raised him, the woman who had been the foundation beneath his feet his entire life.
Then, squaring his shoulders against the cold and the grief alike, Zane started across the street toward the church.
The funeral service passed with the solemn, measured rhythm that funerals always seemed to carry - like a tide pulling everyone through whether they were ready for it or not.
The pastor guided the congregation through prayer after prayer, his calm, practiced voice filling the sanctuary and echoing softly against the vaulted wooden ceilings.
The stained-glass windows caught the pale winter light outside, casting muted colors over the pews. Zane sat in the front row, barely moving, his hands folded tightly in his lap as if locking himself in place. The entire ceremony felt like something happening outside of him, as though he were watching it all through a thick pane of glass. He listened, but only pieces registered. Words like grace, sacrifice, devotion. The kinds of words people used when trying to sum up a life too big for language.
A handful of Mary’s former coworkers from the hospital rose one by one to speak, their voices wavering as they recounted stories about her. One elderly nurse told the congregation about how Mary used to stay hours past her shift to comfort patients who didn’t have family to visit them.
Another spoke about the time Mary organized Christmas gifts for an entire pediatric wing out of her own pocket after funding got cut. There were stories of her kindness, her fierce willingness to give when she barely had enough herself, and the kind of spirit that seemed impossible to wear down.
The pews remained mostly quiet, save for the occasional laugh when a funny memory surfaced, or the sound of sniffles when emotion overtook someone. Every story seemed to paint the same picture: Mary Jones had been the kind of woman people leaned on. The kind of woman who made everyone feel safer just by being near her.
Zane sat rigid through all of it, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He was devastatingly afraid that if he moved even an inch, if he shifted wrong or breathed too hard, he would completely fall apart right there in front of everyone.
His body felt like brittle glass. The weight of it all pressed against his ribs, and he could feel his pulse beating behind his eyes. Sitting there, he couldn’t stop thinking about his grandfather’s funeral the year before.
Same church. Same dark wood. Same pastor. Even some of the same faces scattered through the pews.
Back then, Mary had been beside him, her hand on his shoulder, holding the family together through the grief. Now she was the one in the casket at the front of the room, and Zane realized with painful clarity just how much of a mark his grandparents had left on this community. The church was just as crowded as it had been for Felix. Maybe even more.
It hit him then that the two of them had spent their lives pouring into people, and now all those people had come to pour their grief back out.
He felt Marie’s hand slide over his where they rested in his lap.
The touch was soft, grounding. Her fingers curled gently around his, giving him one quick squeeze. It was small, almost imperceptible, but it was enough to remind him he wasn’t entirely alone in this.
Zane gave the slightest nod in acknowledgment, barely enough movement to count. When he glanced sideways at her, he caught Bianca in his peripheral vision a few seats down, her eyes fixed on their hands.
Her expression shifted for only a second before she looked back toward the front of the church. Zane caught it, though he didn’t have the energy to unpack whatever was behind it.
At the front, the pastor closed another prayer and bowed his head before lifting it again.
His voice carried across the sanctuary as he informed the congregation that the final speech would be given by Mary’s son, Rasheed Jones.
A ripple moved through the room as heads turned, expecting him to rise.
Nothing.
No movement.
No Rasheed.
For the first time all ceremony, Zane’s stoicism cracked. He looked around sharply, scanning the pews, the side aisles, the walls. Nothing. No sign of him.
Disbelief twisted in his stomach.
He shook his head and muttered under his breath, low enough for only himself and Marie to hear.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Marie looked at him, concern written across her face, but Zane’s expression had already hardened into irritation. The timing of it, the absence, the sheer audacity of it - it burned through him hotter than grief for a moment.
Before he could think better of it, he rose from his seat. The movement drew eyes toward him as he stepped into the aisle and made his way toward the altar.
He shook the pastor’s hand briefly, barely hearing the whispered thanks, and stepped behind the podium.
The microphone stood in front of him.
His hands gripped the sides of it so tightly his fingertips flexed under the pressure.
He stared down at his shoes, not daring to meet the crowd’s eyes yet because he hadn’t thought of a single thing to say. His mind was blank except for the crushing ache in his chest. He took in a breath, deep enough that the microphone caught the faint sound of it, and slowly let it out through his nose.
Then he spoke.
“When I was 8 years old, I was playing for this team. I think they were called the Cyclones,” he began, his gaze not yet rising to the crowd. “I was a little kid, but I wanted to make the move from running back to wide receiver. I’ll never know how that team of kids clawed their way into the league championship, but we did. We walked onto that turf like it was the Super Bowl - it was the biggest moment of our little lives up until then.”
“It was the fourth quarter, I’d broken through the defense and I couldn’t have been more open. The ball got heaved down the field to me,” he continued, feeling his heart throb in his chest. “And I dropped that thing. I crumpled to the ground. You would have believed my whole world fell apart in that instance.”
Zane laughed despite himself, a breathy laugh as he reminisced. “My grandma marched right onto that field, scooped me up, and told me that there will come a time that the ball is coming my way, and I’ll be ready to catch it.”
His voice began to shake.
Tears welled in his eyes, and he had to pause, breathing hard through his nose to steady himself before the words broke apart in his throat.
When he finally looked up at the congregation, his gaze traveled past the rows of faces - past Johntay, Tyshawn, Jaedn, Bianca, Katie, Marie -
-and landed on Rasheed.
Standing at the very back of the church.
Just inside the doors, leaning against the wall.
Watching.
Zane’s jaw tightened, but he kept speaking.
“My grandma has always been too good for this world. I think everyone in this room can agree to that. She wasn’t just the glue for my family - but it seems she has always been the glue for this entire community. Almost like she was everyone’s grandma. Whether you ran into her at the grocery store, or she took your blood at the local blood drive. She never left you feeling alone.”
And now, Zane understood just how rare that was.
“I’ll miss her every day for the rest of my life,” his voice cracked as he felt his chest lurch. “I just hope I can make her proud and do right by her.”
When he stepped away from the podium, the room rose into soft applause, but Zane barely heard it. He walked past his seat without stopping, past Marie’s outstretched hand, past Bianca’s lingering stare, and made a straight line for the back of the church.
For Rasheed.
He stopped in front of him, his face tight with anger and grief, then pushed open the heavy church doors into the cold outside air.
Without looking back, he spoke.
“We need to talk.”
The heavy church doors had barely swung shut behind them before Zane snapped.
The cold Pittsburgh air hit his face, sharp and unforgiving, but it did nothing to cool the storm raging inside him. The grief, the exhaustion, the anger that had been festering for weeks - months, maybe years - boiled over the second he and Rasheed stepped onto the stone steps outside.
Before his father could even get a word out, Zane lunged forward and swung hard, his right fist crashing into Rasheed’s jaw with enough force to send his head whipping sideways. Rasheed’s dreadlocks flew wildly with the impact, his body stumbling half a step before catching itself. The sound of knuckles against bone cracked through the winter air.
For a split second, silence swallowed everything.
Rasheed straightened slowly, his head tilted down, rubbing his jaw with the back of his hand. When he looked back up, his eyes were wild - dark and volatile, carrying the unmistakable promise of violence.
Zane saw it immediately. Saw the flash of instinct in his father, the split-second calculation of whether to hit him back. Zane stood planted, fists balled so tightly his knuckles had gone white, his chest rising and falling in heavy bursts. Every nerve in his body screamed for more. Another punch. Another fight. Something to make all of this hurt less.
Rasheed’s jaw tightened, but instead of retaliating, he drew in a slow breath through his nose and let it out carefully, mastering himself.
“I’ll allow you that one,” Rasheed said, his voice low and steady, though the anger beneath it was obvious. “I ain’t been the most attentive father, ain’t been here to hug you and all that shit.”
Then he stepped forward.
Close enough now that there was barely an inch between them.
His eyes stayed locked on Zane’s with a dangerous calm.
“But if you ever step to me like that again,” Rasheed said, his voice dropping even lower, “I’ll put your ass down.”
Zane didn’t flinch.
Instead, he leaned in, pressing his forehead against Rasheed’s like a challenge, their breath mixing in the freezing air.
“Try it, nigga,” Zane hissed. “I’m here.”
For a brief second, something flickered across Rasheed’s face. Something Zane couldn’t place. It wasn’t anger. Not fully. It almost looked like pride. Or amusement. Maybe even admiration. Whatever it was, it felt foreign - uncomfortable - like seeing a face he didn’t recognize wearing his father’s skin.
Rasheed stepped back first.
A humorless smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he shook his head.
“Here come the superstar,” he muttered. “Thinking he can come ‘round me like he some sort of boss ass nigga.”
Zane’s face twisted in confusion and frustration.
“I don’t want to be the boss,” he shot back, his voice cracking with emotion. “I just want my father to step the fuck up to the plate. What happened to the dude in prison whose only regret was not being around for his family?”
That hit.
Rasheed sucked his teeth and looked away, staring out toward the street as if the answer might be there instead of standing in front of him.
Zane wasn’t letting him off.
Not this time.
He stepped forward again, his voice rising.
“What kind of man isn’t in the hospital when his own mother is dying?” he shouted. “Where the fuck have you been?”
A few mourners lingering near the church doors turned their heads, sensing the heat in the exchange, but neither of them cared.
Rasheed shook his head, his expression hardening.
“There’s a whole world out here you ain’t ready for,” he said.
Zane barked out a bitter laugh.
“Fuck that,” he snapped. “Tell me. Where the hell have you been that was more important than being a son? Than being a father?”
Rasheed’s eyes narrowed.
For the first time since they stepped outside, there was no smirk. No avoidance. No guarded distance.
Just truth weighing behind his eyes.
He stepped closer again, lowering his voice.
“You really wanna know?”
Zane stared him down, his breathing uneven, his fists still clenched.
Rasheed nodded once.
“I found Pop’s killer,” he said.
The words hit like another punch.
Zane froze. His eyes narrowed, trying to process what he had just heard.
Rasheed’s gaze stayed locked on him, unblinking.
“And I put that bitch in the dirt, where his ass belong.”
Zane sat behind the wheel of his car across the street from the church, staring blankly through the windshield at the swelling crowd gathered on the stone steps.
The church looked almost too grand for the occasion, its old brick exterior towering beneath the gray winter sky, as if it had stood through centuries of grief just like this. People clustered in pockets near the entrance, dressed in black and muted colors, their breaths visible in the cold as they spoke in hushed tones.
Some stood with their hands clasped in front of them, others hugged one another tightly, while a few simply stared ahead in silence, waiting for the doors to open. It all felt surreal to Zane - like he was watching someone else’s life unfold through the glass instead of his own.
The days since Mary’s passing had blurred together into something shapeless, a whirlwind of condolences, paperwork, funeral arrangements, and numbness.
He couldn’t keep track of what day it was anymore, let alone everything that had happened in between. There had been moments he’d lost entire hours, sitting in silence or lying awake staring at the ceiling, unable to remember how he got there.
People kept telling him things - who had called, who had stopped by, who had dropped food off at the house - but it all slipped through his fingers the moment it was said. Even his father had been in and out like smoke, impossible to pin down.
Rasheed had drifted through the edges of the last few weeks like a ghost, present one moment and gone the next. Zane barely remembered seeing him after Mary died. In fact, he didn’t remember him showing up at the hospital at all.
It had been Marie and Johntay who told him later that Rasheed had come in after the doctors called it, asking everyone to leave so he could have a moment alone with her. Zane had tried to picture it - his father, alone in that room with Mary - but every time he did, it felt too strange to believe. Since then, the time they had spent together had been little to none, their interactions brief and strained, as if neither of them knew how to exist in the same grief without it turning into something uglier.
From where he sat, Zane narrowed his eyes and scanned the crowd, spotting familiar faces scattered among the mourners.
Johntay stood near the front steps in a black suit, hands stuffed into his pockets, talking quietly with Jaedn and Tyshawn. The three of them had made the trip from Syracuse, and the sight of them grounded Zane, if only slightly. It reminded him that life outside of Pittsburgh still existed, even if it felt impossibly far away now.
Coach Brown had sent his condolences on behalf of the Syracuse football program, along with a message from the team. Zane had read it when it came through, stared at the words for a long while, and still wasn’t sure what condolences were really supposed to mean. They were words. Kind ones, maybe. But words all the same.
Malik had texted him too, apologizing for not being able to make it to the funeral. Miami was deep into the College Football Playoff run now, and he couldn’t get away. Zane understood that. He did. But it still stung, even if he hated himself a little for feeling that way. Malik had been there for him through the darkest stretch after Felix died. Someone who didn’t say too much, but made his presence felt. It was appreciated and now sorely missed.
His eyes kept moving until they landed on Bianca and Katie.
The two girls stood off to the side, separate from the larger crowd, speaking politely to people who approached them.
Bianca looked composed, her dark coat fitted close against her frame, her hands folded neatly in front of her as she nodded through introductions she probably didn’t care about. Katie stood beside her, quieter than usual, her posture straighter, more reserved, clearly trying to follow Bianca’s lead and respect the weight of the day.
Seeing Bianca there still felt strange to him. Unexpected and complicated. She had become this strange constant over the last few weeks, orbiting around his grief in a way he hadn’t anticipated. Her presence was comforting and unsettling all at once. It just felt all so familiar. As if it hadn’t just been over a year ago that they had all done this before.
Zane finally looked down at himself.
The black suit he wore fit him perfectly, sharper than anything he had packed from Syracuse in his frantic rush home.
Tyson had sent it over through Marie a few days ago, a quiet gesture from his agent that Zane hadn’t expected but appreciated. Tyson had called to explain he wanted to come in person but thought he’d be more useful staying behind in Syracuse, handling Zane’s condo, his car, and all the loose ends tied to his departure from the program. It was practical. Necessary.
Exactly the kind of thing Tyson was good at. Zane had thanked him, though even that conversation felt distant now, like something that had happened to another version of himself.
Then the church bells rang.
The deep, echoing sound rolled through the cold air, cutting through the quiet murmurs of the crowd and signaling everyone to begin making their way inside. It startled him a little, pulling him from the fog in his head. As the bells continued, Zane noticed the first snowflakes beginning to fall from the sky - small at first, drifting lazily under the pale morning light before catching on the shoulders of coats and the tops of parked cars. He watched them for a moment, the world seeming to slow down with them.
He drew in a deep breath through his nose, his chest tightening against the weight of it all.
Then he opened the car door.
The cold air hit him immediately, sharp and unforgiving, and he stepped out onto the pavement. For a moment he just stood there, staring at the church where he was about to bury the woman who had raised him, the woman who had been the foundation beneath his feet his entire life.
Then, squaring his shoulders against the cold and the grief alike, Zane started across the street toward the church.
***
The funeral service passed with the solemn, measured rhythm that funerals always seemed to carry - like a tide pulling everyone through whether they were ready for it or not.
The pastor guided the congregation through prayer after prayer, his calm, practiced voice filling the sanctuary and echoing softly against the vaulted wooden ceilings.
The stained-glass windows caught the pale winter light outside, casting muted colors over the pews. Zane sat in the front row, barely moving, his hands folded tightly in his lap as if locking himself in place. The entire ceremony felt like something happening outside of him, as though he were watching it all through a thick pane of glass. He listened, but only pieces registered. Words like grace, sacrifice, devotion. The kinds of words people used when trying to sum up a life too big for language.
A handful of Mary’s former coworkers from the hospital rose one by one to speak, their voices wavering as they recounted stories about her. One elderly nurse told the congregation about how Mary used to stay hours past her shift to comfort patients who didn’t have family to visit them.
Another spoke about the time Mary organized Christmas gifts for an entire pediatric wing out of her own pocket after funding got cut. There were stories of her kindness, her fierce willingness to give when she barely had enough herself, and the kind of spirit that seemed impossible to wear down.
The pews remained mostly quiet, save for the occasional laugh when a funny memory surfaced, or the sound of sniffles when emotion overtook someone. Every story seemed to paint the same picture: Mary Jones had been the kind of woman people leaned on. The kind of woman who made everyone feel safer just by being near her.
Zane sat rigid through all of it, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He was devastatingly afraid that if he moved even an inch, if he shifted wrong or breathed too hard, he would completely fall apart right there in front of everyone.
His body felt like brittle glass. The weight of it all pressed against his ribs, and he could feel his pulse beating behind his eyes. Sitting there, he couldn’t stop thinking about his grandfather’s funeral the year before.
Same church. Same dark wood. Same pastor. Even some of the same faces scattered through the pews.
Back then, Mary had been beside him, her hand on his shoulder, holding the family together through the grief. Now she was the one in the casket at the front of the room, and Zane realized with painful clarity just how much of a mark his grandparents had left on this community. The church was just as crowded as it had been for Felix. Maybe even more.
It hit him then that the two of them had spent their lives pouring into people, and now all those people had come to pour their grief back out.
He felt Marie’s hand slide over his where they rested in his lap.
The touch was soft, grounding. Her fingers curled gently around his, giving him one quick squeeze. It was small, almost imperceptible, but it was enough to remind him he wasn’t entirely alone in this.
Zane gave the slightest nod in acknowledgment, barely enough movement to count. When he glanced sideways at her, he caught Bianca in his peripheral vision a few seats down, her eyes fixed on their hands.
Her expression shifted for only a second before she looked back toward the front of the church. Zane caught it, though he didn’t have the energy to unpack whatever was behind it.
At the front, the pastor closed another prayer and bowed his head before lifting it again.
His voice carried across the sanctuary as he informed the congregation that the final speech would be given by Mary’s son, Rasheed Jones.
A ripple moved through the room as heads turned, expecting him to rise.
Nothing.
No movement.
No Rasheed.
For the first time all ceremony, Zane’s stoicism cracked. He looked around sharply, scanning the pews, the side aisles, the walls. Nothing. No sign of him.
Disbelief twisted in his stomach.
He shook his head and muttered under his breath, low enough for only himself and Marie to hear.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Marie looked at him, concern written across her face, but Zane’s expression had already hardened into irritation. The timing of it, the absence, the sheer audacity of it - it burned through him hotter than grief for a moment.
Before he could think better of it, he rose from his seat. The movement drew eyes toward him as he stepped into the aisle and made his way toward the altar.
He shook the pastor’s hand briefly, barely hearing the whispered thanks, and stepped behind the podium.
The microphone stood in front of him.
His hands gripped the sides of it so tightly his fingertips flexed under the pressure.
He stared down at his shoes, not daring to meet the crowd’s eyes yet because he hadn’t thought of a single thing to say. His mind was blank except for the crushing ache in his chest. He took in a breath, deep enough that the microphone caught the faint sound of it, and slowly let it out through his nose.
Then he spoke.
“When I was 8 years old, I was playing for this team. I think they were called the Cyclones,” he began, his gaze not yet rising to the crowd. “I was a little kid, but I wanted to make the move from running back to wide receiver. I’ll never know how that team of kids clawed their way into the league championship, but we did. We walked onto that turf like it was the Super Bowl - it was the biggest moment of our little lives up until then.”
“It was the fourth quarter, I’d broken through the defense and I couldn’t have been more open. The ball got heaved down the field to me,” he continued, feeling his heart throb in his chest. “And I dropped that thing. I crumpled to the ground. You would have believed my whole world fell apart in that instance.”
Zane laughed despite himself, a breathy laugh as he reminisced. “My grandma marched right onto that field, scooped me up, and told me that there will come a time that the ball is coming my way, and I’ll be ready to catch it.”
His voice began to shake.
Tears welled in his eyes, and he had to pause, breathing hard through his nose to steady himself before the words broke apart in his throat.
When he finally looked up at the congregation, his gaze traveled past the rows of faces - past Johntay, Tyshawn, Jaedn, Bianca, Katie, Marie -
-and landed on Rasheed.
Standing at the very back of the church.
Just inside the doors, leaning against the wall.
Watching.
Zane’s jaw tightened, but he kept speaking.
“My grandma has always been too good for this world. I think everyone in this room can agree to that. She wasn’t just the glue for my family - but it seems she has always been the glue for this entire community. Almost like she was everyone’s grandma. Whether you ran into her at the grocery store, or she took your blood at the local blood drive. She never left you feeling alone.”
And now, Zane understood just how rare that was.
“I’ll miss her every day for the rest of my life,” his voice cracked as he felt his chest lurch. “I just hope I can make her proud and do right by her.”
When he stepped away from the podium, the room rose into soft applause, but Zane barely heard it. He walked past his seat without stopping, past Marie’s outstretched hand, past Bianca’s lingering stare, and made a straight line for the back of the church.
For Rasheed.
He stopped in front of him, his face tight with anger and grief, then pushed open the heavy church doors into the cold outside air.
Without looking back, he spoke.
“We need to talk.”
***
The heavy church doors had barely swung shut behind them before Zane snapped.
The cold Pittsburgh air hit his face, sharp and unforgiving, but it did nothing to cool the storm raging inside him. The grief, the exhaustion, the anger that had been festering for weeks - months, maybe years - boiled over the second he and Rasheed stepped onto the stone steps outside.
Before his father could even get a word out, Zane lunged forward and swung hard, his right fist crashing into Rasheed’s jaw with enough force to send his head whipping sideways. Rasheed’s dreadlocks flew wildly with the impact, his body stumbling half a step before catching itself. The sound of knuckles against bone cracked through the winter air.
For a split second, silence swallowed everything.
Rasheed straightened slowly, his head tilted down, rubbing his jaw with the back of his hand. When he looked back up, his eyes were wild - dark and volatile, carrying the unmistakable promise of violence.
Zane saw it immediately. Saw the flash of instinct in his father, the split-second calculation of whether to hit him back. Zane stood planted, fists balled so tightly his knuckles had gone white, his chest rising and falling in heavy bursts. Every nerve in his body screamed for more. Another punch. Another fight. Something to make all of this hurt less.
Rasheed’s jaw tightened, but instead of retaliating, he drew in a slow breath through his nose and let it out carefully, mastering himself.
“I’ll allow you that one,” Rasheed said, his voice low and steady, though the anger beneath it was obvious. “I ain’t been the most attentive father, ain’t been here to hug you and all that shit.”
Then he stepped forward.
Close enough now that there was barely an inch between them.
His eyes stayed locked on Zane’s with a dangerous calm.
“But if you ever step to me like that again,” Rasheed said, his voice dropping even lower, “I’ll put your ass down.”
Zane didn’t flinch.
Instead, he leaned in, pressing his forehead against Rasheed’s like a challenge, their breath mixing in the freezing air.
“Try it, nigga,” Zane hissed. “I’m here.”
For a brief second, something flickered across Rasheed’s face. Something Zane couldn’t place. It wasn’t anger. Not fully. It almost looked like pride. Or amusement. Maybe even admiration. Whatever it was, it felt foreign - uncomfortable - like seeing a face he didn’t recognize wearing his father’s skin.
Rasheed stepped back first.
A humorless smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he shook his head.
“Here come the superstar,” he muttered. “Thinking he can come ‘round me like he some sort of boss ass nigga.”
Zane’s face twisted in confusion and frustration.
“I don’t want to be the boss,” he shot back, his voice cracking with emotion. “I just want my father to step the fuck up to the plate. What happened to the dude in prison whose only regret was not being around for his family?”
That hit.
Rasheed sucked his teeth and looked away, staring out toward the street as if the answer might be there instead of standing in front of him.
Zane wasn’t letting him off.
Not this time.
He stepped forward again, his voice rising.
“What kind of man isn’t in the hospital when his own mother is dying?” he shouted. “Where the fuck have you been?”
A few mourners lingering near the church doors turned their heads, sensing the heat in the exchange, but neither of them cared.
Rasheed shook his head, his expression hardening.
“There’s a whole world out here you ain’t ready for,” he said.
Zane barked out a bitter laugh.
“Fuck that,” he snapped. “Tell me. Where the hell have you been that was more important than being a son? Than being a father?”
Rasheed’s eyes narrowed.
For the first time since they stepped outside, there was no smirk. No avoidance. No guarded distance.
Just truth weighing behind his eyes.
He stepped closer again, lowering his voice.
“You really wanna know?”
Zane stared him down, his breathing uneven, his fists still clenched.
Rasheed nodded once.
“I found Pop’s killer,” he said.
The words hit like another punch.
Zane froze. His eyes narrowed, trying to process what he had just heard.
Rasheed’s gaze stayed locked on him, unblinking.
“And I put that bitch in the dirt, where his ass belong.”
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Captain Canada
Topic author - Posts: 7394
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
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redsox907
- Posts: 5624
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
Invictus
on the subject of chapter titles...
is this a safe space?
I never read them
Bout time someone check Sheed's bitch ass. Like we get it, you put Tom in the dirt. If anything, you should now be focusing on your son. Guess Sheed ain't as much of a steppa as he thought, in his own feelings over Tom
is this a safe space?
I never read them
Bout time someone check Sheed's bitch ass. Like we get it, you put Tom in the dirt. If anything, you should now be focusing on your son. Guess Sheed ain't as much of a steppa as he thought, in his own feelings over Tom
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Captain Canada
Topic author - Posts: 7394
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Invictus
The titles are more for me at this point, I wouldn't do it again unless I'm making it a much more ingrained experience. Just a fun lil' thing.redsox907 wrote: ↑25 Jun 2026, 19:18on the subject of chapter titles...
is this a safe space?
I never read them
Bout time someone check Sheed's bitch ass. Like we get it, you put Tom in the dirt. If anything, you should now be focusing on your son. Guess Sheed ain't as much of a steppa as he thought, in his own feelings over Tom
I think some thought needs to be given to the fact that Rasheed has never really had to be a father to begin with. So him prioritizing tying up loose ends with a murder he's committed fresh off of release over dealing with family stuff he's never really had to do makes sense.
