FireFlies Chapter 1 Part 3

Selena didn't really know why she had fallen in love with Nick . She was fifteen, immature, and naïve. She thought he was Prince Charming; when he was just her neighbor with a dysfunctional family—a father who had abandoned his wife for another woman and a mother who was an alcoholic and sometimes even abused her son and his older brother, Joe.

They met in art class. Their teacher had asked Nick to be their portrait—everyone had to paint Nick in the perspective they saw him.

So he sat on the stool, a blank expression on his face. His eyebrows were arched, and his lips were plump and a pinkish color. He continuously fiddled his thumbs together, staring down at the tiled floor. His back was drawn together, curved, and his muscles stuck out of his T-shirt.

The bad-boy look he had was something Selena fell for. The way his curls fell over his left eye. The way he smirked at her. The way he would stroke her cheek with the sole of his thumb. The way he could just easily walk into her life, and be loved.

He was too good to be true.

And she let go of him too many times.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Selena kept pictures of Nick and Ollie all around her desk. They were framed, and displayed for everyone. She always had a reason to smile when a client would walk in, beam at the photograph of her, Nick, and Ollie at Christmas one year and would compliment, "What a lovely family you have!"

Nick was Selena's world. The reason she lived, actually. Ollie was part of her world, and everything in it. She was the center of the attention, considering she was an only child, but Nick and Selena worked to get her somewhere in life. They loved her too much. And Selena liked having only one child; she didnt have to worry about spending half her time with one, and half her time with the other. Just her beliefs . . .

She sat at her desk, separating files and putting some into her file cabinet. As she slammed one shut, tapping the eraser point of her pencil to her desk, someone knocked on the door of her office. "Come in!" she trilled.

A man walked in. He had a big smile on his face, his blue eyes glistening as the sun streamed through them. He glanced at Selena and smiled wider. "You must be Selena Gomez. Liam Hemsworth."

Biting on her lip, she flattened out nonexistent wrinkles on her skirt, stood, and shook his hand firmly. "Pleasure," she responded. "May I ask what I can do for your visit?"

"I worked for your company in Australia." Hence the beautiful, heavy accent. "I got transferred here, and your partner Diana told me to come to you for . . . paperwork and all of that . . . fun stuff." He grinned at his sarcastic joke.

"If I can find them," she mumbled to herself, digging into a cabinet of paperwork. Embarrassed that she wasn't organized nor planned for his arrival, she blushed into a deep red. "Why don't we meet for lunch?" she suggested.

His eyes bright, Liam nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Obsessions were hard to get rid of. Nick was the expert. He remembered his first obsession—alcohol. His damned mother had abused her privileges at it, abusing him and Joe as well sometimes. Because of it, he was full of hate and disgust toward her. He himself turned to alcohol. The obsession was brutal; every day, he would wake up with a hangover and go to sleep with his vomit surrounding his pillow with no one to clean it up.

Then he met Selena. He forgot the alcohol; forgot he had a mother at home who barely knew her own sons' names. He forgot his dysfunctional family, and was proud that he knew a girl who had parents who called her, to make sure she was safe and sound.

His obsession with Selena grew a lot. It was like a chemical bond; once they reacted, it would take a while for them to just . . . untie themselves from each other. Nick knew she felt it too; the way she looked at him . . . it made his heart go wild in his chest.

He forgot the alcohol. He forgot his mother and his problems. But he never forgot Selena. Never. He loved waking up to her beautiful, coconut and vanilla scent. He loved her giggles and her smiles. He loved the way her cheeks turned bright red in embarrassment.

Some obsessions were horrible to commit to, but she was . . . a good type of poison. In some ways, you hate it. And in some ways, you love it.

But sitting there, at his art gallery office, staring at framed photo of him and Selena on their wedding day, Nick had just realized . . .

Maybe the obsession was coming to an end at last