Page 1 of Delirium 2

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SEREIA

“Exo—"

“How was the walk?” He interrupted, snapping out of the trance I caught him in after coming back from a walk with his mother.

Yes. Exodus’s mother. I was in Wildermere at her house, not knowing what the hell I was doing. Well… I knew. He told me. I was her caregiver. Caregiver. I was a damn cashier at Coney. I didn’t belong here, but for whatever reason he thought I was a perfect fit for the job. Said all I needed to qualify was a good heart. How he knew I had that, I didn’t know. The nigga didn’t know me from a can of paint. We’d only had a couple of encounters, and I was in his mother’s house, getting ready to work for her full time. What the hell was my life?

“It was good. She stopped when we got to the fourth house, so I assumed she wanted to come back. You cool?”

He jumped up, brushed his hands down the front of shorts that did very little to hide his dick print, and nodded. “I need you to stay. Tonight. Like I said, I’ll give you time to make a decision about staying here but tonight... I need you here. Tomorrow, I’ll figure some shit out. You good with that?”

He wanted me to move in. Said this arrangement would work best if I was a live-in caregiver rather than one who came in at a scheduled time. I was on the fence about it. Shouldn’t have been. It should have been an easy decision to make. But it wasn’t.

There was a lot in The Woods. Nothing in the physical. Everything in energy. Memories. I shared that apartment with my family. After everything went left, me and Meech created our own little memories. We swapped stories, reminiscing on that raggedy little brown couch. I shared meals with him in that roach-infested kitchen. Cooked his favorite food. Well... tried to at least. It was spaghetti. He loved the way momma used to make it. I could never get it exactly right. But regardless, I watched my brother, hunched over, digging in plates of spaghetti, smashing, like it was the best thing he’d ever eaten. He didn’t complain once about that ‘thing’ that was missing. Always told me it was ‘fire’.

We argued.

He talked shit.

I talked shit.

Those walls held a lot of fucking memories.

But you know… it wasn’t all good. My momma died there. They pulled the carpet, but I swear I could still see where it happened. Something about the wood there just… wasn’t right. It was faded. Told me she bled through. Told me they got on their hands and knees and scrubbed that spot with their bare hands. That should have been reason enough to move, right? The bad. But it was only bad that one time. There were memories. Good, good memories. Oddly, that one bad memory didn’t overshadow the good.

As much as I hated being there since Demetrius’ death, just packing up and leaving wasn’t an easy decision to make. It wasn’t just the memories conflicting me. I wasn’t supposed to leave The Woods without him, remember? We were supposed to leave together. And while it would have been hard as hell to get him out of his comfort zone, he would have followed me. Not because I had crazy faith about a promising future but because my brother would move mountains and go to the end of the earth for me, if it meant making me happy. I really, truly, lost a real fucking nigga.

“Yo,” he said, his tone laced with irritation, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I locked eyes with him, slightly cocking my right brow. “Yes, Exodus. I can stay the night here,” I snapped. “I just need⁠—

“Here,” he paused, grabbed his phone from his pocket and tapped around it at damn near the speed of lightning. “Get with Rocc. He’ll get you whatever you need. Just,” he looked up from his phone and locked eyes with me. “Do not leave my mother.”

I drew back a little, offended. “I won’t.”

We stayed, connected, eye-to-eye, for a good five, six seconds before he said, “I have to go. I should be back in the morning. If not, one of us will be here. Don’t open the door for anybody but Rocc or one of us. Rocc stays on the porch.”

With that, he walked away. Before he walked out of the door, he kneeled in front of his mother, who was seated on another foyer bench. Leaning in, he said a few hushed words in her ear and kissed her on the forehead. Standing, he walked out of the door without saying another word to me.

I was a little stuck. Standing in the middle of a room, with a woman I had only heard stories about. Mrs. Marietta was a community activist, really. She was heavily known and respected in the community as First Lady—Pastor Isaiah’s wife. She was sweet as pie. Always at the women’s shelters, volunteering, and holding fundraisers and women’s empowerment events at the church. All of which I never attended. My mother though? My mother loved First Lady. She stayed at the church, and those events. Back then, I was too young to attend. When they would have youth events, she’d try to get me to go but I was never interested. One thing I loved and appreciated about my mother was that she never tried to force anything on us.

Anyway.

First Lady was a gem in Brickhaven. When she kind of lost it after Pastor Isaiah’s death, it fucked the whole city up. There was a shift after he died. A shift that, oddly, everybody in the city felt. So, working for her… it was a bit surreal. Intimidating, for real. I didn’t know what I was doing or how I even ended up here.

With a deep breath, I walked over to First Lady, extending my hand. “You want to watch The Bernie Mac show?”

She looked at my hand, left it lingering there, and stood up. When she walked off, I followed her. As expected, she went to the living room and sat in the same spot she was at when I first got here.

After turning The Bernie Mac Show on for her. I went to the kitchen. Leaning over the massive island, I pulled my phone from the pocket of my hoodie to finally call Lake to tell her what was going on. She’d been blowing my phone up since I shot her a text, telling her about the job Exodus wanted me to do.

“About time, bitch. What’s going on? How is she?”

In the background, Alani yelled, “Is she drooling like everybody⁠—”

“No bitch,” I interrupted. “What is wrong with you?”