Billy, only feet away, didn't persuade me to sleep, so I watched the snowfall silently outside. Once the darkness of night broke to the dull gray of the morning's rising sun, I popped out of bed to begin my day. My body quickly responded to being busy despite the lack of sleep. I focused my mind on each deliberate movement to stop the thought that I wanted to punch through: if it was this hard to be apart from Billy, maybe I shouldn't be apart from Billy. Still, Sam was lingering there as well, with his crooked smirk and messy hair.

The steam from my coffee coursed over my face as Mary shuffled into the kitchen.

"I should've known you'd be up." There was a telling tone to her voice, as though she had known I had been up all night.

I watched as she poured herself a cup of coffee and settled across from me.

Without me saying anything, she answered the questions, scrambling my brain. "I know; you two are young and figuring life out. It feels terrible right now, but it's good."

When Mary spoke, I felt as though she already knew the ending to my story with Billy. Everything was an eventuality to her. I wanted to beg her just to tell me how the story ended.

Instead, I watched as she took a long sip of her coffee and began again. "You know, Billy was barely eighteen when he came home one day and announced he was married. I nearly joined my Armand in the grave." She let out a cavalier laugh at her jest of death. "They were young." Her eyes focused on mine more deliberately now, "but you know Billy is young; he'll always be young."

She wasn't talking about years; Billy was young: hopeful, impetuous, optimistic.

"He hasn't had an easy life for his optimism." I had thought I had noted it in my head, but Mary's broadened smile told on my voice. "I didn't mean to imply..."

Mary's hand tapped on mine. "There's no implication to the truth. I coddled Billy instead of preparing him for the life he faced long before he met you. He's carried the world on his shoulder since he could stand, no matter how much I indulged him. But my desire to pamper my last baby made him thin-skinned and unprepared for some things. He chooses optimism. He chooses to believe in people, especially people he loves," she added a wink with the word 'loves.' "But he's not blind. You're just looking at it from inside his circle. Most don't get that luxury."

"What if I made a mistake?" It had been the screaming from my heart that kept me up all night.

"Only you know that. But that's not the question you should be asking." She took another painfully long sip of her coffee, forcing me to see where Billy got his showmanship. "Did you make your decision from a place of knowing yourself or a place of fearing life?"

It was a good question that immediately spun me to my proverbial ass. Fear was undoubtedly involved, but I also knew myself; I knew I wasn't built for a life without my own path. "I won't be happy just following him around, and if I don't follow him around, what kind of life will that be? I'll never see him."

"When you get to be as old as I am, you realize that, unfortunately, life has more questions than answers." Mary's riddles were rubbing up against my exhaustion. "Why don't you bring Billy some coffee? I suspect he's had as much sleep as you." She gave another wink as she heaved herself up. "Let him know I'm making French toast. He always manages to get up for French toast!" She added in a sing-song voice as she rummaged through the refrigerator.

I poured a cup for Billy before heading upstairs. My feet forced a pause at his door that the coffee didn't expect, causing the warm liquid to slosh dangerously close to spilling. I tried to calm myself as it settled, but I quickly determined that the effort was useless and pushed open the door.

Billy's homely face looked angelic as he slept; his lips slightly split as his eyes fluttered beneath his delicate eyelids blanketed by his thick eyelashes. I set the mug on the nightstand next to him and quietly turned to depart, but before I could take a single step, his thick arm caught me and pulled me to the bed, where he curled around me.

"Morning," his voice was hoarse as the sleep clung to him.

"I didn't mean to wake you," I murmured as his arm settled around me.

"I never mind being woken up by you, especially when you come bearing coffee." A drowsy smile was on his face as his eyelids trembled heavily over his still groggy eyes. "Come here," his voice had a childlike plea to it. "It's warm," he added.

"Are you...?" I could bring myself to say the world naked. Not that I needed to; my blush screamed it for me.

A hushed laugh slipped through the small part of his lips. "No," he smiled as he held the blankets up to entice me and show he was wearing flannel pajama pants.

"Those must be new," I noted as I tucked in beneath the blanket's warmth. Billy formed around me in a comfortable spoon.

"Christmas present from my mom. I thought you might..." He let his words drop, but I knew he had hoped I'd come to him last night. He allowed a hand to entwine with mine in a knot at the front of my chest. I stared at them, our skin equally pale.

A heavy sigh escaped me as my body melted into him and the warmth of the bed. I wanted to stay in this moment forever, in his heat. I didn't want to think of my schoolwork and career or his hectic schedule and public image, but most of all, I didn't want to think of Sam and Sarah. I wanted to be quiet with Billy forever in a snowy cabin in the middle of nowhere. I wanted him to be my only decision, my only data, my only conclusion, but life wasn't singular, and, despite countless movies and books, love is not always enough.

"I'm proud of you," he murmured.

I stiffened for fear that somehow either Billy had learned to read my mind or I had once again spoken my thoughts out loud.

"Why?" I prodded after a heavy and somewhat panicked pause.

"You want things for yourself, layers of things." He shifted just a touch. "I've been thinking about you a lot lately and even more last night. I want to be frustrated that you won't just give in and be with me; let me take care of you. I would, for the record. I'd give you anything, but I know you only want things I can't give you."

"Yeah, what would I ask for?"

"The things you'll give yourself; a career that you've worked for and will pay for a home far enough from people, so they don't annoy you, but close enough to downtown for food delivery." He gave my hand a squeeze that elicited a laugh from me. "You want to make a difference where you work, be depended on, and you will be. Whatever you decide to do, wherever you end up working, you'll be successful."

"How do you know?"

He had such confidence in me, a confidence I didn't even have in myself. I didn't even know what I wanted to be.

"Because you'll always do what you believe is right, not for you, but for the situation. People will see that and respect it."

I turned to face him, his face only inches from mine, but I was too taken with his words to be hypnotized by his lips. "Am I doing what's right for this situation?"

"I don't know, but I know you're doing what you think is right." He brushed the hair from my face.

"I wish I knew that." I let my head sink into his chest as he wrapped his arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head.

My mind fluttered to the set of Russian nesting dolls my Nana had given me as a child. They fit together perfectly, as a family should. Shouldn't one of my goals, part of my path, be finding a family that fits easily? And if that was a goal, shouldn't how easily I fit with Billy achieve a goal?

"I want to be with you so badly; it makes me second-guess everything in my life." I had never admitted it to Billy before, but it just spilled out of me. I always feared it would hurt him, but he seemed different now, as though he understood the jumble in my head that I was still desperately sorting.

Billy let a hand smooth over my hair. "Do you still like your classes?"

"Yeah, I have a class on Russian Lit next semester. I'm excited about it." I gave little thought to my answer. All my life choices were still being questioned.

"And Portland? You still love Portland?"

"Of course, it's the best; the food, the ocean, even the cobblestone streets that make me twist my ankle at least twice a year. It's my home; I love it." Annoyance flared at his benign questions.

"How's your dad? Any chess matches lately?" His hand gently settled on my hip as his lips tickled my forehead. He finished with the press of a kiss on my forehead.

"We played yesterday before I headed out. He won, of course. We listened to The Doors. I hadn't listened to them in so long. It was nice to relive the albums." My annoyance was easing to the comfort of Portland and chess matches with my dad.

"Job search?" His head nestled into the pillow as he let his eyes scan my face as we conversed.

I sighed. "I'm prepped. I have this huge spreadsheet with all the companies I'm interested in and if they have a role I want or if I'm just making a general application. When I get back, I'll start sending out the applications. I'm nervous. What if no one wants me, or I can't find anything I want?"

"You will." He tucked a tendril of hair behind my ear. "What kind of places are you looking at? What kind of positions?"

"I've been focusing more on reputation and culture than industry, unless the industry is a total non-starter for me. Have you ever heard of an ESOP?"

He heaved himself up so he sat more, but still had me blanketing him and reached for his coffee. The groggy sleep was gone, and his focus was entirely on me. "I haven't. Is that an acronym?"

"Yeah, it means employee stock option program; basically, the company is fully or partially employee-owned."

"Really? That's kind of cool." He took a long sip of his coffee while letting his free hand comb through my hair.

"Yeah, I've found a few companies that are ESOPs. It just seems like a great culture; everyone invested and working to a common goal versus the corporate rat race of just working on getting ahead."

He smiled. "What kind of roles are you applying to at these companies?"

"Anything that I can; customer service, reception, marketing admin. I spent a lot of time on my cover letter and did a lot of research on the companies to personalize them, so I'm hoping my application doesn't just end up in the pass pile."

"They'd be crazy to pass on you." Billy kissed the top of my head.

"I think you might be a little partial." As I teased, I tapped his chest. "I signed up for a mentor program as well. There's this cool Women in Business program that pairs graduating students with established professional women. I hope I get a total girl boss. Sam connected me with the recruiter at his company, and she said the program was killer." I pushed off his chest to look him in the eyes. "How cool would it be if, in like ten years, I was a girl boss with my own mentee?"

Billy gave me a satisfied smile.

"What?" I fell back to his chest.

"For someone second-guessing everything in her life, you seem to have a lot going for you; school, family, beginning a career, girl-boss aspirations." There was a contented tease in his voice.

"You sound smug, considering all that is at the expense of our relationship." I felt myself getting pulled back to the swirl of him. The dizziness made me cling harder to his thick frame.

The dull thud of his coffee mug hitting the nightstand was the only sound before his arms wrapped me up again. "Our relationship seems fine to me. Lil, you're always you; that's why I love you. You don't want someone to hand you the things you want; you don't want the easy path." He kissed the top of my head as I curled deeper into him. "Yes, selfishly, I'd love you to be within arm's reach at all times, but if you were, you wouldn't be you, and then I wouldn't love you."

"Ugh, can you not be perfect?" I tapped his chest again in playful annoyance.

"It's a blessing and a curse." He pulled me higher on his chest as he sunk into the pillow.

"What happened to you and Sarah?" I settled my head on his shoulder and watched his neck muscles twitch with every slight move.

Billy's chest heaved at the sudden change of topics. "We just weren't right, I guess." I let his words linger in the air to see if he would say more, but he didn't elaborate.

"Wait, you were going to tell me about Tim and Tess!" The sudden need for the update raised my voice louder than necessary.

"Oh right, he has a whole New Year's Eve plan. He wanted to wait until it was a smaller circle of friends."

"She's going to say yes. I mean, she has stuck with him for well over a year. If she were going to run from his crazy, she would've by now." I rested my chin on his chest so I could meet his eyes.

"I know this, and you know this, but Tim doesn't seem to think it's such a lock." Billy let a finger twitch my nose as he spoke.

"That's probably a good thing. If he didn't feel like she was too good for him, she wouldn't be good enough for him. Love is about a leap of faith."

"Very true," Billy murmured.

"I'm sorry." I let my face fall to his chest.

"You have nothing to apologize for." He smiled, but no dimples pricked his cheeks.

"Oh, I forgot," I admitted, eager to change the conversation.

"What?" There was a low level of panic in his voice.

"Your mom is making French toast. We should probably get downstairs before Tim eats it all." I winced at the idea that we may already be too late.

"Shit, get off me." He playfully tossed me off him and popped up. I watched him tug on a t-shirt before he turned to extend a hand to me. I took it and let him pull me up to his side. As easy as the snow falling outside, our lips met for a soft, warm kiss. As quickly as it happened, it was over, and we were heading downstairs hand in hand, but it wasn't just the two of us; Sam was suddenly at the front of my mind.